12:55pm UK, Monday January 24, 2005

A reporter who made up a story about a couple naming their baby Yahoo after meeting each other on the internet has been fired.

Journalist Ion Garnod claimed the pair called their tot Yahoo in honour of the search engine which he said brought them together.

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Garnod Claimed Couple Met On Yahoo

Garnodsaid that Transylvanian couple Cornelia and Nonu Dragoman wooed each other over the net for three months before finally tying the knot and having a baby at Christmas.

He quoted Cornelia as saying: "We named him Lucian Yahoo after my father and the net, the main beacon of my life."

But the journalist had invented the story to impress his bosses, it has been revealed.

Earlier this month, Bucharest daily paper Libertatea published the story and printed a picture of the baby boy's birth certificate.

The news was widely publicised on the internet.

Simona Ionescu, Libertatea's deputy editor-in-chief said: "The reporter used his own child's birth certificate, which he modified.

"We have fired him."

She said Garnod, who had worked for the paper for several years, had admitted inventing the story to look good.

"If it were real, it would have been a good story indeed," Ionescu said.

Garnod was not available for comment.