Did you hear the "source" of all those leaks about Palin "from the McCain camp"?
By thedogshrink
@thedogshrink (1266)
United States
November 16, 2008 12:38pm CST
This is unbelievable and unacceptable. Another case of the media just not doing their job.
Two men admitted that they are the "anonymous source" from within the McCain campaign who "leaked" all the nasty "inside info" about Sarah Palin.
The scary part? The man who identified himself as as close and trusted higher up in the McCain campaign is just an actor!!!!
They did the whole thing as a hoax.
Never mind that it is a terrible thing to do to anyone, and these men should have known better.
Let's talk about the media that "broke" this "news"!!
This would have been an easy vetting job -- he gave them his full name (a made up name that they claim was a Christian first name and a Jewish last name, because they felt that was reminiscent of the 'neo-cons' of the Clinton administration.)
So how much time would it have taken the media to just check and find out who this totally unknown "senior campaign insider" really was?
Instead they just immediately sent the word out that Palin was a diva, threw temper tantrums, bought clothes on campaign workers' credit cards and shopped like there was no tomorrow (another clue that this was fake, since we know that if Palin had taken time form the campaign trail to go shopping in Neiman Marcus the pictures would have been all over the internet and the news instantly), and more.
This hoax caused undue pain for Palin, her family, and for McCain's campaign which was made to look very bad because of this.
Don't you think the media has a responsibility to verify their "news" before they publish?? It USED to be a high standard, and any reporter who was caught like this, disseminating false info based on a single anonymous source, would have faced disciplinary action, probably firing, over this. But it seems all the standards and rules for news "journalists" and reporters has gone out the door, and anything goes, now, as if they are all just entertainment/gossip columnists.
Does anyone remember what happened to Connie Chung? She didn't report a hoax as a fact. She did use a tactic to persuade Newt Gingrich's 68 yr old mother to say something "off the record" that she shouldn't have said.
Just 12 years later, I have a feeling this will just fall by the wayside and the reporter(s) will not even get a scolding...But this seems worse than the impropriety of confusing an elderly woman who was not used to being interviewed (which was not right either): this is reporting anonymous "leaks" as real news without even bothering to verify that the anonymous person is who they say they are!
6 people like this
10 responses
@xfahctor (14118)
• Lancaster, New Hampshire
16 Nov 08
"This is unbelievable and unacceptable"
Unacceptable, yes, unbelievable, not at all. Just more in a long line of a campagin of dis-info, smearing, slander, lible, cruelty and just plain sewrage ridden filth the media conspired to use to skew the public perception of Palin. It tainted EVERYTHING about it. And worse and even sadder, it is ireversable. No matter how much of the truth comes out, what will be forver emblazened in the minds of the public will be the image the media created and there wil be no refuting it at all among the people who apposed her.
3 people like this
@thedogshrink (1266)
• United States
16 Nov 08
Yes, I agree. I meant unbelievable as a term of outrage. It's very believable as we've seen it so much.
This would have been BIG NEWS not that many years ago.
We'll have to see how much coverage it gets.
Yes, I agree that a lot of it is not reversible. They have ruined the reputation of a governor who, by all accounts from people who have met her, or worked with her, is very bright, very capable and has done good things for her state.
I've seen people be mad because of Pres Clinton's reputation being ruined over all the scandals with women while he was in the White House. But they never understood that HE brought that ruin on himself with his own actions.
Sarah Palin brought nothing on herself. She doesn't deserve to have her reputation ruined, and have her family dragged thru the mud with her. If people jumped all over Biden every time he made mistakes in an interview (like they did with Palin's Katie Couric interview), he'd be long gone by now, instead of about to move on up...
2 people like this
@Destiny007 (5805)
• United States
16 Nov 08
Yes, I read about it, and also read about Fox News being just as guilty as the rest for not checking the facts first.
I hope that Palin slaps these two with a lawsuit so hard that the only thing they can afford for the rest of their life is peanut butter. Slander and Libel are still crimes... and are also actionable in civil court as well.
