Did You Hear the One About the Lefty Slate Writer Who Fell for a Hoax Article?
Remember how Dave Weigel of Slate mocked Charles C. Johnson for falling for a hoax story from a satirical edition of The Daily Princetonian? I do. Even though the link is now broken…
Patterico's Pontifications 4/6/2014 Did You Hear the One About the Lefty Slate Writer Who Fell for a Hoax Article? Filed under: General — Patterico @ 2:48 pm Remember how Dave Weigel of Slate mocked Charles C. Johnson for falling for a hoax story from a satirical edition of The Daily Princetonian? I do. Even though the link is now broken, it’s still available in Google’s cache.* Yet when Slate itself linked a hoax story — and explicitly said that the hoax story wasn’t fanciful, did you hear about that? Me neither. Even though it happened a month ago, I can’t find any discussion about it on these here Interwebz. I think it’s time we corrected that oversight, don’t you? The piece in question was titled Ross Douthat’s Canny (and Utterly Dishonest) Defense of Homophobia by Mark Joseph Stern, whom Andrew Sullivan has amusingly described as “the gay politburo official at Slate.” Stern opens his piece with a hypothetical in which a host at a restaurant refuses to seat a lesbian couple and their child, and is reprimanded by the restaurant’s management. Who is the victim in this situation? Stern asks. The family? The child? The restaurant? He continues: None of the above, according to New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat: By his moral calculus, the host would be the true victim, the family the “victors,” and the hypothetical—which is far from fanciful—demonstrates not the continuing threat of discrimination in America, but, rather, the marginalization of devout Christians at the hands of bellicose pro-gay forces.* At the bottom of the article there is now a correction: *Correction, March 4, 2014: This post originally linked the words “far from fanciful” to a TopekasNews article that claimed a restaurant had ejected a gay man telling him “no gay eating here.” The article is a hoax. The words now link to a Chickasha Express-Star article about a gay man who alleges he was ejected from a Walmart store. In other words, Stern linked the words “far from fanciful” to a hoax article that was pure fantasy. The publication linked by Stern was TopekasNews.com, which bills itself as “A Progressive Voice for the Free Thinker” . . . but which is, in reality, a poor man’s The Onion: an obvious hoax publication. I took this screenshot from the main page of the publication today: In addition to the stories in this screenshot, including the one about the gay relationship of Vladimir Putin and Kin Jong Un, or the one about the “local cat” who is “traumatized” upon seeing his owners have sex, the publication also has stories such as: Tearful George Takei Confesses His Homosexuality Is ‘Just An Act’, It’s ‘All In My Head’ New Undated Photograph Proves Neil DeGrasse Tyson is Barack Obama’s Father Local Chicken Gives Birth to Puppy, Gay Marriage Laws to Blame We have a new crusade for you, Mark Joseph Stern! The bigoted author of the story blaming chicken-puppies on gay marriage laws simply must be taken to task!!! The Slate correction does not provide a direct hyperlink to the article, but I found it. It is titled Kansas Restaurant Kicks Gay Man Out, Tells Him “No Gay Eating Here.” In Stern’s defense, while the piece tries to be funny, it fails, as do most of the articles on this extremely amateurish satire Web site. The “What is wrong. What is this sign meaning,” Quinns-Smith asked, feeling uncomfortable as eyes rested on him. “It means you and your boyfriend can’t come eating in here no more, unless you find God,” a customer seated offered a response before staff said anything. “You need to find God and the Bible,” someone else yelled out. The floodgates were open. “We don’t want your germs on the silverware.” ”Just repent son, you can still be forgiven and be normal.” ”Being gay is not natural. It is not God’s way.” The numerous comments to the story include dozens of comments detailing reasons that the story is an obvious hoax: the fact that it is set in “Franton, Kansas,” which does not exist; the rather obvious Photoshopping of the sign referred to in the story; and so on. Most of these comments were left in February 2014, before Stern’s March 3, 2014 article was published — meaning that if Stern had read any of the comments, he could have saved himself some embarrassment. Here is a typical comment: There’s also the fact that virtually every story at the publication is an obvious hoax, meaning that the publication didn’t get trolled — the publication is doing the trolling. To me, the first point made by the commenter above is the critical one: the idea that an entire restaurant would suddenly start heaping abuse on a gay patron should draw skepticism. The commenter notes that this is unlikely “even in deep KS” — but note that it is not alleged to happen in “deep Kansas” but in Topeka, a capital city with over 100,000 people and a Democrat mayor. In short, it would take a fairly clueless gay-mafia ideologue to believe this story. Oh, hi, Mark Joseph Stern! We were just talking about you! Are your ears burning? When conservatives fall for a hoax, it generally makes a splash. When Larry O’Connor linked an article which in turn was based on a hoax