Media Taken In By Palin Hoaxer; Blogosphere Blamed

That's right. Fox News, New York Times, MSNBC, and other media outlets bought the nonsensical line about how Gov. Sarah Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent. That was part of a bunch of recriminations proffered by unnamed sources coming from the McCain-Palin campaign following their loss on election day.

The problem? None of it was true.

It was all part of an elaborate ruse.

It was among the juicier post-election recriminations: Fox News Channel quoted an unnamed McCain campaign figure as saying that Sarah Palin did not know that Africa was a continent.

Who would say such a thing? On Monday the answer popped up on a blog and popped out of the mouth of David Shuster, an MSNBC anchor. “Turns out it was Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, who has come forward today to identify himself as the source of the leaks,” Mr. Shuster said.

Trouble is, Martin Eisenstadt doesn’t exist. His blog does, but it’s a put-on. The think tank where he is a senior fellow — the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy — is just a Web site. The TV clips of him on YouTube are fakes.

And 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. MSNBC, which quickly corrected the mistake, has plenty of company in being taken in by an Eisenstadt hoax, including The New Republic and The Los Angeles Times.

Now a pair of obscure filmmakers say they created Martin Eisenstadt to help them pitch a TV show based on the character. But under the circumstances, why should anyone believe a word they say?

“That’s a really good question,” one of the two, Eitan Gorlin, said with a laugh.

(For what it’s worth, another reporter for The New York Times is an acquaintance of Mr. Gorlin and vouches for his identity, and Mr. Gorlin is indeed “Mr. Eisenstadt” in those videos. He and his partner in deception, Dan Mirvish, have entries on the Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. But still. ...)

They say the blame lies not with them but with shoddiness in the traditional news media and especially the blogosphere.

The blogosphere sniffed out the story and was immediately questioning it - although the pro Obama people, anonymous emailer among them, had no problem accepting it word for word. It fit their view of Palin as an ignorant backcountry neophyte, and they were among those pushing the story. It was simply too good to check.

I didn't bother covering this particular story sooner because I didn't think there was anything to it.

Yet, the Times article goes on and on about how the blogosphere was taken in by this hoax, and that it is somehow our fault for this being spread in the newsrooms across the country.

Hogwash.

All these media outlets, with all of their claims to fact checking and sourcing materials, didn't seem to notice there is no such thing as the Harding Institute (named after one of the worst Presidents in history). No one bothered to find out if Eisenstadt was actually a McCain staffer. All of those layers of fact checking were for naught as the story was repeated like a bad game of telephone.

UPDATE:
Apparently Fox News and Carl Cameron still stand by their assertion that Palin didn't know that Africa was a continent. Stay tuned. Who is the unnamed source? If it wasn't Martin Eisenstadt, the now exposed bogus source to other media outlets, who then? Does Cameron and Fox not want to admit that they were taken in by the same guy who lied to the other news outlets?