Palin didn't know Africa was a continent

HOAX!

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/13/msnbc-retracts-false-palin-story-duped/

MSNBC Retracts False Palin Story; Others Duped
Network runs correction on air after reporting an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about Sarah Palin, information stemming from a hoax.

AP

Thursday, November 13, 2008

NEW YORK -- MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, had come forth and identified himself as the source of a FOX News Channel story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. Yet neither he nor the institute exist; each is part of a hoax dreamed up by a filmmaker named Eitan Gorlin and his partner, Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Eisenstadt claim had mistakenly been delivered to Shuster by a producer and was used in a political discussion Monday afternoon, MSNBC said.

"The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air," said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. "We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes."

Gaines told the Times that someone in the network's newsroom had presumed the information solid because it was passed along in an e-mail from a colleague.

The hoax was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin -- not the FOX News story itself. While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony. (It is interesting that they cling to the false story in the face of the guy who perpetrated the hoax being identified as not only a phony but non-existent. Now THAT'S desperation. -- j)

Eisenstadt's "work" had been quoted and debunked before. The Huffington Post said it had cited Eisenstadt in July on a story regarding the Hilton family and McCain.

Among the other victims were political blogs for the Los Angeles Times and The New Republic, each of which referenced false material from Eisenstadt's blog.

And in July, Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones magazine blogged an item about Eisenstadt speaking on Iraqi television about a casino in Baghdad's "Green Zone."

Stein later realized he'd been had.

"Kudos to the inventor of this whole thing," Stein wrote. "My only consolation is that if I had as much time on my hands as he clearly does, I probably would have figured this out and saved myself a fair amount of embarrassment."
Click to expand...
 
Yes. It was indeed a

jimpeel said:
HOAX!

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/13/msnbc-retracts-false-palin-story-duped/
Click to expand...

"Professional reporters" duped by "anonymous sources." They reported it because they wanted to believe it was true, or given their elitist worldview thought that it was plausible.

spike said:
Or the countries in NAFTA. Apparently a couple things the media wanted to hide from us until after the election.

Video at the link.

http://washingtonindependent.com/17323/fox-dishes-the-dirt-on-palin
Click to expand...


Any reporter who reports a statement by an anonymous source which is later discredited has an ethical duty to reveal the source.
 
Cerise said:
Yes. It was indeed a



"Professional reporters" duped by "anonymous sources." They reported it because they wanted to believe it was true, or given their elitist worldview thought that it was plausible.




Any reporter who reports a statement by an anonymous source which is later discredited has an ethical duty to reveal the source.
Click to expand...
Happens all the time on all sides of the 'aisle'. You get a juicy nugget of newsiness..check as best as you can and run with it if it looks/smells good. :shrug:

Welcome to the age of the internet...shorter deadlines and far easier to get swooped than ever before.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top