article, Media Matters blasted O’Connor — even though the publication he himself had linked was a supposedly reputable news source: Boston.com, a Web site launched under the auspices of the Boston Globe. And we have already seen how Dave Weigel blasted Charles C. Johnson for relying on an article from a satirical edition of a normally straight-news publication: The Daily Princetonian. Yet when a hard-left scold at Slate.com gets snookered by a piece from an obvious hoax site, there is, seemingly, not a peep about it. I hope this post provides a corrective to that collective oversight by the Internet. *UPDATE: I don’t intend to suggest that Weigel is hiding something because the link was broken when I wrote the post. Oddly enough, it works for me now. Comments (16) 16 Responses to “Did You Hear the One About the Lefty Slate Writer Who Fell for a Hoax Article?” This post is background for a post I plan to do about Stern’s ridiculous comments on the Mozilla ouster of its CEO who donated to Prop. 8. Patterico (9c670f) — 4/6/2014 @ 2:50 pm Tearful George Takei Confesses His Homosexuality Is ‘Just An Act’, It’s ‘All In My Head’ Oh, myyy. carlitos (e7c734) — 4/6/2014 @ 2:54 pm So if they don’t teach you how to spot a pretty obvious hoax at journalism school, what DO they teach exactly? Fenway_Nation (22ec9c) — 4/6/2014 @ 2:59 pm What we often forget is that the easiest hoax for any of us to believe is when it fits in with our own beliefs … And it would seem that the hoax expressed the prejudices and bigotry of the writer – Mark Joseph Stern … confirmed by the use of the “dog whistle” phrase – since he is hearing the “dog whistle”, that would indeed make him the “dog” … Fenway Nation #3 – it would seem that “journalism school” teaches current ‘journalists’ to goebbel hoaxes right up and swallow ’em whole … Alastor (2e7f9f) — 4/6/2014 @ 3:19 pm I’m under the impression they teach you to be a self-righteous, pompous, condescending @$$. Steve57 (e3957b) — 4/6/2014 @ 3:44 pm To me, the first point made by the commenter above is the critical one: the idea that an entire restaurant would suddenly start heaping abuse on a gay patron should draw skepticism. Sure, but try walking into a trendy vegan restaurant in San Francisco wearing a Bush/Cheney t-shirt and I would be willing to bet that the entire restaurant would suddenly start heaping abuse on you. So if they don’t teach you how to spot a pretty obvious hoax at journalism school, what DO they teach exactly? I believe the curriculum boils down to comforting the afflicted (unless they are people being persecuted for holding traditional religious values) and afflicting the comfortable (unless they are public employee union members or wealthy donors to liberal causes). JVW (9946b6) — 4/6/2014 @ 3:54 pm Stern isn’t the one that thinks global warming deniers should be jailed, is he? JD (5c1832) — 4/6/2014 @ 4:09 pm No, an idiot at Gawker, I know that’s redundant, based on some likeminded philosophy prof, narciso (3fec35) — 4/6/2014 @ 4:19 pm The idiot at Gawker is Adam Weinstein. Well, he’s not the only idiot at Gawker, obviously, but he’s the one who wrote that people who don’t fall for the global warming scam should be jailed. I’m sure he’s not the only idiot at Gawker who thinks that. Steve57 (e3957b) — 4/6/2014 @ 4:30 pm I stipulated that, ‘it’s a den of scum and villainy all through out’ narciso (3fec35) — 4/6/2014 @ 4:37 pm Could Stern actually be the infamous playground slide pooper? Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 4/6/2014 @ 4:45 pm you are all rayciss H8rs and i denounce you! redc1c4 (abd49e) — 4/6/2014 @ 4:55 pm I stipulated that, ‘it’s a den of scum and villainy all through out’ Comment by narciso (3fec35) — 4/6/2014 @ 4:37 pm “You’ll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” Patterico (9c670f) — 4/6/2014 @ 5:40 pm *UPDATE: I don’t intend to suggest that Weigel is hiding something because the link was broken when I wrote the post. Oddly enough, it works for me now. Patterico (9c670f) — 4/6/2014 @ 6:48 pm I read this entire story and I am appalled!!! All of this talk about some fake story a naïve clueless liberal thought was real that fit his biased preconceived narrative and shouted to the rooftops (not the first time or the last time for that I am sure) but not one comment on if Obamacare is going to cover the psychiatry required for that poor traumatized cat. Summerwarmth (44603a) — 4/7/2014 @ 6:07 pm Also, it should have been obvious to Stern when he saw the picture of Putin and Kim Jong Un. No way that is real… Putin is already in a committed relationship. http://www.humanevents.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/putin_obama_horse.jpg Summerwarmth (44603a) — 4/7/2014 @ 6:14 pm Recent Comments nk on Weekend Open Thread BuDuh on Weekend Open Thread nk on The Logical Result of Our Fiscal Irresponsibility nk on Weekend Open Thread AJ_Liberty on Weekend Open Thread lurker on Weekend Open Thread lurker on Weekend Open Thread lurker on Weekend Open Thread Kevin M on Weekend Open Thread Kevin M on Weekend Open Thread SEARCH AMAZON USING THIS SEARCH BOX: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Make the comments of annoying commenters disappear, with a simple comment script! Instructions here: https://is.gd/CommentScript Join the Constitutional Vanguard! 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