The Washington Post has erroneously reported that Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential candidate and former Fox News contributor, is joining the Qatari-owned news network Al Jazeera.
"Late last week Al Jazeera America announced the former vice-presidential candidate would be joining their news network," the Post's Suzi Parker writes today in a post on the She The People blog, titled "Sarah Palin’s plan to reach ‘millions of devoutly religious people’ through al-Jazeera."
Parker calls this "a cautionary tale about what can happen when politics and celebrity meet."
But Parker's report is a cautionary tale about what can happen when writers cite satirical websites, such as The Daily Currant.
On Feb. 4, the Daily Currant published a satirical piece stating that Palin was "bouncing back by joining the fledgling Al Jazeera America news network as a host and commentator." Parker cites this piece and uses quotes that the Currant attributes to Palin, including:
“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.”
Al Jazeera spokesman Stan Collender confirmed to POLITICO that Sarah Palin is not joining the global news network, which -- as Parker notes -- was recently called “an anti-American terror mouthpiece" on Fox News, where Palin was a contributor. (I've written at length about American opposition to Al Jazeera.)