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MSNBC Retracts False Palin story; Others Duped

Discussion in 'Free Speech Alley' started by CajunPunk, Nov 14, 2008.

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CajunPunk TF's Resident Realist

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Demonizing of Palin continues, as the report was a hoax. Figures...

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.

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."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081113/ap_en_tv/palin_hoax_1
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More compelling journalism. Too bad I was duped.

CajunPunk, Nov 14, 2008

#1
SabanFan The voice of reason

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Fox News would not have aired it.

SabanFan, Nov 14, 2008

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red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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SabanFan said: ↑

Fox News would not have aired it.
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[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZHTJsR4Bc&eurl=http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/11/05/fox-news-palin-didn39t-know-africa-was-a-continent/[/media]

red55, Nov 14, 2008

#3
SabanFan The voice of reason

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red55 said: ↑

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWZH...ws-palin-didn39t-know-africa-was-a-continent/
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Nice try, Red but not even close. Apples and oranges. Cameron cited an anonymous source which, though the source may have been lying, it was not a fraud. Fox News does pot have an agenda but MSNBC so, in their glee they rushed it on the air and got embarrassed.

SabanFan, Nov 14, 2008

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Rex Founding Member

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The article is very confusing.

Is MSNBC also retracting the claim that Palin thought Africa a country, or just the source for the claim?

At any rate... we don't need need that particular claim to consider Palin an absurd candidate. There were plenty other examples.

Rex, Nov 14, 2008

#5
mctiger RIP, and thanks for the music Staff Member

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Rex said: ↑

The article is very confusing.

Is MSNBC also retracting the claim that Palin thought Africa a country, or just the source for the claim?

At any rate... we don't need need that particular claim to consider Palin an absurd candidate. There were plenty other examples.
Click to expand...

The hoax was the claim of this guy being the source of the story. They are still standing by the story, which, if I may point out yet again, no one --NO ONE -- has offered any evidence that Palin truly made this statement. If this was happening in a courtroom, it would be thrown out as heresay.

mctiger, Nov 14, 2008

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red55 curmudgeon Staff Member

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SabanFan said: ↑

Fox News does pot
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I knew it!

Conservatives want to keep the pot for themselves, but Obama will redistribute the pot to the middle class.

red55, Nov 14, 2008

#7
SabanFan The voice of reason

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Rex said: ↑

The article is very confusing.

Is MSNBC also retracting the claim that Palin thought Africa a country, or just the source for the claim?

At any rate... we don't need need that particular claim to consider Palin an absurd candidate. There were plenty other examples.
Click to expand...

Yeah, it's very believable that Palin would not know basic geography. She's just another dumb broad, right?

red55 said: ↑

I knew it!

Conservatives want to keep the pot for themselves, but Obama will redistribute the pot to the middle class.
Click to expand...

Don't bogart that joint, my friend.

SabanFan, Nov 14, 2008

#8
DownOnTheBayou Say My Name!

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Rex said: ↑

At any rate... we don't need need that particular claim to consider Palin an absurd candidate. There were plenty other examples.
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Well please enlighten us to these examples. And please use facts not opinions.

DownOnTheBayou, Nov 14, 2008

#9
Bengal Buddy Founding Member

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MSNBC is so biased it ran the story without bothering to check it out. This is not the first time the liberal news media has been duped like this.

Bengal Buddy, Nov 14, 2008

#10

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