The Day After Veteran's Day Is April Fool's Day 2.0
from the fake-fake-news dept
When The Daily Show ran with its "Palin is so dumb" jokes, I was actually wondering where the jokes ended and the truth began (while laughing at the same time). And it seems I'm still left somewhat puzzled -- due to the reports that MSNBC fell for a hoax in which Martin Eisenstadt claims to be the source for the rumor that Sarah Palin didn't know if Africa was a country or a continent.... 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.But the reported hoax is about how Eisenstadt isn't a real person and that his blog and job at the "Harding Institute" are entirely made up. That doesn't quite address whether or not Fox News (which broke the Africa story) used Eisenstadt as a source, though.... And it's actually very easy to mis-read the report on the hoax as saying that the whole Africa anecdote is untrue because the source was fake. However, no one knows who the real source is for Fox's story (except for Fox News, of course). So it's very possible that Fox didn't use Eisenstadt as a source, and with all the hoaxes going around recently, it's also possible that there's a very elaborate string of hoaxes going on. In fact, the joke continues as Eisenstadt states on his blog: "I deny any and all accusations that I somehow don't exist."
I'm willing to grant that Palin knows Africa is a continent, but Fox News isn't running an apology for its own reporting (as far as I can tell) -- so where does this joke really end?
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Filed Under: hoax, martin eisenstadt, news media, sarah palin
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Fox is the anti news
Bill O'rielly is my favourite comedian!
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Re: Fox is the anti news
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Bill O'Reilly Flips Out — DANCE REMIX
What a steaming piece of humanity!
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Re: Fox is the anti news
http://www.learntospell.net/award.php?n=Moron
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There fixed it for you. Democrats are by far not alone in that, and more to the point not all Democrats do that. If you were talking about how people are making fun of Sara Palin, just remember a good chunk of the Republicans that crossed party lines to vote Obama did so simply because she was the Vice Presidential nominiee.
That said, FOX News is definately a joke. Run the RSS feeds all next to each other sometime. Compare it to ones outside the US as well as others inside the US. FOX will run tabloidesque stories while others are talking about real issues about 2/3 times.
Then half the time for that 1 real story they run, they take the opposite stance of CNN just beacuse CNN took a stance, regardless of any actual evidence.
More so than even the "liberal" media, FOX news is NOT a news outlet. It's an opinions show. It just happens that their opinions are typically shortsighted, bigoted, or just outright silly/childish.
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There, now I fixed it for you. When you create a post to point out someone's one-sided thinking, it is probably not a good idea to engage in that activity yourself before the end of that same post. Fox News sucks. So does CNN and MSNBC.
Unfortunately, just about every media source is party-aligned now. I watch PBS if I watch news at all because, despite their liberal leaning, they usually manage to keep news and opinions separate. Really, though, the only way to get truly unbiased news is to get online and read a variety of news sources with different views. From there, you can usually sort out something at least resembling the truth.
The whole Africa story, for example, seems to have stemmed from one verbal slip in which, during a conversation, Palin accidentally said "country" instead of "continent." I have made plenty of similar mistakes in speech myself. Not at all the same as being "just unable to understand that Africa is a continent, not a country." Not that I like Palin. I wanted a yard sign that said "McCain in spite of Palin," but I couldn't find one.
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And praise the lord for that. Hallelujah!
Did you see the latest unemployment numbers? Seems like in spite of your opinion your country is going down the shitter because of the direction you support.
Tough shit though, your choice wasn't the popular one and as sad to you as it may be your country will just have to start recovering.
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As far as "tough shit," I don't think it is tough at all. I think Obama will do fine. He is a good person with the country's best interest at heart, even though I don't agree that his plans are necessarily the best options. People really need to remember the old saying, "there's more than one way to skin a cat." Animal cruelty aside, there is a lot of wisdom in taking that view. I have my preferences, but I will be the first to admit that my preferences are not the only ones that will work.
I prefer leaning toward capitalism when possible, with regulations where necessary. Obama prefers leaning toward socialism with capitalism where necessary. Both end up in some range of the center, and as long as this country remains in a balanced center between the two, we will be fine. Too far toward socialism, and laziness collapses the ecomonomy. Too far toward pure capitalism, and greed collapses the economy. I agree that the last eight years have been disastrous, but not because it was conservative. Bush violated nearly every conservative principle on the books. He spent money like crazy, immersed us in world affairs we had no business interfering with, expanded government in unconscionable ways, etc.
The sense is almost always in central compromise. I hope that Obama will be as bipartisan and compromising as he has promised. If so, we will see a return to the prosperity we saw under Clinton. If he instead follows his senate record of extreme partisanship, we will just swing too far the other way, political bigotry will grow even more, and the economy will continue too decline, just for different reasons.
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Ted Stevens, Convicted Felon. Need more be said?
