Washington Post Fooled by Fake Story on Sarah Palin Joining Al-Jazeera

Washington Post contributor Suzi Parker was recently duped by a satirical news website into reporting that former Alaskan Governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin accepted a position at the Al-Jazeera news network to reach millions of "devoutly religious people."

The fake story originated on the left-leaning satirical website Dailycurrant.com. Other stories featured on the website on Wednesday include, "Glenn Beck Introduces Gold-Plated Muslim Detector" and " 7 Dead in MSNBC / Fox News Charity Softball Mêlée."

In the Washington Post piece called "Sarah Palin tries to stay relevant," Parker wrote about the former Fox host.

"Fox News and their once-upon-a-time darling Palin recently parted ways after three years," she said. "But it appears that Palin is still trying to find ways to stay relevant while her 15 minutes fades into the political history books."

She reported the false news, writing, "late last week Al-Jazeera America announced the former vice-presidential candidate would be joining their news network," according to Politico's Dylan Byers.

Parker also includes quotes attributed to Palin in the Daily Currant's satirical piece, which was published on Feb. 4.

"As you all know, I’m not a big fan of newspapers, journalists, news anchors and the liberal media in general,” Palin told the Web site The Daily Currant. “But I met with the folks at Al-Jazeera and they told me they reach millions of devoutly religious people who don’t watch CBS or CNN. That tells me they don’t have a liberal bias."

Palin, the former Alaska governor, took to Twitter on Tuesday to dispel the false report, posting a flurry of comments.

Hey @washingtonpost, I'm having coffee with Elvis this week. He works at the Mocha Moose in Wasilla. #suziparkerscoops #idiotmedia

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013

@suziparker Nah. Turned 'em down. Their $22 million offer was too low.... just kidding. Really. #suziparkerscoops #idiotmedia

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013

A @washingtonpost writer once promised not to write about me for a month. That was a good month for me. #idiotmedia

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013

WaPo & like-minded MSM entities, you're about as credible as, well, Barack Obama. Can't wait for tonight's SOTU to point out more examples.

— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) February 12, 2013

Al-Jazeera spokesman Stan Collender also confirmed that Sarah Palin would not be joining the network.

The original Washington Post story has been revised, omitting the erroneous statement about Palin. The Washington Post also posted a correction atop the article.

"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 statement said. "The blogger cited a report on the Daily Currant Web site as the basis for that information without realizing that the piece was satirical."

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