Posted on 11/15/2008 8:29:22 AM PST by BAW
This is lesson No. 1 from the latest journalistic fiasco: the hoaxing of MSNBC by a pair of aspiring filmmakers, Eitan Gorlin and Dan Mirvish, who created Martin Eisenstadt, a fictional adviser to Republican presidential nominee John McCain. This faux adviser, MSNBC reported, had admitted that he was the McCain aide who told Fox News that GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin was so ignorant she believed Africa was a country.
It turned out that this was only the latest hoax by Gorlin and Mirvish. The fictional Eisenstadt's call for the construction of a casino in Baghdad's Green Zone was picked up by the Web site of Mother Jones magazine. Eisenstadt's claim that Paris Hilton's parents complained bitterly to the McCain campaign after it ran an ad comparing Barack Obama to the starlet was picked up by a Los Angeles Times blog.
The kicker is the pair kept getting away with their hoaxes even after the journalism watchdog sourcewatch.org had exposed “Martin Eisenstadt” as a fraud.
The irony here, of course, is that the mainstream media have forever held themselves up as vastly more trustworthy than the blogosphere because of their insistence on such journalistic basics as fact-checking or getting two sources for scoops.
Thankfully, much of the mainstream media still care about these basics. But too many reporters are willing to spread blog baloney instead of substantiating it.
Printed in the San Diego main newspaper this morning with a picture of "Martin Eisenstadt, Sr Fellow, the Harding Institute" in the middle of the editorial. (The picture is not included in the web version.) Underneath Martin's picture is this caption . . "Meet MSNBC's unreliable source.
Ahhhhhhh, sweet.
When MSNBC is in on it, it isn’t a hoax...it’s a collusion.
I don't see the humor. They gave MSNBC and others to proceed in their "Palin is stupid" rant which will continue to cost a good politician, Palin. This is the future of "Journalism".
The part I find comical is one media exposing another media. MSNBC is being turned on by other established media. THAT is the part which is funny. The cybernews coverage has seen it for a long time, but now the printed media are beginning to comment.
According to the story, it looks like Fox News was the one that got suckered.
According to the story, it looks like Fox News was the one that got suckered.
Read it again.
My error but the core of my statement as to the future of the press still stands.
This must be sent to The Supreme BASSHOLE O’REILLY and his partner in slander, Carl Cameroooooon! as they knowingly, or stupidly as the case may be, SLANDERED SARAH PALIN, as McFLAME SAT BY FIDDLING!
Yeah, sure it does. Uh-huh. Yup. Yessiree Bob.
The hoax served its purpose. It allowed the media to flog its favorite new meme, Palin as ignorant hick, which allowed the perfect segue’ into its old favorite meme, GOP as the party of ignorant hicks.
It was a win-win. Doesn’t matter if its not “true” in the sense of being strictly factual since its “true” in the larger sense. Like CBS’s “fake but factual” from an earlier hoax.
The most fun part of the hoax was watching Repubs respond to it, as many of us launched vitriolic attacks on McCain in defense of Palin. Reporters tried to get Palin herself to attack McCain in response to his supposed attacks on her, and to her credit she refused to do it. I’m still surprised at how gracefully she handled it; I wasn’t so graceful, I wrote some pretty good stuff attacking McCain’s perfidious and cowardly staff. We were had.
None of this is actually very surprising. If you pay attention you begin to notice that its a rare story that isn’t tainted with a certain percentage of mischievous or distorted reporting. The most honest reporting comes when the reporter and his editors haven’t yet seen the political importance of an event or a factoid. As soon as its importance becomes apparent, from that point forward gleaning the truth becomes an exercise worthy of the kremlinologists of yesteryear as you sift and compare one story from another, looking for whats missing or whats included, run the sources yourself, dig up reporting from months prior to see whats been dropped down the memory hole.
This is the perfect moment for me to flog my new favorite meme. The press isn’t biased toward the DNC, the press “is” the DNC, and they prove it every day. Aside from morbid interest in what they are saying, there is little point to tuning them in. The more you listen to them the less you actually know about what is true. So turn them off. Find alternate and more reliable sources of information. What does CNN have to say? Don’t know; turned them off years ago. Olbermann? No idea who that is.
BTT
Just as a greedy moron is the perfect “mark” for any con man, a Democrat network that is greedy for dirt against Republicans is an easy “mark” for these hoaxers.
Well, you nailed it.
Just like the old saying, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on”, a hoax like this one leaves a permanent mark even after it is exposed. Mission accomplished for MSNBC.
But you won’t hear me whining about it. I have always been one of those who believes that it is necessary to fight evil where it lives. And if that means the Republicans need to dive to the bottom of the toilet to fight the Democrats where they live then so be it.
And to all those high and mighty, “We have to be better than that,” idiots, you can drop dead. My checkbook remains closed until the GOP shows me that it is ready, willing, and able to claw out some eyeballs.
But only when the target of those rumors is a Republican, or someone who had the audacity to question their favored One.
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