Curse those satirical publications. They are forever publishing stories that result in egg on the faces of “serious journalists.” Back in February, the Washington Post got snookered into misinforming its readers that former Alaska governor Sarah Palin had joined the network Al Jazeera America as a commentator. In 2011, TIME fell for a phony report that the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate had called for the deportation of Christina Aguilera for botching “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Palin is the bait again in the latest scam, which involves Wprost, a leading eastern European weekly. Yesterday, the news mag published an article based on tongue-in-cheek “reporting” by The Daily Currant, which advised that Palin had called for the invasion of the Czech Republic in response to the Boston Marathon bombings.
Wprost even gave the piece an incendiary headline: “Let’s burn Prague: Sarah Palin Calls for the Invasion of the Czech Republic.”
The first to call shenanigans was Jim Romenesko, who was alerted by one of his readers, Marek Miller, who wrote:
I’ve got news from Poland that might interest you. One of the top 3 weeklies, ‘Wprost’, published an article about Sarah Palin calling Obama to attack Czech Republic for Boston. They quoted Daily Currant with this news, and wrote everything happened during the interview on Fox News.
Miller also included a screenshot from Wprost’s webpage (below), since removed. (Isn’t it great how the internet preserves everything for posterity?)
Meantime, the willingness of legitimate news organizations, especially on the left, to be duped again and again into reporting Palin’s verbal infelicities demonstrates how all-pervasive and indestructible the 2008 myths remain. One gets the sense that the WaPo and TIME would be far less likely to bite if reports were circulated claiming that Vice President Joe Biden had told an audience Gabby Giffords was “mortally wounded.” Oh, wait.
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