Journalists Fib

Here's a shocker: Some journalists just make stuff up. Journalist Mike Evans had reported that he had spoken with Hawaii governor Neil Abercrombie and that Abercrombie had told him that there was no birth certificate for Barack Obama anywhere to be found. Now Evans has been forced to confess that he "misspoke" - the current euphemism for "told a whopper".

Here's the story:

A celebrity journalist now claims he misspoke when he said last week that Hawaii’s governor told him he was unable to find President Barack Obama’s original birth certificate after a search of state and hospital archives. Mike Evans told FoxNews.com on Wednesday he was remorseful and embarrassed that he appeared to have given the impression that he had discussed the search for Obama’s birth certificate with Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie.

Evans, who says he has been a close friend of Abercrombie since the 1980s, appeared on Minnesota’s KQRS radio last week and said he’d been told by the governor himself that Obama’s birth certificate was nowhere to be found. Evans told KQRS on Jan. 20:

"Yesterday, talking to Neil's office, Neil says that he searched everywhere using his powers as governor ..... there is no Barack Obama birth certificate in Hawaii. Absolutely no proof at all that he was born in Hawaii."

But that’s no longer Evans’ story.

“Only this I can you tell you is 100 percent fact: that Neil never told me there was no birth certificate,” Evans told Fox News. “I never talked to him.”

On the morning of Jan. 20, Evans says he accidentally told KQRS that he’d spoken directly with Gov. Abercrombie about the Obama birth certificate.

“I was on 34 radio stations that morning. That was the only station where instead of saying ‘the hospital said there’s no birth certificate’ I misspoke and said Neil said that,” Evans said. “I misspoke and I apologize for that. I apologize to Neil.”

Evans says he first noticed the story on Jan. 18, when he was reading an online article with the headline, “Hawaii governor can't find Obama birth certificate.” The article cites an interview with a former Honolulu elections clerk who says records of Obama’s birth could not be found at either Honolulu hospital.

“Halfway down the story it said the long form certificate was not on file at the two hospitals,” Evans said. “It says the hospitals say there’s no birth certificate and says Neil says he couldn’t find it.”

Evans said he continued reading other reports online, including one that quotes a former Honolulu election official as saying no hospital has been able to find Obama’s original long form birth certificate.

This story is a little confusing, but evidently, the hospitals have said they have no record of Barack Obama's birth, but, contrary to what Evans had earlier reported, the Hawaii governor who was on a mission to find the darn thing never said there was no such document. He has, though, admitted to failing in his quest for this holy grail.

But that aside, how can anyone "accidentally" tell a radio station that he spoke to the governor about anything, let alone something as contentious and serious as documentation of the president's citizenship and eligibility to serve?

There's a moral to this unfortunate story: Just because you read it in the papers, heard it on the news, or saw it on television doesn't mean it's true.