US Weekly' Publishes Fake Hannity/Palin Story...as Real!

Hot on the heels of Rachel Maddow getting duped by a satirical website post about Sarah Palin, comes US Weekly taking similar comedic bait.

The now scrubbed item was precipitated by a satirical website called SuperTuesdayNews.com.  The first clue that SuperTuesdayNews is not a serious outlet might be seen in their masthead photo.

It is plausible that one could miss the Sponge Bob costume in the photo, but the content on the web page is questionable and any serious journalist might know that simply by clicking on the "about us" tab and reading;

Super Tuesday News is a satirical news site launched in January 2011 to lampoon the events, circumstances and players of the 2012 United States Presidential election.  We are based in Los Angeles, California.

US Weekly missed it.  They slammed both Sarah Palin and Sean Hannity by published excerpts from a non-existent interview:

Potential 2012 presidential candidate Sarah Palin says that if she were president, she would deport pop star Christina Aguilera for botching a portion of The Star-Spangled Banner during her performance at Super Bowl XLV.  Making an appearance on Sean Hannity's radio program on Monday, Palin pointedly criticized Aguilera's gaffe, and called her out for exhibiting 'diva behavior.'

"Quite frankly, Sean, public figures must be held accountable for what they say," explained Palin.  "Here's another case of an airhead diva going on TV, running her mouth off, sounding like a fool.  She doesn't understand something so basic about America, yet we're supposed to tolerate her diva behavior?  Americans can see through that, Sean."

A formal tip of the hat to the folks at Gossip Cop for catching this one.  All that remains now is for US Weekly to blame this on Glenn Beck.