The fact that major sources have been the victims of a hoax is even funnier than news reports affirming that Sarah Palin took Africa for a country instead of a continent.

Fox News Channel cited an anonymous member of the John McCain campaign as saying that the former Republican vice presidential candidate was unaware of the fact that Africa was a continent. In addition, MSNBC wanted to be the first one to offer curious people the answer to the “Who is behind this?” question and, thus, David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, announced on air Monday that the person responsible for the affirmation had come forth and admitted the declaration. David Shuster said that the leaker was none other than Martin Eisenstadt, a policy adviser to John McCain.

However, there is a problem with this information. Although Martin Eisenstadt says on a blog that he is a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy, it has been unveiled that neither he nor the institute exist in reality.

Both names have been invented by a filmmaker, Eitan Gorlin, along with his partner, Dan Mirvish, according to a report released by the New York Times on Wednesday.

The network said that the false details were given to David Shuster by a producer and that he thought the claim had already been verified. “The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air,” Jeremy Gaines, a network spokesman, informed the Times. “We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes.”

Nevertheless, the fact that Martin Eisenstadt is a phony does not affect by any means reports asserting Sarah Palin’s confusion with regard to Africa, despite denials by John McCain’s ex-running mate herself.