BOSTON, March 11 (UPI) — News outlets including Boston.com and Breitbart.com were duped by a satirical website into reporting economist Paul Krugman had filed for bankruptcy.
Boston.com, run by the Boston Globe, and conservative blog Breitbart.com wrote reports about Krugman’s supposed personal bankruptcy using Australia’s Format magazine as a source, Politico reported Monday.
However, the Format piece turned out to be based on an item in The Daily Current, a humor website billing itself as “the global satirical newspaper of record.”
The erroneous stories were removed from the two sites before midday Monday.
The satirical news article said Krugman was more than $7 million in debt due to an apartment loan and “impulsive spending splurges” on items including “Portuguese wines and British dresses from the Victorian period.”
Breitbart sharply criticized The Washington Post last month when its blog ran a story based on a Daily Current article claiming Sarah Palin was joining Qatari-owned news network al-Jazeera.
Breitbart blogger John Nolte wrote if Post blogger Suzi Parker “had a shred of self-awareness, integrity and dignity, she would have changed the headline to ‘Too Good To Check,’ and under it posted an essay about how shallow, smug, bitterly angry partisanship can blind you to common sense.”
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