L.A. Times gladly use hoax Martin Eisenstadt to push Paris Hilton angle
August 4, 2008 by William K. Wolfrum
One must hand it to Martin (aka Michael, M. Thomas) Eisenstadt. Despite the supreme handicap of not actually existing, the guy has managed to assemble a strong list of media types willing to link to him to further their points.
The man behind the fictional character of “Martin Eisenstadt” rose to fame under the name “Abrad2345.” “Eisenstadt” released several YouTube videos a year ago that received Internet-wide praise for being sexist, racist tributes to narcissism. “Eisenstadt” also got some, like Juan Cole and Air America, to bite at the video he created which made it appear he was telecast on a Iraqi TV program, where he spoke about how great things will be when casinos dominate Baghdad’s Green Zone.
The latest example of someone latching onto a post from “Eisenstadt” is from Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times, who apparently has never met a Google search he wouldn’t make:
As The Ticket noted previously, P.H.’s ma and pa, Kathleen and Richard Hilton, have donated the $2,300 maximum to the McCain operation. But there’s a lot more Hiltons around apparently, including Gramps Hilton (William B.), who is the vast hotel empire’s co-chair. And according to Martin Eisenstadt’s blog, he’s been quite the generous donor to the tune of more than $50Gs to Republican campaign operations.
Making it even better is how Malcolm tightens his relationship with the pretend Eisenstadt in the next sentence:
Not only that, he reports, but members of the Blackstone Group, the private equity group that bought into Hilton Hotels last year, have also been generous GOP donors. And Marty says they’ve expressed themselves angrily to McCain representatives in recent hours.
Fine reporting Andrew. Because of you, both the L.A. Times and some Web site in Sweden are now carrying an invented story about the Blackstone Group and Paris Hilton. All based on the word of an outed hoax/parody blogger looking for attention.
And getting that attention. So, let me just say, well played, Marty. But don’t get too excited. After all, Malcolm would have linked to anyone to be able to get out a Paris Hilton/John McCain story.
-WKW
Apparently this Malcolm fellow has never read your Martin Eisenstadt chronicles.
You know, I could do what this Eisenstadt fellow is doing. I can makeup stuff that sounds fairly reasonable. After all, in today’s brave new world you never have to source anything. You can just will facts into existence.
Or if you do source stuff, you can create a big circle jerk of references that lead to nowhere.
And you have already seen what I can do with photoshop.
Oh shit, I just had an idea.
I wonder what would happen if someone put out a total bullshit but reasonable sounding story, and had a link for sources that when clicked opened a page that said in bold letters: “THIS STORY WAS TOTAL BULLSHIT, BUT THANKS FOR AT LEAST CHECKING THE SOURCES.”
I wonder if we could get any real world journalists to run with it? I hear there are a lot of pigeons over at FAUX news.
Hey dgun - Just love your idea - would be incredibly interesting to see what would happen!
It may amuse you some, and probably Mr Eisenstadt greatly, that “some Web site in Sweden” carrying the PH hoax actually was the online version of Dagens Nyheter, the biggest and (so far) most widely respected daily in the country.
This revelation is, or should be, extremely disturbing to anyone who cares about journalistic integrity and competence. Big media continues to be unable or unwilling to sort fact from fiction on the internet, and continues to be unable to resist acceptance of hoaxes that comport with their own political leanings.
We used to ask “what did they know and when did they know it?” but now we must ask “what did they believe and why did they believe it?”
[...] MSNBC, aka The One’s 24-Hour News Channel and the LA Times even took the bait. Idiots. [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by William K. Wolfrum. William K. Wolfrum said: @jamisonfoser At very least, @MartyEisenstadt did well showcasing what a worthless pile Malcolm is - http://bit.ly/d8O0Pn [...]