NY Times: Media Falls for Hoax (Maybe Sarah Palin knows her geography after all)
By RobWarrior on November 13, 2008 at 6:40 PM in Current Affairs, David Shuster, Fox News, MSM, MSNBC, Sarah Palin
Here at No Quarter, we spend a lot of time discussing the shortcomings (and there are so many) of the so-called Main Stream Media. While I hate to give Rush Limbaugh a whole lot of credit for anything, he refers to them as the “Drive by Media” and it certainly is an apt description.
The modern media’s 24 hour news cycle has changed the way the news is delivered and has pretty much destroyed the tenets of journalism. In order to get information out first and constantly refresh the news product, old rules about double and triple checking information provided by sources and investigating the integrity of those sources no longer fit the game.
Shortly after election day, Fox News ran a story quoting an unnamed McCain source as saying that Sarah Palin was not aware that Africa was a continent. Just a few minutes later, the story popped up on MSNBC after someone who saw the Fox piece e-mailed the tip to a friend in the MSNBC newsroom.
Instantly, e-mails and blogs started buzzing and those suffering from extreme “Palin Derangement Syndrome” were ecstatic over having more “proof” that she wouldn’t make it past the first round on “Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader”.
Heres the problem, the entire story was a hoax perpetrated by a couple of guys trying to drum up interest in a television show based on a fictional character they have created.
Believe it or not, the NY Times actually has the story. Read about it here
If you are waiting for prime time retractions, don’t hold your breath.
Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.
Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.
And the claim of credit for the Africa anecdote is just the latest ruse by Eisenstadt, who turns out to be a very elaborate hoax that has been going on for months. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.
Now a pair of obscure filmmakers say they created Martin Eisenstadt to help them pitch a TV show based on the character.
The creators of this hoax, know just how easy it is to take advantage of today’s media.
They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.
“With the 24-hour news cycle they rush into anything they can find,” said Mr. Mirvish, 40.
Mr. Gorlin, 39, argued that Eisenstadt was no more of a joke than half the bloggers or political commentators on the Internet or television.
Even MSNBC admits to the mistake
An MSNBC spokesman, Jeremy Gaines, explained the network’s misstep by saying someone in the newsroom received the Palin item in an e-mail message from a colleague and assumed it had been checked out. “It had not been vetted,” he said. “It should not have made air.”
And while the MSM is easily fooled, bloggers are even bigger victims of information hoaxes.
But most of Eisenstadt’s victims have been bloggers, a reflection of the sloppy speed at which any tidbit, no matter how specious, can bounce around the Internet. And they fell for the fake material despite ample warnings online about Eisenstadt, including the work of one blogger who spent months chasing the illusion around cyberspace, trying to debunk it.
As for Sarah Palin, the damage is already done for now. No amount of retractions will make up for the hits her image has taken. Jay Leno, David Letterman, Bill Maher and Jon Stewart will not be telling jokes about how stupid they were in repeating this nonsense. Maybe they should have written a few more jokes about the guy running for President of the 57 United States.
On the media level, there are no solutions coming. News organizations will not invest more time and money into vetting stories. Reporters and bloggers will not take more time to carefully check their facts in fear of losing out to competitors. The only solution has to come from us, the consumers. We just have to accept that every news story that comes down the road, is just a story and we can not rush to judgement.






















