The Palin-Africa story takes a fantastic twist
The Palin-Africa reports by “news” organizations and picked up by bloggers, alike, (ourselves included), took a turn for the bizarre today. The NYTimes reports that at least part of the Palin story is a complete hoax.
The NYT notes that MSNBC reported on Monday that the initial leak regarding Palin not knowing that Africa is a continent came from “Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward… to identify himself as the source of the leaks.” However, as the NYT reports, there is no McCain advisor named Martin Eisenstadt. In fact, Martin Eisenstadt isn’t even a real person– he was a creation of two film makers who apparently made him up to pitch a TV show.
Fake Mr. Eisenstadt’s fake institute and blog, the Harding Institute, was “named for one of the most scorned presidents, and made Eisenstadt a senior fellow.” In spite of the fact that SourceWatch.org has long been showing that both Eisenstadt and the Harding Institute are fakes, major news outlets like MSNBC, The New Republic, and The Los Angeles Times, were all fooled.
While the hoax was about taking false credit for leaking the Palin-Africa story, it is still unclear whether the underlying report about Palin not knowing Africa was a continent is true or not. Unfortunately (or fortunately), for Palin, it is a lot harder to fact check a source who hides behind anonymity like FoxNews’s original leak has done.
Fortunately for us, we didn’t repeat the false rumor about Eisenstadt being the source of the leak. Although we’d like to think we would have done a little background research to see who he was before citing him, it could have been possible for us to overlook this, as well.
This whole thing is actually pretty awesome. It is a huge indictment of the state of journalism in many of our trusted organizations. And bloggers like ourselves are not guilt-free, either. While most bloggers have to rely on the mainstream media for factual reporting, this hoax was a mere Google search away from being detected, and it wasn’t. It is a reminder to everyone about how quickly false rumors can be spread on the internet, and how hard it can be to extinguish them. Pranks like this will hopefully help keep the media honest in their fact checking and reporting.
Note: the video clip above is of a fake BBC clip that the pranksters put together about building a casino in the Iraq Green Zone.
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- Controlled roll-out of Palin continues with another CBS clip
Comments
5 Comments on The Palin-Africa story takes a fantastic twist
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Shamus on
Wed, 12th Nov 2008 10:00 pm
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forcechange on
Wed, 12th Nov 2008 10:29 pm
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albert on
Thu, 13th Nov 2008 10:42 am
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Albert on
Thu, 13th Nov 2008 12:43 pm
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SeriousGeorge on
Thu, 13th Nov 2008 12:45 pm
“While the hoax was about taking false credit for leaking the Palin-Africa story, it is still unclear whether the underlying report about Palin not knowing Africa was a continent is true or not.” What are you talking about “it is still unclear”???” Seems to me that its been exposed as a hoax. Are you just desperate to keep this hoax alive?
We’re not making any claim as to whether the Palin-Africa comment was accurate or not, and neither is the New York Times article we referenced above. All the Times is reporting on is a hoax by a couple of film makers who falsely took credit for being the source of the leak, not the accuracy of the underlying accusation an “anonymous” McCain advisor reportedly made. We actually would prefer if it turns out that the underlying statement is proven false, since it would be nice to know that one of our country’s governors/ VP candidates wasn’t that ignorant.
That is my understanding, as well.
OMG, this is incredible. You are right, hopefully this will help keep the media "honest."
How lucky do you feel that you didn't repeat this false rumor? Those guys pulled a good one.
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