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Some anonymous idiot said:
If there is one thing I can not stand it is people who spell 'definitely' with an 'a.' You suck. All of you. Burn in hell.
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You meant cannot .
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Oooh. Come on, be nice.
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(oh and Bill O'Reilly? what "journalist" tells guests to shut up when they try to speak?)
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Re: News shows vs. Commentary/Editiorial Shows
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Re3: News shows vs. Commentary/Editiorial Shows
You bitch and moan only because it's not your slant and probably sit and eat up MSNBC telling yourself how great the editorials are.
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Re: Re3: News shows vs. Commentary/Editiorial Shows
"Fox News sucks. So does CNN and MSNBC.
Unfortunately, just about every media source is party-aligned now."
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What election are you referring to, one of Reagan's perhaps?
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And now, on topic... As a quasi-Democrat (definitely liberal, but there are too many idiots in both parties to want to really identify with either), I hate the very idea of Palin with a passion, but even I know better than to believe every story I hear about her ignorance. I was suspicious of this story when I first heard it, as much as I wanted to believe it, and as I never got around to looking into it, I simply assumed it was fiction. People need to be a LOT more skeptical of what mass media tells them. Whichever slant offends us most, I think we can all agree that NO news orginization is unbiased, and they all share a bias towards ratings first, and integrity second. They are businesses, and that's how they make money. It shouldn't come as a surprise that they would go out of their way to tell us what we want to hear, and leave out the bits - be they boring, or too different from our point of view - that would make us want to change the channel...
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Dammit you're right!
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ignorance of america
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Comedy
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"It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....against another....it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another."
Sound fmailiar.
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Thomas Jefferson was another who saw all this coming about.
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Ya'all is biased!
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Re: Ya'all is biased!
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Re: Ya'all is biased!
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Faux is Faux
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I dunno...
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Seriously, what it boils down to is "I don't want this motherfucker over here taking my money and doing things I don't like with it, I want this other motherfucker taking my money and doing things I don't like."
Besides, arguing on the internet (especially about politics) is like being in the Special Olympics: Even if you win, you're still a fucking retard.
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For me it boils down to realizing that taxes are needed to raise the quality of society.
The democrats gets this (for the most part) while the republicans wants to cut taxes further.
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I have NO problem with the wealthy paying higher taxes. However, those taxes need to fund legitimate government programs, not other private citizens. Everyone who takes part in those programs should pay for at least a small share, rather than the 40% (myself included!) who pay no taxes under current tax codes. Last, those government programs should be necessities, not niceties. Our government has grown completely out of control, and, sadly, a so-called conservative president has been the worst culprit in instigating that growth.
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Scary
It's not about Fox News or Democrats vs. Republicans.
It's about a guy who tricked a bunch of news providers with some hoax stories.
Yet people automatically go into their partisan battles and the whole thing gets lost.
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The internet is serious business.
:-)
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Re: Scary
I am not so sure that the reaction is all that "scary" and was entirely predictable.
Several flashwords were mentioned "Palin" "Fox News" "The Daily Show"
Of course it would obviously be best if people stuck to the _actual topic_ at hand.
A query, why was this chosen as a Techdirt topic in any case?
This is not a media critique blog and the technology angle of the story is... what exactly?
That "Eisenstadt" has a blog?
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Re: Re: Scary
How, exactly, are any of those "flash words"?
A query, why was this chosen as a Techdirt topic in any case?
Uh, we write about the media quite often, and we write about whatever we find interesting. We found this interesting, because it was a situation where the media was tricked.
This is not a media critique blog and the technology angle of the story is... what exactly?
That the media fell for the hoax.
We get to choose what we write about, so I'm not sure what your complaint is.
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Because they're a bunch of anti-copyright, anti-patent, lefty homos.
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The way Palin was belittled in the press was shameful; the vast majority of journalists (and a significant portion of the Democratic opposition) simply assumed she was a moron because she was a Conservative Woman with a Regional Accent. She is far more intelligent than the bulk of her detractors. If they had ridiculed Obama as relentlessly and with as little provocation as they did Palin, I think the election would have turned out very differently.
Snowburn... why do you assume that white voters who voted based on race voted against Obama? That's unjustified, based on the election results.
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You should know that. It's a fairly simple rhetorical technique, similar to saying "many Obama supporters are Useful Idiots." The title "Useful Idiots" is, of course, a historical term used by Stalin. That phrase works regardless of whether the term is capitalized or not, but its meaning subtly shifts; it changes from a simple description, into an assignment to a named class.
And that's overlooking the fundamental truth that criticizing punctuation on an internet forum is LAME.
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Actually, I know better than that. But then, I'm not a Palin supporter.
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You people lead the 'free world'
>Another arrogant Europrick that somehow thinks he's better than everyone else
You make it difficult to believe we are not better than you.
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Wow. Any comments on the content of the article?
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Re: Wow. Any comments on the content of the article?
Scapegoating.
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