Code Pink Hoax Snares CBS, Politico

Code Pink has become the Scott Beauchamp of fake news stories about Iraq, suckering in Politico.com and CBS News.

Code Pink ladies are a radical group of lefties adorned in pink (as if to prove they really are female) given to disrupting events of all kind to protest the war in Iraq. However while Beauchamp's victim, The New Republic, is still desperately denying it was had, Politico and CBS bravely took their medicine, admitting their mistake. CBS reprinted a Politico story on its site.

"In this business, you sometimes come across news items and think, 'You couldn't make that stuff up.' Well, sometimes you can," Politico reported in its note. "Code Pink today pulled off a hoax that pulled in Politico and a number of other news outlets when it ginned up a fake release, saying that Blackwater USA was creating a new 'Department of Corporate Integrity' that would put the 'mercy back in mercenary.' That should have been a tip off."

Uh, yeah! But could it be the editors at these institutions are so eager to believe the bad news that basic (journalist) common sense is shut down eliminating even minimal fact checking? As a result they've become little more than outlets for propaganda, not taken seriously except the true believers.