These guys were pulling this hoax during a very contentious campaign where the press was giving Palin all the negative press that they could throw at her in the first place.
As it is, the press got 0bama elected.
3 people like this
@thedogshrink (1266)
• United States
16 Nov 08
Yes, I was very annoyed at Fox for reporting it in the way they did, even tho many people on Fox did explain that the source would not be identified and no one could therefore check it out. But I saw it reported more than once where it was not clear that it was an anonymous quote that is not verified, but made it sound like it was really true.
3 people like this
@ladygator (3465)
• United States
17 Nov 08
This is just awful. I hate seeing stuff like this and they are no better then stalkers. I think people that pry and agressively work to mess up someone elses life should have some action taken against them.
1 person likes this
@Barb42 (4214)
• United States
16 Nov 08
I became so upset with Carl Cameron on Fox News when he reported this as fact and the rest ran with it. I thought it was very unprofessional of him to report this story as fact from an anonymous person without every checking to see if the facts were true. And, when he smiled at Shepard Smith while he told about it sort of spoke to the kind of reporter he was. But I commend Sarah Palin for being so professional and not biting. She knew it wasn't so, said so, and wondered why someone would remain anonymous if they were actually telling the truth. It will never be cleared up; nobody will ever even get a reprimand! It will all but pushed under the rug. Even the conservative reporters have become liberals, at times! I suppose this little gaffe wasn't as bad as what Connie Chung did to Newt's mother, that is, it isn't to the news media. But it sure is to me! And I know it had some impact on people. It makes me wonder who put this person up to doing this. It had to be done to pull her down in people's eyes.
@thedogshrink (1266)
• United States
17 Nov 08
I agree about Cameron. Rose, you are right, too, about the Republican Governors Association: Palin was totally welcomed WARMLY and she got a standing ovation when she FIRST got up to speak, as well as when she finished her speech.
Her speech was great, very focused and humorous as well. And I saw a lot of McCain-Palin signs in the audience even tho it was after the election.
She did a great job and if anyone bothers to listen to any of her speeches, the VP debate, or any interview besides Couric OR just look at her actual record in Alaska, it is CLEAR that she is NOT the lightweight that they try to make her out to be. And I'm not a feminist, but I have to say that I don't think it would happen this way if she were exactly the same only male. They would not be making fun and painting a picture of her as a summy, unless she made REPEATED gaffes -- and as Biden showed us, you have to really make a LOT of them before anyone even notices if you are a male Democrat. Hillary could not be criticzied as outright as Palin because of her history and because she's Democrat, but she was not treated as well as Obama or Biden.
One only needs look at the way Obama was accepted: "His lack of experience doesn't bother me at all". And look at the way it was for Palin: "She's not ready to be a heart beat away from the Presidency".
It seems obvious that it was really a matter of the country not being ready to accept a woman in the EITHER POSITION!
1 person likes this
@Barb42 (4214)
• United States
17 Nov 08
All the lies that were told were done so to try and hurt her in the eyes of the public. But she's not lost any appeal with those that see her as she really is - very intelligent, knowledgeable of things she should know (although they tried to make her look dumb), family-oriented as well as a great politician! Those had to be liberals who didn't want McCain and Palin to win that spread all the lies. They now say it was an actor which does tell you something. What they did only made Sarah Palin more popular in my eyes! But Carl Cameron has really disappointed me and lost lots of favor! My husband was already disappointed in him for other reasons from a long time ago. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt until this happened!
2 people like this
@soooobored (1184)
• United States
16 Nov 08
"Let's talk about the media that "broke" this "news"!!"
From what I understand, Fox news "broke the news". Which is I guess kind of ironic, had it been one of the more liberal media people probably would have fact-checked. I agree that it is irresponsible journalism, I'm not sure that I would recommend firing anyone. I guess the punishment will be the viewers will start to take Fox news with a grain of salt.
2 people like this
@thedogshrink (1266)
• United States
16 Nov 08
My understanding was that someone else broke the news and Fox reported it.
I will go and check that out.
