Breitbart.com’s Epic Fail of the Day: The Fake Story That Paul Krugman Filed for Bankruptcy
Seems like it was only yesterday that Breitbart editor John “Murder the Liberal Teachers” Nolte posted a lengthy gloat about the Washington Post falling for a satirical story at The Daily Currant, slamming author Suzi Parker for not recognizing a parody and ending with this memorable sentence: “[Palin] drives members of the elite media so crazy that the blindness of their hate overwhelms common sense to a such point that they turn into public laughingstocks overnight.”
…never one to let facts get in the way of a good Narrative, the “we-meant-to-do-that” Post merely added a correction, changed the headline to “Sarah Palin tries to stay relevant,” scrubbed the Al-Jazeera references (the original post can be read here), and still ripped Palin for, uhm, being so desperate to stay relevant.
If Parker had a shred of self-awareness, integrity, and dignity, she would have changed the headline to “Too Good To Check,” and under it posted an essay about how shallow, smug, bitterly angry partisanship can blind you to common sense.
Yes, all the Washington Post did was add a correction, in bold text, right at the top of the article.
When breitbart.com editor Larry O’Connor fell for yet another Daily Currant story today about New York Times economist Paul Krugman filing for bankruptcy, how did the excellent right wing journalists at Breitbart handle it?
They just deleted it with no correction or explanation at all: Breitbart.com Runs With Satirical Story About Krugman Filing for Bankruptcy.
A screenshot of the deleted page:
Paul Krugman says he’s been Breitbarted.
OK, I’m an evil person — and my scheming has paid off.
On Friday I started hearing from friends about a fake story making the rounds about my allegedly filing for personal bankruptcy; I even got asked about the story by a reporter from Russian television, who was very embarrassed when I told him it was fake. But I decided not to post anything about it; instead, I wanted to wait and see which right-wing media outlets would fall for the hoax.
And Breitbart.com came through!
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give a lavishly paid speech to Friends of Hamas.