Rachel Maddow’s show on MSNBC often specializes in the application of obscure knowledge toward current political issues. But there’s one piece of info they missed out on: That an online post they picked up and amplified on the air was from a parody site.
As The Atlantic reports, Maddow last night reported on a post on the apparently right-wing site ChristWire.org calling upon Sarah Palin to support a U.S.-led invasion of Egypt in response to that country’s political crisis. “An American-led invasion of North Africa,” Maddow said in disbelief. “To be clear, this is what these folks are asking Sarah Palin to do. This is not Ms. Palin’s own idea.”
The only problem: ChristWire is a satirical site!
Maddow tweeted a correction late last night:
The bad news about a free and open internet? Sometimes you get had by brilliant satirists. Christwire: 1 TRMS: 0
Watch the video of the original segment below:
In response, ChristWire posted a lengthy response piece from the fictional “Stephenson Billings,” fully in character:
The fact is Maddow has done incalculable harm to the America we know and love. She smirks and guffaws her way through every newscast with an ersatz humility. She is like a schmaltzy Catskills comedian, desperate for a few claps of pitying applause as we anxiously make our way to the bar.
The site, and its founders, were the subject of a 2010 New York Times profile:
Neither Mr. Watson nor Mr. Butvidas is a crusading atheist. Mr. Watson calls himself “an observant Catholic,” and Mr. Butvidas is a nondenominational Protestant who is “religious for the most part.” Their target, they say, is not Christians but those who do not question what they hear on the news.
“There’s just rampant idiocy in the media sometimes,” Mr. Watson said. “People watch their favorite news channels, don’t question it and will regurgitate it the next day at the office. That is no good at all.”
“Our main culprit,” he adds, “is Fox News.”
Mark Oppenheimer, the author of the Times piece added: “A close reader of ChristWire will soon figure out (one hopes) that the site is not serious. But many of the columns are deft enough, just plausible enough, to fool the casual reader. Even — or perhaps especially — a reader whose beliefs are being mocked.”
Eric Kleefeld
Eric Kleefeld joined TPM as an intern for the final months of the 2006 midterm elections, and then kept showing up for work. His other interests include guitars, old comic books and the politics of various English-speaking countries.
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