YOUNGSTOWN — During a lockdown Monday on the Youngstown State University campus, a fake article attributed to the student newspaper, The Jambar, said a John F. Kennedy student was killed in the incident.

Jambar managing editor Rachel Gobep said the newspaper started reporting on the lockdown — prompted by a report of a man with a gun following an argument outside Kilcawley Center — as soon as the Penguin Alert went out from the university just after 11:30 a.m. She said she and several reporters locked themselves in the newspaper office and started communicating through Facebook Messenger with other newspaper staff who were locked in campus classrooms about what was happening.

“Some reporters sent us photos of their classrooms’ locked doors, and we posted them on our wesbite along with updates,” Gobep said. “It was scary because I was reporting the story, but also was part of the story.”

Gobep said the goal of the staff was to tell the story as best they could under the circumstances, noting it was a “collaborative effort.”

Shortly after The Jambar started posting updates, the newspaper editor received a screenshot of a story saying one person was dead and it was a Kennedy senior student. The next line said “supsects say the shooter fired at” the student “because he asked to rip his juul.” The story had Gobep’s byline on it.

Gobep said she “started freaking out” because she thought someone hacked The Jambar’s website. She said it was later learned a male student at Kennedy went in and used a coding process to alter what The Jambar article said. She said because it could only be seen on his screen, someone took a photo of the article and posted it on Snapchat.

Gobep said the rumor spread quickly on campus and at Kennedy, and when she contacted Kennedy principal Alyse D. Consiglio, she was told the student already was in Consiglio’s office and was “being dealt with.”

Kennedy president Joseph Kenneally released the following statement later Monday:

“Earlier today a hoax ‘The Jambar’ article, the student newspaper at Youngstown State University, was disseminated that incorrectly stated the death of a current John F. Kennedy student in conjunction with an incident at Youngstown State University. The named student is fine. The school takes these matters very seriously and while policy does not allow any discussion of individual discipline, any Kennedy student found to be involved in the creation of the hoax article will be punished according to Diocese of Youngstown and school policy.”

Assistant metro editor Marly Kosinski contributed to this story.

cramey@tribtoday.com