As I wrote earlier on this subject the fact that the story broke on FOX didn't pass the smell test for me. And, as usual, the other networks hopped on the train and ran the story without proper vetting. Well, would you like ketchup with that crow?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.
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."
h/t HuffPo - David Bauder
BTW, I laughed out loud listening to Sarah's speech at the GOP Governor's conference today. Oy!
And so it goes.
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I was watching David Schuster when he questioned the veracity of this report. It's a shame jerks like these guys (who perpetuated the "
ReplyDeleteAfrica is a country" hoax get away with all the damage they cause. I don't understand what satisfaction they get out of doing something like this. Especially with Palin. Just leave Sarah be Sarah and she will hang herself. Yes, I watched her interviw with Wolf Blitzer. My mouth was hanging open in amazement with a "What did she say?" The woman doesn't make sense. She's nonsensical. Even Scarborough isn't defending her anymore. It wasn't for nothing that her handlers on the McCain campaign kept her away from the press. Maybe she does know that Africa is a continent but all this talk about "God opening doors for her." Jesus Christ almighty! This country dodged a bullet BIGTIME but not electing her to the vice presidency. She's some scary stuff.
Yes, but the fact that the story was immediately believed 'possible' shows just how bad she really is.
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