The Daily Currant is an English language online satirical newspaper that covers global politics, business, technology, entertainment, science, health and media. It is accessible from over 190 countries worldwide - now including South Sudan.
Our mission is to ridicule the timid ignorance which obstructs our progress, and promote intelligence - which presses forward.
Too bad Washington Post blogger Suzi Parker didn't know what she was reading before writing on the Post's site last week that Sarah Palin was joining Al Jazeera as a commentator. Cue the correction, now permanently affixed to the top of the post:
An earlier version of this post and the post’s URL incorrectly reported that Sarah Palin had signed on as a contributor to the Al Jazeera America news network. The blogger cited a report on the Daily Currant Web site as the basis for that information without realizing that the piece was satirical.
It's easy to blast Parker for not calling around and getting a second source (a fair criticism), but this flap also serves to illustrate that anything can go up on the Internet, and it's up to "responsible" reporters not to go hog wild tweeting or writing their own original post quoting a story, when it may in fact be bogus … or satire, as in this case.
One reason I was quick to check the Limbaugh story was I had just experienced for myself the thrill of finding an amazing story online only to realize it was a parody only moments later.
That would be a Daily Currant post about conservative firebrand Ann Coulter getting off a plane in Miami when she saw that a black female pilot was at the helm.
Of course, the reason I knew the story was false before I wrote a post and embarrassed myself was that I looked for other stories confirming it. Upon Googling, I immediately found the story debunked by Snopes.com, the self-appointed guardian of fact vs. Internet fiction.
In any event, some of the Daily Currant's recent blog posts are close enough to credible that it's not surprising that intelligent folks would actually believe them. (For example, this recent post claiming Dick Cheney is calling for war against Iran, or this one about President Obama claiming in a White House press conference that Ron Paul is to the left of him.
Other posts, like the one claiming that the Catholic Church is considering Jerry Sandusky as the next Pope, or that Lindsey Graham and John McCain had been spotted sharing a room together at a Washington D.C. motel, will probably only confuse the lowest of "low information voters," but never doubt the power of a clever satirist to trick you into believing the unbelievable.
