Several news outlets and liberal blogs were fooled this weekend by a faux-news item that claimed Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) had advocated “Americanization” camps for undocumented migrant children.
Think Progress, as well as Daily Kos and Crooks and Liars, picked up a story from kctv7.com headlined “Michele Bachmann Suggests Labor Camps For Immigrant Children.” The report from KCTV 7, which bills itself as “a Kansas City news site,” stated that Bachmann advocated for “‘Americanization’ facilities” in an interview with a Minnesota talk radio station.
“I’m calling on all of us, Obama and Congress and everyone, to chip in and build special new facilities… `Americanization’ facilities, if you will,” the report quoted Bachmann as saying. “And we’d send these kids to these facilities, in Arizona and Texas and wherever else. And we’d get private sector business leaders to locate to those facilities and give these children low-risk jobs to do. And they’d learn about the American way of life, earn their keep, and everyone wins in the end.”
But as Raw Story pointed out, the article on KCTV 7 was lifted verbatim from The National Report, a satirical news website. KCTV 7 also appears to be a faux-news outlet, as Kansas City does have a news station with the call sign KCTV 5.
The outlets that ran with the satirical story have since corrected their original posts.
I saw the story on several sites, and frankly, had no problem believing that Bachmann said what the articles credited to her. She has said and done some of the most simple minded things anyone in public life has. We’ll just wait for her next real life issue, and I feel sure it will top this.
Um, saying that DailyKos got duped, is rather specious.
There are like 1.2 million members there. All with the ability to write a diary (story).
One diarist got duped, along with perhaps 30 other people.
Wow. That’s almost a teabagger protest gathering.
Evidently, on-line journalism doesn’t stick to the simplest old rule of journalism that used to exist in other media: get TWO (2) sources to verify the news item before publication.
Think Progress, as well as Daily Kos and Crooks and Liars: perhaps you could hire some real journalists to fact-check and verify before rushing to publish?
Daily Kos is a community blog. Anyone can create an account and start posting, after which they gain or lose credibility by the quality of their posts. This person has posted just a few times, and isn’t one of the staff whose posts go on the frontpage.
I’m not familiar with Crooks and Liars, but Think Progress should have known better.
Satire is supposed to be exaggerated, not just making up something. It would have looked plausible to me too. The only clue was that the site linked to as Minnesota Public radio is a conservative talk station, but if you don’t know Minnesota or Kansas City media, there are no red flags. I guess we need to learn to hear the audio or hunt down the original article before believing.
Funny, but sad, that the story about Bachmann was so easy to believe.