The phony photo. (Credit: Whitehouse.gov1.info, screenshot)

The New Republic tweeted a fake photo purporting to show President Obama skeet shooting, the Weekly Standard reported.

The Weekly Standard included the text of The New Republic tweet, which has since been deleted, and pointed to its two follow-up tweets, apparently about the error.  The original tweet read, according to the Weekly Standard:

“@tnr: PHOTO: Obama shooting skeet at Camp David. http://whitehouse.gov1.info/camp-david/index.html … (from http://whitehouse.gov”

The first link goes to a website in the style of the White House’s including information on Camp David. But, at the bottom of the page, the website discloses it’s a fake, reading:

“Nope, this is not the official website of The White House. It’s a parody of whitehouse.gov.  No person, department, or agency of the U.S. Government approved, endorsed, or authorized this site. No animals were harmed while making this website (except maybe that one time when I was a little late feeding my dog his dinner).”

See below a screenshot of the top of the phony White House page:

The tweets were “We see it! We see it! Not the White House!” and “OK, everyone. Apologies. Twitter sometimes leads to quick accidents.”

iMediaEthics has written twice to The New Republic asking for confirmation it sent the above tweet to the phony photo, where it got the photo, and how it learned of its error. We’ll update with any response.

While The New Republic may have simply been fooled by a fake photograph of President Obama, iMediaEthics feels the error is particularly sensitive at a time when Congress is debating a change in the nation’s gun laws in the wake of the Connecticut school massacre. A controversial image on the hotly contested topic of guns and the POTUS using one surely requires extra due diligence.

The photo error’s significance is also heightened because just days earlier, the New Republic published an interview with Obama in which he said “Yes, in fact, up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.”

This isn’t the first time The New Republic has had egg on its face for a hoax image. In 2011, the magazine  fell for another political Photoshopped picture.  In that case, the New Republic unpublished a photo that doctored an August picture of the then-Republican presidential candidates to reflect the candidates in September. For example, Tim Pawlenty, who was in the race and the photo in August, was replaced with Rick Perry, who had joined by September and wasn’t in the August photo.

Hat Tip: Drudge Report

UPDATE: 1/31/2013 10:45 AM EST: TNR’s communications manager Annie Augustine told iMediaEthics by email:

“A member of our staff saw a tweet pointing to a site that at first glance they considered authentic–which they, in turn, cited on our own feed. Within minutes, upon realizing our mistake, we removed the tweet and apologized. We regret the careless mistake. “