Kramer in blackface? Web satire becomes legitimate TV news story

When I was a bright, young journalism student back at Rutgers University (Go Scarlet Knights!) I remember a mantra that my professors bore into our brains each and every week: check your sources. If you verify your facts with at least two or three other sources you are good to go. Apparently, the news editors over at WJZ, Baltimore's CBS affiliate, missed that day in class. And, because they did they ended up in an extremely embarrassing situation.

Earlier this week they reported that Michael Richards appeared in blackface at a roast honoring Whoopi Goldberg. They reported this as breaking news not once, but twice, and attributed the story to the website Dateline:Hollywood. Well, it seems that the news department over at WJZ didn't realize that the site satirizes Hollywood. Needless to say, they were red-faced about the entire blackface situation (place groans here) and they ran a brief correction during their 11 p.m. newscast. What they should have really done was fired the staff member(s) who discovered that information and didn't read further about Britney's private areas wanting to talk to the press. They may have gotten and idea that it wasn't a legitimate news site then.

Oh, and someone's internal alarm should have gone off when they saw that story, since it is so familiar to something that happened back in 1993. That's when Ted Danson, who was dating Whoopi Goldberg at the time, appeared in blackface at a Friar's Club roast. Really, it wasn't that long ago, newsies.