'Trig Palin Birtherism' Is Back

More than two years after it first emerged, the issue of Trig Palin's birth is back in the headlines, thanks to a Northern Kentucky University journalism professor. Brad Scharlott's 29-page academic paper on the matter concludes that all the conspiracy theorists were right: Sarah Palin is not Trig's real mother, but a "spiral of silence shut down the story" and the media basically ignored it.

Business Insider offers up a slideshow of Scharlott's evidence, which includes the fact that Palin took a 20-hour trip back to Alaska to give birth after she says she went into labor in Texas; the fact that the hospital where Trig was allegedly born has never confirmed he was born there; and photos of Palin just weeks before the birth in which Scharlott notes she doesn't look pregnant. Not everybody's impressed: On Salon, Justin Elliott writes, "The fact that a journalism professor produced this article is frankly embarrassing for Northern Kentucky University." Click for his entire column. (More Sarah Palin stories.)