Some stunner of a story the Free Press came up with the other day about a gay teacher who apparently kept a picture of his partner on his desk.

As the tale goes, the parents of a Grade 7 student in the class got all exercised about it and wants to transfer their kid to another school.

Big controversy, except that nobody identified in the story had ever heard of it including the chair of the school board, the Winnipeg Teachers' Association or The Manitoba Teachers' Society.

Indeed, nobody directly involved in the story — the teacher, the student, the parents, the principal — was actually quoted or identified.

Still, the mystery issue was powerful enough to get "educators scrambling to decide how much teachers can tell kids about their personal lives."