Fake Roy Moore accuser tries to trick the Washington Post and fails spectacularly
Project Veritas, you just played yourself.
The group, founded by conservative "guerrilla journalist" James O’Keefe, tried to expose the Washington Post but ended up looking pretty dumb in the end.
It all started when a woman approached the Post with a story. She said that when she was 15 years old, she'd been impregnated by Roy Moore, the Alabama senate candidate who has been accused of sexually harassing and assaulting teenage girls.
But when the Washington Post fact-checked her story, it didn't add up -- and then they watched her walk into the New York offices of Project Veritas. The "sting" was supposed to expose, I don't know, some liberal conspiracy against Moore. Instead it showed just how professional and thorough the Washington Post is when it comes to checking facts.
The story was met with delight online.
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The botched undercover investigation shouldn't come as a surprise. This is the guy whose organization failed to get a CNN reporter onto a boat filled with dildos, and who outed its own plan to infiltrate a George Soros event by forgetting to hang up the phone.
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The conversation between the woman and Washington Post reporter was supposed to be off the record. But when the Post found out her true motives, all bets were off, according to executive editor Martin Baron
“We always honor ‘off-the-record’ agreements when they’re entered into in good faith," Baron said. "But this so-called off-the-record conversation was the essence of a scheme to deceive and embarrass us. The intent by Project Veritas clearly was to publicize the conversation if we fell for the trap. Because of our customary journalistic rigor, we weren’t fooled, and we can’t honor an ‘off-the-record’ agreement that was solicited in maliciously bad faith.”
O'Keefe didn't respond when the Post asked "if he was working with Moore, former White House adviser and Moore supporter Stephen K. Bannon, or Republican strategists."
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But he did try to defend himself by bragging about trending on Twitter, and then releasing a totally unrelated video before asking his supporters for more money.
So, take that, competent mainstream media.
Topics Politics
Keith Wagstaff is an assistant editor at Mashable and a terrible Settlers of Catan player. He has written for TIME, The Wall Street Journal Magazine, NBC News, The Village Voice, VICE, GQ and New York Magazine, among many other reputable and not-so-reputable publications. After nearly a decade in New York City, he now lives in his native Los Angeles.
