MSNBC Reporter Gets Owned By Internet Parody Site, Al Sharpton’s Fighting Dolphins
This from an MSNBC article about Mike Vick’s legal woes:
But at the same time, Sharpton argued that the prosecution of Vick was overkill.
“If the police caught Brett Favre (a white quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) running a dolphin-fighting ring out of his pool, where dolphins with spears attached to their foreheads fought each other, would they bust him? Of course not,” Sharpton wrote Tuesday on his personal blog.
“They would get his autograph, commend him on his tightly spiraled forward passes, then bet on one of his dolphins.”
The problem is that Sharpton’s “personal blog” is really a clearly-marked parody site.
I don’t know what to laugh at more. The fact that this reporter, Alex Johnson, got taken in by a parody site or the fact that the parody of Sharpton was apparently so believable as something that Sharpton might actually say - spear-bearing dolphins and all - that Johnson believed it.
Regardless, MSNBC has now issued a correction:
An earlier version of this article quoted from a blog entry purportedly by the Rev. Al Sharpton. MSNBC.com has determined that the blog is a hoax. In July, Sharpton signed a letter with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemning dogfighting, saying: “Dogfighting is unacceptable. Hurting animals for human pleasure or gain is despicable. Cruelty is just plain wrong.”
Calling the Sharpton post a “hoax” when it is pretty clearly the work of a satirical writer which was intended for humor is a little dishonest, but whatever. At least they owned up to the mistake and didn’t just disappear it down the memory hole as most big-media types do.
