DON'T BELIEVE THE NEWS — It's hard to be an Internet journalist. Okay, not really, but it is hard to be an investigative journalist and check sources for validity on the web, since there is such a plethora of bullshit out there. Case in point: On Friday the Huffington Post posted a video of Fox News commentators joking about an escaped monkey's bright blue scrotum on-air. And while that story actually did happen (hey, even Fox knows how to have fun), the follow-up audio of the network's John Gibson comparing Attorney General Eric Holder to the blue-balled primate was not. The clip had been doctored and, while fingers were originally pointed at the Huffpo staff themselves, the link was eventually traced back to an anonymous tip sent to TVNewser.

Arianna's team isn't the first to be duped by a fake story. In fact, it's been shown in a recent poll that at least 30 percent of the news you read may be entirely fabricated.* Below, we look at the five most recent cases of lazy fact-checkers and how big of a whoops they made.

The NBA's Tattoo Cap

Dennis Rodman must have freaked when he read the Phoenix New Times' article about basketball players and their ink. The article quoted a Fox Sports blog post that said the NBA is considering initiating a "tattoo cap" in an attempt to reform the sport's "hip-hop image." Turns out the Fox story was taken from Con Chapman's satirical Gerbil News Network.

Culpability Rating: Much like the HuffPo story, the tattoo cap lead was picked up from another source (the Fox Sports blog) before it hit the legitimate press. So it's hard to put the blame entirely on Phoenix when it's not obvious that this story was a joke. (Although the name "Con Chapman" should have been a dead giveaway.) Moreover, Con actually worked as a real sports reporter before, so why would anyone assume he'd gone all Onion on his blog? 2.5/10 Culpability.

Ding-Dong the Pope is Dead

Fox News jumped the gun a little bit when they announced the death of Pope John Paul II a day before the religious leader actually died. "Facts are facts," Shepard Smith declared, even when they aren't. The station was misled by Italian reports of the Pope's premature demise. The funniest part is the overeager producer who keeps cutting in on the mic, because if this was being passed around today, we'd scoff it off as a viral joke.

Culpability Rating: High. If Fox hadn't been salivating over the Pope's death like a dog under the dinner table, maybe they would have taken the time to verify their sources before going live with the news. 7.4 Culpability

An Apple a Day

CNN's fledgling Citizen Journalism concept misfired when one of their "sources" claimed that Steve Jobs was being admitted to the hospital after a heart-attack, prompting Apple stock to plummet and the media world to light up with insta-updates. Of course 10 minutes later, when the story was proven to be fake, Mac regained its Dow footing and everyone clucked their tongues at CNN's sloppy experiment at harvesting free reporters. Rumors of Jobs' poor health have continued to be flamed by Jobs' no-show at this year's MacWorld convention, so maybe these guys (like Fox with the Pope) were just ahead of their time.

Culpability Rating: Off the charts. Ted Turner's network has no one but themselves to blame, since they spearheaded the whole Citizen Journalism project without taking the time to develop a system of checks and balances to prevent stuff like this from happening. 11.5 Culpability

Joe the Plumber Gets Laid

Ah, how could we do this list and not include the Martin Eisenstadt hoax of late 2008? The self-proclaimed "McCain policy adviser" duped everyone in the MSM (including us!) into believing that Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country and Joe the Plumber hooked up with Kristin Wiig at a post-SNL bash. It was actually pretty genius how Eitan Gorlin (the man behind the Eisndstadt story) managed to make such a splash with his faux-leads that Palin was forced to respond to the allegations. Although, whatever statement about the mass media's gullibility he was trying to make became totally overshadowed by the collective "ew" factor of imagining Wurzelbacher and Wiig's sweaty coupling.

Culpability Rating: Medium, and not just because we have to include ourselves in this mix. Gorlin set out to purposely dupe the media for a TV show and character he was in the process of developing, meaning he put more thought and effort into his scam than the average unverified source. I mean, this guy had a blog and everything! Still, Gorlin reminded us of a very valuable lesson: Don't trust everything you read on the Internet, even if it verifies all your preconceived notions of the stupidity of politicians. 5.5 Culpability

Montauk Mash

Oh man, because the end of the summer wasn't already a shitstorm with the Olympics and Rielle Hunter dominating the news cycle, someone had to go and find a washed up monster body in the East Hamptons. It got picked up by the blogs, who funneled it to the MSM as a sort of throw-away special interest story when the networks needed a break from Michael Phelps swimming or John Edwards drowning. "Experts" speculated about the type of animal it might have been, and the authenticity of the body. Then it turned out to be viral marketing for a movie. Or maybe not??!

Culpability Rating: None. The press has an obligation to report the existence of scary monsters that wash up on Long Island. The only mistake we made was by swallowing the line that the creature was a movie prop, thus leaving New Yorkers vulnerable to an attack of these ungodly creatures at a TBD date. 0.0 Culpability.

*Just like that figure I just made up! See how easy it is??