Paul krugman bankruptcy snopes

Just what conservative media needed: another embarrassing misstep.

Breitbart.com ridiculed Paul Krugman for filing for Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection in a since-deleted post whose claims originated with a satire website. Just last month, Breitbart.com castigated a news outlet for running with a story from that same website.

Yes, this morning, Breitbart.com, a prominent far-right news site, published a piece claiming the Nobel Laureate has filed for bankruptcy, which is not true. The report was based on a satirical item published by a humor site called the Daily Currant.

This morning, Krugman said he caught wind of the joke a few days ago, but didn't say anything because he wanted to see "which right-wing media outlets would fall for the hoax." Krugman added, "And Breitbart.com came through! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go give a lavishly paid speech to Friends of Hamas."

In fairness, it's true that some satirical items can sometimes seem true, and will occasionally trip up unsuspecting folks in media. I remember when it happened to me nine years ago, and I'm still kicking myself for getting fooled. (Of course, when I fell for a gag, I ran a correction. When Breitbart.com was wrong, it deleted the content as if it hadn't been published.)

But the latest misstep comes against an unfortunate backdrop: the Daily Caller's dubious Menendez scandal; Friends of Hamas; the right falling for Bob Woodward's recent claims; "Unskewed Polls"; Malaysian propaganda, etc.

Erick Erickson complained the other day, "I think conservative media is failing to advance ideas and stories. That's true, but increasingly, they're failing to get the basics right, too.

A satirical item published last week purporting that economist had filed for bankruptcy has spread to Boston.com and the conservative website Breitbart this morning.

The item originated in The Daily Currant, a satirical news site. Austria's Format online magazine picked it up, and their report was subsequently cited by Boston.com. Then it spread to Breitbart.

It has since been taken down this morning, but here's a screenshot:

Krugman responded to the mix-up this morning, writing on his blog that he knew of the fake news item and was asked about it by a Russian television station. He wrote that he did not address it on his blog because he "wanted to wait and see which right-wing media outlets would fall for the hoax."

"Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give a lavishly paid speech to Friends of Hamas," Krugman quipped, referring to Breitbart's recent invention of a group purportedly tied to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that ended up not actually existing.

Boston.com's version was taken down early this afternoon. It appeared to originate from The Prudent Investor blog, which sourced Austria's format magazine. Here's a screenshot of what Boston.com's piece looked like:

The Daily Currant is the same site the Washington Post cited in a false report last month that former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was joining Al Jazeera.

(HT: @lachlan)

This post has been updated.

Now Watch – KRUGMAN: Sweden Has The Answers To Our Taxation Problems

Remember when Sarah Palin joined Al Jazeera America? Or Paul Krugman declared bankruptcy?

Neither of these stories were true. But in a social-media-driven news cycle that moves at perpetual warp speed, these falsehoods raced out ahead of the facts.

Now Facebook, clearly self-conscious about its role as a leading venue where these lies spread, is trying to enlist its own users as crusaders for accuracy. In a blog post on Tuesday, the company said it was adding an option to its social networking service that will let users flag news stories as hoaxes. If you elect to hide a post in your Facebook News Feed, the company explains, you will be able to flag it as "a false news story," in much the same way you can flag pornographic and violent content today.

The more times a post is flagged as false, the less often it will show up in News Feeds, the company says. Facebook won't delete heavily flagged posts, but they could end up with a disclaimer: "Many people on Facebook have reported that this story contains false information."

Nonetheless, this effort to crowd-source journalistic accuracy carries its dangers. Think The New York Times is a liberal rag spreading dangerous left-wing propaganda? Click. Think Fox News is run by a bunch of shills for the Koch brothers? Click. It's not like Facebook is asking for corroborating fact-checking before letting you click a button.

But Facebook claims the process works. "Stories that include scams, or deliberately misleading news, are reported two and a half times more often than links to other news stories," Facebook engineer Erich Owens and researcher Udi Weinsberg wrote.

The High Stakes of Hoaxes

Whether or not the crowd is as wise to journalistic fraud as Facebook hopes, the stakes for the company are high. As Facebook continues to grow in importance as a driver of traffic to online publishers' sites, clickbait mills have sprung up to feed on social media users' gullibi

A satirical item published last week purporting that economist Paul Krugman had filed for bankruptcy has spread to Boston.com and the conservative website Breitbart this morning. 

The item originated in The Daily Currant, a satirical news site. Austria's Format online magazine picked it up, and their report was subsequently cited by Boston.com. Then it spread to Breitbart.

It has since been taken down this morning, but here's a screenshot:

Krugman responded to the mix-up this morning, writing on his blog that he knew of the fake news item and was asked about it by a Russian television station. He wrote that he did not address it on his blog because he "wanted to wait and see which right-wing media outlets would fall for the hoax."

"Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go give a lavishly paid speech to Friends of Hamas," Krugman quipped, referring to Breitbart's recent invention of a group purportedly tied to Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that ended up not actually existing.

Boston.com's version was taken down early this afternoon. It appeared to originate from The Prudent Investor blog, which sourced Austria's format magazine. Here's a screenshot of what Boston.com's piece looked like:

The Daily Currant is the same site the Washington Post cited in a false report last month that former Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin was joining Al Jazeera.

(HT: @lachlan)

This post has been updated.

Now Watch – KRUGMAN: Sweden Has The Answers To Our Taxation Problems