Filmmakers Behind Fake McCain Adviser Discuss Tricking The Media (VIDEO)

Dan Mirvish and Eitan Gorlin appeared on CNN's Reliable Sources to discuss how they tricked the media by creating a fake McCain adviser named Martin Eisenstadt. The duo were able to fool such reputable news organizations as The New York Times, The New Republic, and, most famously, MSNBC, whose anchor David Schuster reported live on air that Martin Eisenstadt had been identified as the McCain adviser who leaked that Sarah Palin was unaware Africa is a continent. Schuster quickly retracted the report. (Fox News' Carl Cameron was the first to report on the Palin-Africa story, and he has said that his source was not the phony Eisenstadt.)

Watch a clip from Reliable Sources.

Comments

[DinSea]

... not to mention how TV news shows fill up their rosters with tabloid re-hash or cut & paste from Huff Post & other blogs, rather than doing the field work getting FRESH news & vetting both story & source for themselves.
Short cuts.
Sensationalism.
Cheap, like fast food news - no nutrition, but marketing so aggressive that it skews people's logic into thinking they are being fed.

[Danny]

HuffPo, I believe, check their sources. Sometimes they get it wrong like the "study" by the American Enterprise Inst. guy who "debunked" the "small donor" theory pushing Obama to the top. Obama genuinely got the small donor crowd and beat GW '04 at 50+ of small donors vs. 38% for W, if the parameters are kept comparable (length of campaigning, etc.). See Editor & Publisher article on .... HuffPo.

[Beowoof]

Standard espionage tactic----disinformation. It has been used in the coup d'etat throughout the world that has brought down leaders of many nations. "Legitimate" news organizations should have done their homework. Dan Rather took the fall for something similar.

[RSU]

Dan Rather didn't take the fall, he was guilty of doing the same thing and got caught.

[geobushono]

Oh Really?? Dan Rather made up fictional stories??.................funny, but I thought his 'crime was lack of due diligence........silly me. confusing the record with your faulty memory.

[TruthaboutIraq]

disinformation and out and out LIES are normal in america media..........

[ChristianEcon.com]

Corporate America takin' care of Corporate America, via the gullible.

[latola]

He makes a good point in his last statement "Are the real (left and right wing) pundits any more qualified than we (fake pundits) are?" I confess that even though I am extremely liberal and prefer to hear the left wing pundits express my views on air, I prefer more the discussions without the "strategists." The conversations with journalist who have more objective views are far more interesting and helpful to viewers. I would like to see the networks reduce or eliminate all those segments with right wing and left wing "strategists" or pundits, if you will. That would lend more credibility to the programs AND fit the mood of the country right now. I think the last election proved that we are tired of "us and them," "with us or without us," "patriotic or un-American" divisive talk.

That's me, anyway.

[derekc06]

well it's not really fair... the wrong way always happens to be conservative... so if talking about doing things the right way makes you a liberal pundit...

so be it...

as long as rachael and keith aren't making up or trying to spin the facts then we're alright...

[Danny]

me, too, latola.

[NeoLiberal]

Perhaps this will help the MSM, once and for all, question words from people's mouths as truth or spin, and do a little research to learn the REAL facts.

[lylo]

No.
It's happened many times before, will happen many times again.
If you are expecting the MSM to research and review before they publish, do not hold your breath.

[Mutande]

This hoax is a hoax. A little research will uncover that Martin Eisenstadt did in fact work for the McCain campaign, but that was not his real name. His real name is Mort Scrivener and he was used by the McCain campaign to set up a straw man re: Palin's bogus comments to then reveal them as being invented by the liberal left to discredit her. This backfired when it turned out that so many people believed that Palin actually didn't know that Africa was a continent. Other purposely leaked false rumors were that Palin thought that Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon, and that the moon was the other side of the sun. An independent research study showed that 67 percent of the people interviewed actually believed that these were Palin's true beliefs. Oh, and everything I'm reporting here is not true.

[richardwb]

Brilliant, Mutande.
Best laugh of the day, so far.

Best Wishes,
World Peace.

[SammyD]

This proves there is no credible news outlets in America. Also, the lack of fact checking during this election is sad for America. America is now no different than any other country in the world. You are fed only what the media wants you to see and believe. Americans now lack an adequate education for critical thinking. America=idiots breeding idiots.

[lylo]

Actually, we are very different from the rest of the world.
Many countries are well educated and have a decent media.
We are a disgrace to humanity.

[stanschurman]

Not entirely accurate. Your contention that "America is now no different than any other country in the world" gives not enough credit to foreign news services. True, the press is manipulated or outright controlled in some totalitarian countries, but generally the foreign press is much more inquisitive than the American news media. They don't take every utterence of the government as the gospel as did the US networks and print news media during the lead up to the was in Iraq. America suffers from one of the least curious among the world's news media.

[SammyD]

agree

[Jebbushnot]

Nothing was fake about O'Reilly promoting McCain for the Election and favoring Bush for 8 long years...same with the other "all stars"
on FauxNews.
People didn't vote for McCain/Palin because they offered nothing
but trite Republican slogans.

[honeydiva]

I despise kurtz and hope he topples soon. schuster (whom i'm no big fan) is getting a raw deal; he was given the story by his producers, the media over all sucks and no one is shocked by this mess.

[carlgt1]

so Palin really didn't know Africa was a continent and not a country; the "lie" was that this phony person was the "leaker" of this info

[AmbivalentGuy]

Love it.
Great point at the end
"picking out the red M & Ms and the green M & Ms ... ".

[ProfessorDuh]

Cable news "reporters" spend their time reading press releases aloud, or just pontificating without facts. What do you expect?

[booksnmore4you]

Precisely. I get so sick of watching news media where I am more informed than the "experts".

We need an army of "hackers" trying to trick the media like in this instance.

[Velocitor]

Everybody is laughing this off like some frat-boy prank... in truth it exposes the state of fact-checking in our pitiful media. Far from being a "watchdog" Fourth Estate, big Media just accepts any official-sounding newssource and runs off with whatever story they are fed. Much of what is going wrong with this country is due to the poor state of our media, including: 1) ownership is very centralized, ensuring only a narrow range of opinions (i.e.those favorable to its global corporate ownership and its cadre of bought politicians) is transmitted. ; 2) the glut of news outlets, especially the cable television outlets with 24hours of broadcast time to fill each day virtually ensures that fact checking will be cursory at best, and most stories will not meet old standards of newsworthiness (witness the coverage of Hollywood celebrities today vs. thirty or forty years ago).

[Danny]

You said it, Velocitor.

[firewmn]

Burned Em...!!..... lol