Hoax: Palin Thought Africa Was A Country

[Lounge Daddy]

[url="http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D94DQU5O0&show_article=1"]MSNBC story was "not properly vetted." [/url]The source had been discredited many time before, in other false stories.


[indent]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." [/indent]

Edited November 13, 2008 by Lounge Daddy

[Justin86]

The first time I heard that I figured it was a hoax. Don't expect a whole lot of the people who bought into it orginally to come over here, and apologize, however.

[dominicansoul]

I have studied WWII history almost all my life. I'm fascinated with it, actually, because my dad fought in the War, and he doesn't speak much about it...he said just thinking about it "scares him..."

In college, I majored in journalism, and had the opportunity to combine my fascination with WWII history along with the history of mass communications and media. I focused a great deal of my senior studies on Leni Riefenstahl, who, sadly, used her extraordinary film-making abilities for the glory of Hitler...

I already knew how powerful the media was, but looking into the "minds" of the propagandist during Hiter's time, made me realize, that those who run the media, can pretty much "take over the world..."

I think this hoax, and the several attempts of the mass media to libel Palin and destroy her character, show how easily manipulated people are by the media...

And what can we do about it? For those of us who have minds of our own, and don't allow outside influences to make up our decisions for us, there is no power in this type of thing...but think of the millions who were greatly influenced just by this story alone?

[quote]Hitler's dictatorship differed in one fundamental point from all its predecessors in history. His was the first dictatorship in the present period of technical development, a dictatorship which made complete use of all technical means for the domination of its own country. [b]Through technical means like the radio and the loud-speaker, eighty million people were deprived of independent thought. It was thereby possible to subject them to the will of one man.[/b]---Albert Speer, architect of the Third Reich, speaking at the Nuremberg trial[/quote]

[XIX]

It's kind of scary how easily people get trolled by the media, like a huge patch of lemmings.

I don't pay attention to the news at all, I don't care what they have to say. They are all lying to us--I'm sure there are exception and that I am portraying an unfair generalization about said media, but I certainly do not trust myself to know the difference.

I don't care about the media. I care about their voting records--which overwhelmingly favor the GOP on moral issues. The rest of it is window dressing.

[Adrestia]

[quote name='Justin86' post='1700725' date='Nov 13 2008, 04:40 PM']The first time I heard that I figured it was a hoax. Don't expect a whole lot of the people who bought into it orginally to come over here, and apologize, however.[/quote]
Why do you expect someone to apologize to you for believing a news story that turned out to be false?

[Adrestia]

[quote name='dominicansoul' post='1700858' date='Nov 13 2008, 08:13 PM']And what can we do about it? For those of us who have minds of our own, and don't allow outside influences to make up our decisions for us, there is no power in this type of thing...but think of the millions who were greatly influenced just by this story alone?[/quote]
Take comfort in the fact that the "story" didn't break until after the election. (It's also likely that the a similar percentage of impressionable people believed that Obama was a secretly devout Muslim.)

[1337 k4th0l1x0r]

Actually, this doesn't mean the whole Africa thing was a hoax. The hoax was this guy claiming to be the source of the leak. I don't believe the whole Africa thing is true, but the astounding thing is that anonymous hearsay was allowed to become major news. Maybe if the Republicans would just resort to starting anonymous rumors about Obama he would finally get some negative press.

[Justin86]

[quote name='tgoldson' post='1700989' date='Nov 14 2008, 02:10 PM']Why do you expect someone to apologize to you for believing a news story that turned out to be false?[/quote]
Maybe because it was obvious from the start that they were basing their claims on nothing more than hearsay?

[quote name='1337 k4th0l1x0r' post='1701019' date='Nov 14 2008, 02:59 PM']Actually, this doesn't mean the whole Africa thing was a hoax. The hoax was this guy claiming to be the source of the leak. I don't believe the whole Africa thing is true, but the astounding thing is that anonymous hearsay was allowed to become major news. Maybe if the Republicans would just resort to starting anonymous rumors about Obama he would finally get some negative press.[/quote]
Ha! The media would discount that like a tiger discounts grass for dinner. It's not on their agenda to bash Democrats.

[Justin86]

I bet Obama was told that the mullet is a threat to global stability. It's true, you know.

[Adrestia]

[quote name='1337 k4th0l1x0r' post='1701019' date='Nov 14 2008, 12:59 AM']Maybe if the Republicans would just resort to starting anonymous rumors about Obama he would finally get some negative press.[/quote]
They did... it didn't work.

[kujo]

I believed it...

Now I don't.

Thanks for the post.

[XIX]

[quote name='tgoldson' post='1700989' date='Nov 14 2008, 01:10 AM']Why do you expect someone to apologize to you for believing a news story that turned out to be false?[/quote]
You're kidding, right?

[kujo]

[quote name='1337 k4th0l1x0r' post='1701019' date='Nov 14 2008, 01:59 AM']Maybe if the Republicans would just resort to starting anonymous rumors about Obama he would finally get some negative press.[/quote]

You mean like the Georgia congressman comparing Obama to Hitler? Or the thousands of Americans who believe(d) that Obama is/was a Muslim?

[Adrestia]

[quote name='XIX' post='1701471' date='Nov 14 2008, 05:22 PM']You're kidding, right?[/quote]
Do you really have to ask?

[XIX]

Is this the answer a question with a question thread?