How difficult is it for writers to understand the concept of confirm and verify?
Obviously for Washington Post writer Suzi Parker, the concept is very hard.
Politico has the back story:
On Feb. 4, the Daily Currant published a satirical piece stating that Palin was "bouncing back by joining the fledgling Al Jazeera America news network as a host and commentator." Parker cites this piece and uses quotes that the Currant attributes to Palin, including:
“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.”
Politico contacted Al Jazeera and was told Sarah Palin is not joining the global news network.
That is more than Parker did before she was off and running reporting "a cautionary tale about what can happen when politics and celebrity meet."
"Late last week Al Jazeera America announced the former vice-presidential candidate would be joining their news network," the Post's Suzi Parker writes today in a post on the She The People blog, titled "Sarah Palin’s plan to reach ‘millions of devoutly religious people’ through al-Jazeera."
So, the Washington Post piece no longer has the "news" Ms. Parker didn't bother to verify or confirm before reporting and a correction has been placed on top:
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.
Needless to say, many are having a little fun with Wapo and Parker, including bloggers, other media outlets and Sarah Palin herself.
Politico's Dylan Byers- "But Parker's report is a cautionary tale about what can happen when writers cite satirical websites, such as The Daily Currant."
MediaIte's Noah Rothman- " The only problem with Parker’s scoop is that the news of Palin’s move comes from the comedy news site The Daily Currant, which recently published a wide-ranging “interview” with Palin about her lateral career move. The Daily Currant describes itself as “the global satirical newspaper of record.”
CNN's Political Unit points out the two stories the Palin piece was sandwiched between on the satirical site- " The source for the phony blog entry was a parody news website, The Daily Currant, which sandwiched an item on Palin – "Sarah Palin to Join Al Jazeera as Host" – between suspect scoops such as "Glenn Beck Calls 911 After Accidentally Eating Halal Pizza" and "Sean Hannity Says Obama 'Sabotaged' Super Bowl."
Sara Palin herself decided to join in the fun via Twitter:
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
@suziparker Nah. Turned 'em down. Their $22 million offer was too low.... just kidding. Really. #suziparkerscoops #idiotmedia
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013
The other great folks on Twitter jumped into the fun as well, Twitchy has the hysterical tweets and there were enough of them to have the hash tag #suziparkerscoops trending.
Evidently Ms. Parker did not appreciate all the attention because she started blocking folks giving her the attention she so richly earned.
