MSNBC retracts false Palin story; others duped

AP via SFGate ^ | 11/12/8 | DAVID BAUDER, AP Television Writer

[SmithL]

NEW YORK, (AP) -- 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.

[GVnana]

So when will FOX air their retraction?

[bamahead]

sheesh, how many people HERE on FR still think he’s real?

Quite a few.

[fatima]

When we stop watching.

[idov]

Cameron is the guy who started the rumors and he’s the guy who can name the source. Who’s he protecting, this is not Watergate, it’s an internal party matter. Fox News shares the blame because not only they did their air the rumors, they did it three or four times. Hemmer even justified it by saying you can trust Cameron. If Hemmer had given that answer in journalism school, he would have flunked. Cameron deserves to be fired.

[rintense]

Boy is O’Reilly going to have egg on his face tomorrow.

[screaming eagle2]

and so it goes....

[GipperGal]

Gee, do you think Rachel Madcow will retract the story? These people make me sick.

[citizencon]

It doesn't matter, they've got an agenda.

It doesn't matter, they have achieved their goal...

[Yardstick]

LOL... Another example of the numerous layers of editors and fact checkers that the Internet and bloggers just don't have.

Seriously. Thank God the professional media establishment is there to hold the line against poorly vetted hearsay.

What would we do without them?

[Force of Truth]

Fox news sucks. I know they claim to be “fair an balanced” but that only equates to a few mediocre commentators. The rest are liberal liars.

[Yardstick]

lol — good one!

[Witter]

I’m tired of hearing the word “vetted”.

[seawolf101]

Shocking.....

[timestax]

[L.N. Smithee]

If the people at MSNBC have consciences, they will be pricked every time they make mention of the Sarkozy prank call.

[Kent C]

Audio of Greta and O’Reilly:
Carl to Greta: “I messed up on this one”

http://chickaboomer.blogspot.com/2008/11/oreilly-ask-palin-whats-capital-of-togo.html

O’Reilly will never admit that he shouldn’t have aired it, but Carl ought to come clean. They think this story will just go away and like someone else implied, it’s already in the Left’s arsenal to use at any time it becomes convenient. The fact that the idiot Eistenstadt ‘confessed’ doesn’t mean anything. Carl has said that he wasn’t the source anyway.

Also check out the Scarborough gaffe.

[Plutarch]

So that is all you got on Romney, the “Prowler” rumor? You’ve been braying about how Romney has been “caught” Palin dissing, but it turns out you’ve got nothing but the Prowler and your posterior egress. You and the API are going to have the proof any day now.

[Plutarch]

So that is all you got on Romney, the “Prowler” rumor? You’ve been braying about how Romney has been “caught” Palin dissing, but it turns out you’ve got nothing but the Prowler and your posterior egress. You and the API are going to have the proof any day now.

[top 2 toe red]

That’s the damned truth...he needs to go back on Bill O’Reilly and say he was wrong...’course that’s not going to happen, ‘cause that make Bill look bad for having aired the crap in the first place!

[ravinson]

I listened to Greta earlier talk to O’Reilly and she said that Carl Cameron had called her and said he was sorry he had reported the story. I don’t know if that will make it to Governor Palin but at least there is an admission herer that he didn’t do his homework.

Any reporter who reports a statement by an anonymous source which is later discredited has an ethical duty to reveal the source. Until Cameron does so he's just as guilty of slander as his source.