Don't Get Fooled Again

In “Don’t Get Fooled Again” I look at the mechanisms behind a number of media hoaxes, including the 2006 “Bye Bye Belgium” TV news report (which had a number of international diplomats fooled), the case of “Nurse Nayirah” and the notoriously bogus Hitler Diaries.

The source – and veracity – of the now-famous claim that Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country still remains mysterious.

MSNBC had reported that a McCain campaign adviser, “Martin Eisenstadt” had stepped forward to claim responsibility. But now the New York Times has reported that Martin Eisenstadt is himself a complete fiction, invented by two bloggers with the help of the equally fictitious “Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy”. According to the New York Times:

An MSNBC spokesman, Jeremy Gaines, explained the network’s misstep by saying someone in the newsroom received the Palin item in an e-mail message from a colleague and assumed it had been checked out. “It had not been vetted,” he said. “It should not have made air.”

But most of Eisenstadt’s victims have been bloggers, a reflection of the sloppy speed at which any tidbit, no matter how specious, can bounce around the Internet. And they fell for the fake material despite ample warnings online about Eisenstadt, including the work of one blogger who spent months chasing the illusion around cyberspace, trying to debunk it.

The Huffington Post carries an interview with the blogger in question, William K Wolfrum, who first exposed “Eisenstadt” back in June. Wolfrum says:

A Google search of “Michael Eisenstadt” brought up two people: an impressive foreign policy expert who works for the Washington Institute, and a crazy neocon with a bio suspiciously similar to the real Eisenstadt’s resume…

I left a message with the real Michael Eisenstadt, who called me back promptly. It became clear he had nothing to do with the Africa story. I also called the Washington Post, who said they had no reason to believe the real Michael Eisenstadt was currently working with the McCain Campaign…

“Team Eisenstadt” wasn’t being very careful. They used the same aliases over and over to post comments on popular liberal blogs like Huffington Post and Crooks & Liars, and at newspapers like The Wall Street Journal, to create the false illusion of a McCain staffer named Eisenstadt. The lesson here: Google screen names. You’ll be surprised what comes up…

It’s easy to blame the blogosphere, but MSNBC broke the story and they deserve the criticism. As Salon.com pointed out, it was a blogger who uncovered the hoax months ago. If MSNBC, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Republic had bothered to Google the name “Martin Eisenstadt,” the third entry to come up would have been my post calling him out as a hoax.