This is a screen shot from the doctored video published by Huff Post with its cut and paste audio splicing. They originally reported, "At the end of a long and pointless conversation between two Fox News reporters covering a zoo escape, John Gibson compared Attorney General Eric Holder to a monkey." The fake "John Gibson" voice states "We were talking about Eric Holder today on the radio and his bright blue scrotum." Huff Post has since apologized.

The Huffington Post has admitted they were fooled by a fake video. Huff Post editors wrote on Feb 19, 2009: “UPDATE: The Huffington Post has learned that the below video has been doctored. We regret the error and apologize to Mr. Gibson. John Gibson never compared Eric Holder to a monkey with a bright blue scrotum. The Huffington Post regrets the error. — Alex Leo and Danny Shea. “

Good to know. The IUSB Vision Weblog was first to chronicle this debacle. The daisy chain of people and events that lead up to this Huff Post confession is complex. It all seemed to start when Huff Post posted a too-good to-be-true-scandal video. However, editors wrote, “The Huffington Post does not know the source of the video’s doctoring — it was picked up off TVNewser “[aka MediaBistro]. IUSB reported “that Mediabistro says it [the fake video] was received from an anonymous tipster.”

Breitbart News interviewed John Sanders, the WBAL-TV Baltimore technology reporter, who made the phony video. According to IUSB’s post, Sanders told Brietbart that he made the video as a joke. He claimed an annotation box was posted with video all along that explained that it was not really John Gibson. The editor at IUBS says this is untrue.

The IUSB editor said, “There is no other way to say this other than that is just not the case. The video was up for some time before the annotation box was added and that was after the reality of the video’s doctoring was starting to explode in the blogosphere. I had watched that video multiple times and cloned it and no annotation box appeared until later in the day. – Editor”

So to summarize: The blame chain went from Sanders who made the video to YouTube who hosted it to a tipster who contacted TV Newser who noted it to Huff Post who at the end of the sequence apologized after posting it. Got it.

UPDATE: 02/24: FOX news reported that John Sanders is no longer employed by WBAL-TV, an NBC affiliate. They released a statement: ” WBAL-TV management has learned that a former WBAL-TV employee posted a video regarding Fox News’ John Gibson and Attorney General Eric Holder on his personal YouTube page without the prior knowledge or consent of anyone at WBAL-TV or Hearst-Argyle Television. This video was not approved by, used, or sanctioned in any way by WBAL-TV or Hearst-Argyle Television and we do not condone such behavior.”