Washington Post Ombud: Paper Botched Obama Muslim Piece

[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

[Renew Deal]

1. kick

3 noms, no comments

:kick:

[robbedvoter]

2. Question: is this comment actually in the newspaper or just on line?

And if in the paper, small print on what page?
We got used since the lies on Iraq to see false headlines and corrections upside down on the last page in small print.

[Renew Deal]

4. I thought it was front page.

That's what I read here.

[cali]

3. too fucking little, too fucking late.

Where was the reporter's editor?

[fightthegoodfightnow]

5. Agree Completely

WAY TOO LITTLE..........WAY TOO LATE.

Ms. Howell quotes Bill Hamilton as saying, "Reasonable people can disagree on this. But the people I have heard from are not reasonable. What I find especially disheartening is the idea that our motives are simply assumed to have been malicious."

Here's a few unanswered questions:

Was that an apology?

I'm curious to know what he thinks is REASONABLE about printing a story that makes Obama's connections to Islam 'slender at best', that fails to refute it's relevance, that reports old rumors as FRONT PAGE news and that fails to provide 'convincing evidence of their falsity'?

You better believe Post readers are questioning the 'newspaper's' motives. Heck, it's not even that complex: We're questioning their ability to recognize news and report it objectively. What's insulting is their complete disrespect for their reader's intelligence.

Even now after a tsunami of criticism, the principles involved (Hamilton and Bennett) are using such words as 'sophisticated', 'legitimate' and 'misunderstood' to defend their inability to even identify what should constitute news.

Ms. Howell writes: 'This is the new world mainstream journalists live in'. Assuming that is true, who exactly is to blame for that: THEY ARE!!! Actually, the only thing that is new about it is that the Washington Post, one of the last vestiges of legitimate inquiry, finally throws in the towel, reports very old rumors as front page 'news' and follows the pack and it's own editorial page of fear mongering. Now that their paper prints in color, my suggestion is you start to use the color 'yellow' for the headlines of such stories.

[DeepModem Mom]

6. K&R