Off Topic: Fox News Hacked?

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A break from polling for a moment.

Josh Marshall has been posting this afternoon (here, here and here) about a mysterious story about John Kerry that appeared on the Fox News site with some highly implausible quotes, then reappeared sans quotes.

I emailed him with what follows, but he probably hasn’t seen it yet. A colleague in my office remembers reading the same story earlier this morning with different content:

The story that is on the Fox site [that Marshall first referenced here] is not the same one that was posted there this morning. I read it earlier. It was a legitimate story about the facial expressions of the candidates, mostly about Bush.

My colleague assumes Fox was hacked by someone, presumably an outsider.

Our contribution to fact checking. Now back to regular programming..

UPDATE: Nope, not an outsider, but a Fox reporter’s bad joke gone awry. Also, thanks to Allen (see comments).

Mark Blumenthal

Mark Blumenthal is political pollster with deep and varied experience across survey research, campaigns, and media. The original "Mystery Pollster" and co-creator of Pollster.com, he explains complex concepts to a multitude of audiences and how data informs politics and decision-making. A researcher and consultant who crafts effective questions and identifies innovative solutions to deliver results. An award winning political journalist who brings insights and crafts compelling narratives from chaotic data.