Washington Post Ombud: Paper Botched Obama Muslim Piece [View All]

[Renew Deal]

As promised, Washington Post Ombud Deborah Howell has finally weighed in on the controversy surrounding the recent WaPo piece that front-paged the Obama Muslim rumors without declaring them false. Her conclusion, in essence, was that the paper made a hash of things:

My problems with the story by National Desk political reporter Perry Bacon Jr. and the headline ("Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him") were that Obama's connections to Islam are slender at best; that the rumors were old; and that convincing evidence of their falsity wasn't included in the story...

The story also brought up a discredited Jan. 16 story in Insight magazine, which is owned by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church and owner of the Washington Times. The Insight story said that Obama had gone to a madrassa, an Islamic religious school, as a child. CNN, ABC-TV and the Associated Press went to the school and reported that it was not a religious school but a public school. Bacon's story should have noted that information...


Another problem: Bacon's story also picked up a quote labeling Obama a Muslim from the Snopes.com Web site, which knocks down Internet rumors, but it didn't mention the investigation that found the rumor to be false.

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http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/horsesmouth/2007/12/washington_post_13.php