MoJo Blog

« Obasketball | Blog Index | Surge Is Pushing Iraq Toward Partition »

MSNBC Reports Really, Really Fake News

MSNBC.com reported yesterday that Michael Vick's dogfighting case is dividing African American leaders into two camps—one that criticizes the quarterback's cruelty to animals, and another whose members think his persecution is driven by a racist agenda. Supposedly leading the latter is the Reverend Al Sharpton, who the news group quotes at length.

The problem, as Gawker and National Review Online have noted, is that not one word of the attribution came out of Sharpton's mouth. To the contrary, it came from News Groper [full disclosure: the associate editor was a fact-checker—can you feel the irony?—for Mother Jones], a website made up entirely of satirical celebrity blog entries. Sharpton can be pretty dramatic sometimes, but it's surprising that reporter Alex Johnson wasn't given any pause by the absurdity of the "quote":

"If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not," Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog. "They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins."

MSNBC got hip to the error and, rather than apologize to its readers for astoundingly sloppy reporting, posted in a correction that it "has determined that the blog is a hoax." The correction doesn't mention what tipped the news organization's meticulous fact-checkers off: News Groper's logo, which is a hand moving toward two globes that look like giant balls, or maybe breasts; Al Sharpton sharing a blog site with Lindsay Lohan, George Bush, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; or the words "fake parody blogs" in the title bar of every page.

Posted by Nicole McClelland on 08/24/07 at 11:44 AM | E-mail | Print | Digg | de.licio.us | Reddit | Newsvine | Yahoo! MyWeb | StumbleUpon | Netscape | Google |



Comments

LMAO: http://www.dolphinfighting.com/

Posted by: Johnny Robot on 08/24/07 at 1:40 PM

well not to sound like im horribly skeptical and paranoid...but isn't it convenient that this makes *blogging* look like the culprit, and not MSNBC?

when many news shows and celebrities knock blogs quite a bit? (heaven forbid people get their entertainment somewhere other than the TV!)

Posted by: zorn on 08/24/07 at 6:45 PM

This racist thing is getting to be old hat.

Al Sharpton and J. Jackson are bigots and racist themselves to the extreme

Posted by: Donald R Engen on 08/24/07 at 8:19 PM

Didn't take time to read the article, eh, Donald?

Posted by: Mark D. Combs on 08/24/07 at 11:46 PM

With all of the websites coming online, with so much growth happening on the Internet the last thing we need is more confusion.

Personally I would not have gotten that News Groper's logo was a spoof, or known the site was a spoof because of certain persons sharing the site. I never look at the title bar so I would have missed the clue there as well.

If a news organization missed that it was a fake then how many others miss that point as well? Even if it's one person that's too many. Misinformation even in a satirical situation should never be interpreted as true, we got enough problems.

For those who use fake websites all the time they know it's fake. As a way to avoid confusion I would appreciate News Groper making it more obvious that the stories are not true.


Posted by: Daniel on 08/25/07 at 10:20 AM

Oh, boy. Here we go...

If one weren't familiar with TV or print media--you know, like an aborigine, or an alien, or a six year-old--then it would be understandable if they were baffled and terrified to see the satirical news of SNL (that's Saturday Night Life, geezers) or The Onion.
Go ahead, settle in to your chair and prepare to orient yourself with the crazy new world of online satire.
Here's a good primer course for you:
Google: "define:satire"
That ought to set you on your way =)

Posted by: Zeus on 08/25/07 at 2:18 PM

Call it a hunch, but I think me and that guy are on the same level. If I were working for MSNBC I'd have done the same thing. Not for any journalistic 'integrity' compromised by sensationalism and incompetence, more as a disgruntled sabotage of a crappy, over-hyped, sensationalizing cable monster run by sleazeballs --kind of like the guy who kept drawing penises into Disney cartoons. You know, on purpose.

Posted by: Sydney J. Carton on 08/25/07 at 7:34 PM

This is completely excellent.

Posted by: Jonathan Stein on 08/26/07 at 12:43 PM

I wonder how they would
classify Fox News, that
claims to be "fair and
balanced".

Posted by: Thomas on 08/26/07 at 4:29 PM

If Al Sharpton actually believes the things he writes then he is simply a Neanderthal.

This is not a racial issue. Black or White, get caught dog fighting you are soon to be crushed..

If riots break out at sentencing then Sahrlpton should be jaied for un-American activities.

Wake up people.


Posted by: Ames Tiedeman on 08/27/07 at 9:07 AM

Post a comment





 

RECENT COMMENTS

Dobson Slams Fred Thompson in Private Email (2)
"Goober" wrote: No Jon, that leaves RON PAUL. Dobson has a big mouth, like... [more]

Burma: Saffron Flames Rage Against the Machine (1)
gvc wrote: ["Too bad the US' foreign policies in Asia are not consist... [more]

Republicans Can't Find the Cash to Campaign (2)
gvc wrote: Jonathan, I don't think all the necessary information is t... [more]

U.S. Always Outsourcing, More Contractors Than U.S. Troops in Iraq (8)
gvc wrote: I thought the actual details of this had already been poin... [more]

College Students: You've Been F#%'D! (7)
gvc wrote: I've read quite a bit of Ursula K, but to be honest, I alw... [more]

Secretary of Defense to Ask for $180 Billion for Iraq, Afghanistan Wars (4)
Mildred wrote: Vote third party. Vote green. ... [more]

Nixon Hated the Jews: Even More Evidence (2)
Ira wrote: Who cares. The Jews hate Christians and Muslims. Just read... [more]

Sunni Insurgents Launch Assassination Campaign (3)
youtoob wrote: bookworm, that didn't even make sense!... [more]

"Stop Hillary Clinton" Now the Largest Political Facebook Group (18)
Stephen Fox wrote: After everything is said and done in this election, a few ... [more]

Hilarious Website of the Week: Cops Bitching About Other Cops (5)
JT Barrie wrote: The problem is that police know how ridiculous their own... [more]

XML RSS Feed

Powered by
Movable Type 3.33

Jail.org - Inmate Search
Criminal records, instant public records & people search & current court records. www.jail.org

U.S. Public Records Search
Search County & State Court Records, Criminal records, Vital and Adoption Records www.PublicRecordsInfo.com

Records.com - People Search
Public Records and Background Checks. Instantly Search Criminal Records, Addresses and Court Records www.Records.com

Court Records & County Records
Find Instant Public Records, Criminal Records as Well as County Property Records Search. www.PublicRecordsIndex.com

















bookIN PRINT

CLICK HERE
for more great reading

headphones IN TUNE
New music every issue

CLICK TO LISTEN


This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2007 The Foundation for National Progress

About Us   Support Us   Advertise   Ad Policy   Privacy Policy   Contact Us   Subscribe   RSS