Ha Ha Ha: Reuters Duped by Hoax Press Release (Update: Hoax Group tied to SEIU and MoveOn.org)

Uh, what happened to those layers upon layers of editors and fact checkers?

The devil does not change overnight. Someone or some organization sent out a hoax press release "from the US Chamber of Commerce" stating that the chamber no longer opposed the Waxman-Markey bill. As most hoaxes go, it needed a victim to fall for it.

The venerable news agency Reuters fell for the hoax and published a story that went instantly into the Google News feed.

The press release linked to a fake chamber webpage which featured links to official Chamber sites. The spoof page features a short National Press Club speech, purportedly by Chamber President "Tom Donahue".

Of course this stunned me as I just did a brief article on the chamber's regressive position on climate change. When I saw the the name of "Donahue", I saw something strange because the name is misspelled. The chamber CEO's name is Thomas J. Donohue --- That's when I knew it was a prank.

US Chamber of Commerce officials immediately issued a press release announcing the change in policy position is a hoax.

Reuters took the bait and announced in a news article: "The Chamber of Commerce said on Monday it will no longer opposes climate change legislation, but wants the bill to include a carbon tax."

File this one under: They want to believe it, so it must be true.

CNBC also ran with the story.

Of course, in their jihad against Fox News, the White House claims what Fox reports isn't real news.

Yet I don't see anywhere that Fox fell for this fake news.

Update: Hmm, in a curious coincidence, the White House has recently added the Chamber of Commerce to the ever-growing enemies list. I wonder if those who accuse others of peddling fake news have anything to do with fake press releases?

Update: Politico says some group called AVAAZ.org was behind it.

Climate legislation supporters say AVAAZ Action Factory is responsible for the release.

The group, known for its activist media stunts, has not returned calls for comment. But a post on the group’s Web site says has plans to “make this the worst Monday ever for the anti-climate PR machine at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. “

Curiously, a George Soros-funded group with close ties to the White House is closely linked with AVAAZ? As well as very close pals of Barack Obama.

Would you like to guess who?

Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group, and Moveon.org, an online community that has pioneered internet advocacy in the United States. Our co-founding team was also composed of a group of global social entrepreneurs from 6 countries, including our Executive Director Ricken Patel, Tom Perriello, Tom Pravda, Eli Pariser, Andrea Woodhouse, Jeremy Heimans, and David Madden. Avaaz is lucky to have the founding partnership and support of leading activist organizations from around the world, including the Service Employees International Union, a founding partner of Avaaz, GetUp.org.au, and many others.

One name there should be familiar:

The MoveOn Peace campaign was founded independently by Eli Pariser, a Maine native and recent graduate of Simon's Rock College of Bard. In the days following September 11th, 2001, he launched an online petition calling for a restrained and multi-lateral response to the attacks, which was quickly signed by more than half a million people. Eli joined forces with MoveOn soon afterward, and is now MoveOn.org Political Action’s Executive Director.

So here we have groups with intimate ties to the Democratic Party and the White House peddling fake news.

But we're told it's Fox News that's making things up.

'The Whole Meeting Was Really Kind of Creepy'

Hard to believe, but an NBC outlet is actually worried someone might be mean to the Dear Leader.

Can't have any of that.

When you think about it, the endless slobbering over Obama at MSNBC should more than make up for it, no?

THE top suits and some of the on-air talent at CNBC were recently ordered to a top-secret meeting with General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker to discuss whether they've turned into the President Obama-bashing network, Page Six has learned.

"It was an intensive, three-hour dinner at 30 Rock which Zucker himself was behind," a source familiar with the powwow told us. "There was a long discussion about whether CNBC has become too conservative and is beating up on Obama too much. There's great concern that CNBC is now the anti-Obama network. The whole meeting was really kind of creepy."

I thought the memo had already gone out that those meanies at Fox News represented the anti-Obama network?

One topic under the microscope, our insider said, was on-air CNBC editor Rick Santelli's rant two months ago about staging a "Chicago Tea Party" to protest the president's bailout programs -- an idea that spawned tax protest tea parties in other big cities, infuriating the White House. Oddly, Santelli was not at the meeting, while Jim Cramer was, noted our source, who added that no edict was ultimately handed down by the network chieftains.

Huh? The tea parties infuriated the White House? Why, just yesterday, Obama's stooge pretended they had no idea there were tea parties.

Instapundit links. Thanks!

Lame: George Soros Media Matters Targets CNBC

According to the Associated Press, they're a liberal media watchdog. Funny, but they never seem to watch the liberal media very much.

Anyway, now that the Obama White House is pretending to move on from the assault on Rush Limbaugh, I guess they're amping up their war on Jim Cramer and Rick Santelli.

Some critics are seizing on comedian Jon Stewart's attacks of CNBC to launch an online petition drive urging the network to be tougher on Wall Street leaders.

The liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America and some economists are behind the effort, launched Monday. They're asking CNBC to hire economic voices with a track record of being right about the current crisis and do more to hold business leaders accountable.

In other words, force a network to hire advocates for their position.

Pretty much what every network out there is already doing.

CNBC to Ron Paul Kooks: Get a Life, Morons

We've been laughing at these Ron Paul clowns for awhile now, and finally a media outlet has figured out the Paul nuts have been spamming every poll in sight.

Well, almost every poll.

Strange how Mrs. Clinton won that one.

An Open Letter to the Ron Paul Faithful

Editor's Note:

Dear folks,

You guys are good. Real good. You are truly a force on World Wide Web and I tip my hat to you.

That's based on my first hand experience of your work regarding our CNBC Republican candidate debate. After the debate, we put up a poll on our Web site asking who readers thought won the debate. You guys flooded it.

Now these Internet polls are admittedly unscientific and subject to hacking. In the end, they are really just a way to engage the reader and take a quick temperature reading of your audience. Nothing more and nothing less. The cyber equivalent of asking the room for a show of hands on a certain question.

So there was our after-debate poll. The numbers grew ... 7,000-plus votes after a couple of hours ... and Ron Paul was at 75%.

Now Paul is a fine gentleman with some substantial backing and, by the way, was a dynamic presence throughout the debate , but I haven't seen him pull those kind of numbers in any "legit" poll. Our poll was either hacked or the target of a campaign. So we took the poll down.

The next day, our email basket was flooded with Ron Paul support messages. And the computer logs showed the poll had been hit with traffic from Ron Paul chat sites. I learned other Internet polls that night had been hit in similar fashion. Congratulations. You folks are obviously well-organized and feel strongly about your candidate and I can't help but admire that.

But you also ruined the purpose of the poll. It was no longer an honest "show of hands" -- it suddenly was a platform for beating the Ron Paul drum. That certainly wasn't our intention and certainly doesn't serve our readers ... at least those who aren't already in the Ron Paul camp.

Some of you Ron Paul fans take issue with my decision to take the poll down. Fine. When a well-organized and committed "few" can throw the results of a system meant to reflect the sentiments of "the many," I get a little worried. I'd take it down again.


Sincerely,

Allen Wastler
Managing Editor, CNBC.com

H/T: Weasel Zippers. Also at LGF.