Both Sarah Palin and the mainstream news media are tweaking The Washington Post after one of its writers ran afoul of parody. The newspaper’s “She the People” blogger Suzi Parker fell for a Daily Currant story claiming that Mrs. Palin had joined Al Jazeera as a correspondent. The Daily Currant is a satire news site. The fare is clever, but fake.
Ms. Parker wrote: “It appears that Palin is still trying to find ways to stay relevant while her 15 minutes fades into the political history books.”
Yeah, well.
“Hey Washington Post,” the former Alaska governor said in a quick reaction Tweet. “I’m having coffee with Elvis this week. He works at the Mocha Moose in Wasilla.”
Mrs. Palin included an “idiotmedia” hash tag with her entry, and a link to the erroneous story.
Then there’s press reaction. Among 20 different stories, Newser.com says the paper was “punked.” At Mediaite and Yahoo, it was “fooled.” Media Bistro reported, “Oopsy.”
The Post gave no interviews, but offered a terse correction in the sticky aftermath:
“An earlier version of this post 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.”
