A Washington Post contributor published an article Tuesday amazingly citing as true claims by a - wait for it! - satirical website that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin has taken a job with Al Jazeera.
For her part, the former vice presidential candidate is having a good old time on Twitter at the author's expense:
Hey @washingtonpost, I'm having coffee with Elvis this week. He works at the Mocha Moose in Wasilla. #suziparkerscoops #idiotmedia
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013
A @washingtonpost writer once promised not to write about me for a month. That was a good month for me. #idiotmedia
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013
WaPo & like-minded MSM entities, you're about as credible as, well, Barack Obama. Can't wait for tonight's SOTU to point out more examples.
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013
As some background, Suzi Parker originally published a hit-piece Tuesday morning titled “Sarah Palin’s Plan To Reach ‘Millions of Devoutly Religious People Through Al-Jazeera”:
Late last week Al Jazeera America announced the former vice-presidential candidate would be joining their news network…Ironically, Fox News recently called Al Jazeera “an anti-American terror mouthpiece.”
“As you all know, I’m not a big fan of newspapers, journalists, news anchors and the liberal media in general,” Palin told the Web site The Daily Currant. “But I met with the folks at Al-Jazeera and they told me they reach millions of devoutly religious people who don’t watch CBS or CNN. That tells me they don’t have a liberal bias.”
The original article has been changed with no Google cache available, but NewsBusters has been able to recover what the first page looked like:
The punch line?
Parker's source prominently describes itself thusly:
The Daily Currant is an English language online satirical newspaper that covers global politics, business, technology, entertainment, science, health and media. It is accessible from over 190 countries worldwide - now including South Sudan.
Our mission is to ridicule the timid ignorance which obstructs our progress, and promote intelligence - which presses forward.
Q. Are your news stories real?
A. No. Our stories are purely fictional. However they are meant to address real-world issues through satire and often refer and link to real events happening in the world.
Current headlines at the DC include "Police Shoot Jazz Band Members In Dorner Manhunt," "Catholic Church Considering Jerry Sandusky as Next Pope," and "Dick Cheney Calls for Invasion of Iran."
And this is the website Parker used as her source.
Once she or someone at the Post was clued into her gaffe, the title of the piece was changed with the following printed boldly below it:
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post and the post’s URL incorrectly reported that Sarah Palin had signed on as a contributor to the Al Jazeera America news network. The blogger cited a report on the Daily Currant Web site as the basis for that information without realizing that the piece was satirical.
Mediaite's Noah Rothman pointed out Tuesday that this isn't the first time media members have fallen prey to the DC:
The Daily Currant fooled a number of culture watchers on the internet recent [sic] when they called out conservative commentator Ann Coulter for refusing to board a plane piloted by an African-American. The incident never occurred, but the opportunity to confirm the biases of those who disagree with Coulter was too good to pass up. That bit of “news” made it around the internet before it was widely debunked for having originated from a comedy news site.
You really can't make this stuff up.
