Posted on 03/11/2013 3:27:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
News outlets including Boston.com and Breitbart.com were duped by a satirical website into reporting economist Paul Krugman had filed for bankruptcy.
Boston.com, run by the Boston Globe, and conservative blog Breitbart.com wrote reports about Krugman's supposed personal bankruptcy using Australia's Format magazine as a source, Politico reported Monday.
However, the Format piece turned out to be based on an item in The Daily Current, a humor website billing itself as "the global satirical newspaper of record."
The erroneous stories were removed from the two sites before midday Monday.
The satirical news article said Krugman was more than $7 million in debt due to an apartment loan and "impulsive spending splurges" on items including "Portuguese wines and British dresses from the Victorian period."
Breitbart sharply criticized The Washington Post last month when its blog ran a story based on a Daily Current article claiming Sarah Palin was joining Qatari-owned news network al-Jazeera.
Breitbart blogger John Nolte wrote if Post blogger Suzi Parker "had a shred of self-awareness, integrity and dignity, she would have changed the headline to 'Too Good To Check,' and under it posted an essay about how shallow, smug, bitterly angry partisanship can blind you to common sense."
Funny. Thank you for making my day. I bet it ticks off Krugman that people believed it.
There’s a difference between satire and a hoax. Satire is supposed to be obvious if you are moderately intelligent. A hoax is a phony story claiming something that is believable in an effort to fool people into that belief, whether for financial gain or just to get your jollies. This story was a hoax. A guy like Krugman, living in NY and getting into a certain lifestyle, could easily end up in bankruptcy. The Palin story was obvious satire, because anyone with half a brain would know that Sarah Palin would never work for Al Jazeera. I wonder if someone wasn’t deliberately trying to trip up Breitbart, as payback.
That part is true.
TRUE: Paul Krugman, the economic darling of the left, has filed for chapter 13 bankruptcy, according to Boston.com.
BINGO!!!!!
Friggin MSM
You would have thought that Breitbart would have checked it out before posting. CNN, yes, ABC and CBS yes, but Breitbart?
I would like to think that even without the satire tag, I would have recognized this:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2994676/posts
The irony here is that the WaPo didn’t see the irony of Krugman spending himself rich contrasted with the government thinking it can spend itself rich.
Not satire -Krugman is going bankrupt.
Satire - In his NYT opinion piece on Sunday, Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman called on the Federal Reserve to bail out financially ailing Nobel laureates.
In a related story Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman declared bankruptcy Monday morning.
Krugman is morally and intellectually bankrupt.
“All the news we can cut and paste!”
Krugman will never be broke as long as he as a job with Princeton University.
The last line of the excerpt gives it away as satire. Still, not completely obvious, as evidenced by people on the thread wondering if it was satire. Breitbart cited to boston.com, not to the source. I guess they thought that boston.com was a reputable source that fact checked its stories. That was Breitbart’s mistake.
Anyone who managed to pass the 9th grade could tell it was satire.
Who was it that once said "Trust but verify"?
If Breitbart got Pwnd then shame on them..
How often are we criticizing the rest of the MSM for not doing exactly what Breitbart neglected to do?
I don’t know about that.
The article was posted at blogrunner.com where Krugman’s posts get published owed by the New York Times which I ahve provided by the first link and the second link has the story of Krugman discussing his bankruptcy.
Let me know if you still think it’s a hoax.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/11/breitbarted/
The “satire” didn’t begin until the fifth paragraph. And the first 4 were so boring there was no incentive to read on.
Good point, but I'll eye Breitbart.com with a bit more caution in the future if I can verify they actually went with this story before verifying it.
On the other hand, I wouldn't take UPI's word for it, either. Such is our brave, new media world!
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