MSNBC officially retracted a false story it reported on-air that the name of the John McCain adviser responsible for leaking gossip about his running mate, Sarah Palin, was Martin Eisenstadt, the Associated Press reports. The “news” was delivered by MSNBC anchor David Shuster on Monday, but it turned out Eisenstadt doesn’t exist; he’s a fake created by filmmakers Eitan Gorlin and Dan Mirvish. Network spokesman Jeremy Gaines officially retracted the story on behalf of the network by saying, “The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air. We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes.”
—Christopher Perez