When I first saw Cameron's report on Fox, it sounded like he was quoting other news sources, who were the ones quoting an anonymous source and he said he had no idea who the source was.
1 person likes this
@chameleonsdream (1230)
• United States
16 Nov 08
The pranksters behind Eisenstadt acknowledge that he was not, through them, the anonymous source of the Palin leak. He just claimed falsely that he was the leaker--and they say they have no reason to cast doubt on the original story. For its part, Fox News Channel continues to stand behind its story.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/arts/television/13hoax.html
In other words, the hoax was him saying that he was the source, not making up a story. It's like the guys craving publicity that admit to murders that they didn't do. They didn't "leak" the story, they just claimed credit for it.
@thedogshrink (1266)
• United States
16 Nov 08
Hmmm.. I STAND CORRECTED. Sorry, but I hadn't read the Times. I had just heard this on the tv news, which apparently was one that fell for the hoax too.
Oh, sorry guys!
1 person likes this
@chameleonsdream (1230)
• United States
16 Nov 08
No need to be embarrassed - you're only the third (at least) person who posted the same thing. I'll add what I said in those discussions here too - someone from the campaign -did- say this. I believe what Palin herself said about this: someone took something out of context from her debate prep interviews, or misunderstood something that was said during the prep. Since part of the original quote said something about South Africa, I'll bet she asked someone to clarify whether they meant the country or the southern region of Africa.
I never put a lot of stock into those kinds of quotes because it's so very easy to take a sentence out of context and make it sound like the person means the exact opposite of what they actually said. And I got a real clear example of how easy it is to mishear something the other night on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Matthews was interviewing Pat Buchannan and a Republican strategist about the best direction for the Republican party. At one point, the strategist said that he thought the party needs to take a good hard look at itself and decide what it actually stands for, and Buchannan shot back, almost under his voice, "You need to take a good hard look at YOUR self". The conversation devolved into a lot of crosstalk, and somewhere in the middle of it all, Buchannan said something with the words "can" and "move" in it, which the strategist misheard as Buchannan telling him that he should move to Canada. The man left the show fully certain that Buchannan had essentially suggested that he was unpatriotic and should move to Canada, while Matthews and Buchannan were completely at a loss as to where he got that impression.
So much of this campaign has broken down into that kind of "telephone" game with words taken out of context and amplified by bouncing around an echo chamber. I think many of us may never recover from all the mis-truths and misinterpretations that were shouted and broadcast as absolute truth over the past two years.
1 person likes this
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
16 Nov 08
The media seems to just grab at anything that can make headlines, especially if it not for the party they are supporting.
1 person likes this
@suspenseful (40193)
• Canada
17 Nov 08
I can understand why the media reported these lies as fact and slandered Mrs. Palin. They wanted to have a black president, anyone. Why if Idi Amin had been born in the United States instead of Africa they would have nominated him. And Obama was not far from him. The only reason he will not be as dangerous is because of the Constitution.
I think those creeps that spread the lies were probably planted there by the Democrats to get Obama elected and McCain discredited.
I would call this an illegal election and that Obama will not be able to call himself president. I hope that he steps down.
@thedogshrink (1266)
• United States
17 Nov 08
He's not stepping down, that's for sure!
I think they wanted a LIBERAL President, and NOT a woman. I don't think they cared what color he is.
People like to think that race is everything in the US, but it is not, no longer.
Most people have far more important items on their agenda.
@Yestheypayme2dothis (7874)
• United States
17 Nov 08
When this first came out, I said that I believed they were planted there. And yes, I still believe that it is VERY possible that they were planted there by the Obama people. Since so much of the media is considered liberal and voting for Obama, why would they want to check it out? They were thrilled to report it.
1 person likes this
@newtondak (3946)
• United States
16 Nov 08
The media is constantly quoting "aides" or "advisers" from the various campaigns - which basically means that the information has no reliable source. John McCain said in one of his interviews that if they actually had all the "advisers" on staff that the media has indicated they have received information from, they would have 5000 advisers on staff!
1 person likes this
