Here's an ethics problem: the Moonies write it, FNC reports it, it's wrong...and

[2:30]

Does FNC get a pass because it "just reported" what the Moonies were saying, without bothering to do basic fact checking? Or do both of them owe big apologies...and deserve the scorn they get on a regular basis?

Headmaster Disputes Claim That Obama Attended Islamic School

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, January 23, 2007; C07

Fresh doubt was cast yesterday on a magazine's allegation that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) attended a madrassah, or religious school that teaches a fundamentalist version of Islam.

Hardi Priyono, deputy headmaster of the Basuki school in Indonesia, told CNN that his institution -- which Obama attended four decades ago, beginning when he was 6 -- is not a madrassah.

"This is a public school," Priyono told CNN correspondent John Vause in Jakarta. "We don't focus on religion." Classes in Islam are offered to the predominantly Muslim students at the school, CNN reported.

Insight, a weekly Internet magazine owned by the conservative Washington Times, had reported the madrassah allegation late last week and added, citing unnamed sources, that the information had been unearthed by researchers close to the campaign of Obama's rival for the Democratic presidential nomination Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. In an online posting, Insight called yesterday's Washington Post article on the controversy a "hit piece" by the "liberal media establishment."

While not addressing the veracity of the madrassah allegation, the magazine said it had contacted the Obama camp, which declined to comment.

"Insight's story was not thinly sourced," the posting said. "Our reporter's sources close to the Clinton opposition research war room confirm the truth of the story. The Clinton camp's denial has as much credibility as the 'I never had sex with that woman' statement."

Spokesmen for Obama and Clinton called the Insight story absurd. Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs yesterday criticized Fox News for picking up the allegations, saying of the network's slogan: "It would be nice if 'fair and balanced' included some actual journalism once in a while." A Clinton spokesman, Howard Wolfson, said yesterday that "comments like this prove the point: This is a biased publication with no discernible journalistic standards."

Fox says two of its programs merely took note of what Insight had reported. The morning show "Fox & Friends" aired a clarification yesterday, reporting that Obama's camp had called the story "completely ridiculous" and that "the Clinton camp has said, 'We had nothing to do with that.' "

[Produce man]

If FNC attributed Insight, then yes, they get a pass. If not, they don't.

[Clever Login Name]

Translation: Pay no attention to my defense of the ethically-challenged NY Post reporter! Look what those baddies at Faux are up to NOW!

[2:30]

Interesting, Veggie... that doesn't work in libel, but you think repeating something with reckless disregard for whether it's true or false should be protected, as long as it's attributed.

I wonder whether you thought that when others picked up the CBS story about Bush based on faked memos...

[The Mockingbird]

Sourcing a website run by the Washington Times isn't excatly blatant disregard for the truth, 2:30, even if they did get the story wrong, which is likely.

That being said, it's interesting to see traditionally conservative sites going after Obama with such intensity. They've already tried the fact that he used Cocaine when younger, and the fact that he smokes, and neither story had even a blip of an effect on his poll numbers.

Obama is a dangerous candidate for the RNC, because moderates like him.

[2:30]

Sourcing a website run by the Moonies/Washington Times without doing easy basic fact checking is indeed, in my view, blatant disregard for the truth.

[The Mockingbird]

Well, you have your opinion, and judges have theirs, apparently, since sourcing has been acceptable practice in journalism since Jesus was in J-school.

[2:30]

Sourcing is fine. But attributing without checking to a source that's known to be unreliable or that has a known bias is dangerous.

That's why repeating a libel is, as a matter of law, libel.

[The Mockingbird]

And who determines whether a source is biased or not? You?

[The Mockingbird]

I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier.

Madrasah, for those of you who don't speak the language, is an Arabic word meaning "school".

Obama (1995), pp. 30-31. For details of Obama's early primary schooling see Obama (1995), p. 154, which begins: "In Indonesia, I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school..." See also Obama (2006), p. 274, which begins: "Our family was not well off in those early years [...] Without the money to attend the international schools that most expatriate children attended, I went to local Indonesian schools..." It's not factually incorrect. According to Obama's own words, he went to a Muslim school for two years. That's a Madrasah. That too "thin" a source for you?

[Michigan J. Frog]

This whole practice of reporting anything you want as long as you tell viewers it came from somewhere else is sloppy journalism and it'll come back to bite you eventually. Viewers rarely remember that the channel they're watching said someone-else-says. They just remember that they saw a story.

Whatever happened to confirming a story before running it? We don't have to do it as long as we "source" it?

No wonder people trust us less and less. We give them fewer reasons to believe us when we rationalize like this.

[ January 24, 2007, 09:20 AM: Message edited by: Michigan J. Frog ]

[The Mockingbird]

Speaking of sourcing:

Here's the factoid referred to in Insightmag com:

Sources close to the background check, which has not yet been released, said Mr. Obama, 45, spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia. That's a litte misleading, but not factually inaccurate. It sounds like Obama was preparing to be an Imam, but in reality, Obama only went there when he was very young, for two years. The equivalent would be going to a Catholic Grade school, which he also did.

The Insight article makes some half-assed reference to Wahhabism, which is an even more half-assed attempt to link Obama to Bin Laden.

But Fox *didn't* mention that Insight said that in their article.

Most of the article seemed to focus on the attempts by Clinton's camp to link Obama to a Madrassah. Which is true, which FNC double sourced in the article. Actually, they quoted the same source I did, Obama's book. They also pointed out that Madrasah is Arabic for "school".

I didn't see the orginal story, but I did read the John Gibson's commentary on the whole issue.

The tone of his article appeared that to be that Gibson didn't think Obama had anything to do with fundamentalist Islam. It sounded a lot more like Gibson thought Hillary was playing dirty tricks against his campaign.

All in all, Gibson's article is pretty fair, and decently sourced. That there's dirty pool involved doesn't really change the journalism.

[News Is Broken]

Originally posted by The Mockingbird:

Madrasah, for those of you who don't speak the language, is an Arabic word meaning "school".
So wait... if that's the case then why did the headmaster state emphatically that he was NOT running a "Madrasah"? If it's not a school, then what is it? A supermarket?

And so what if he did attend a "Madrasah"? Seriously. We are at war with Islamic radicals, are we not? Suppose the next President is muslim. All of a sudden it's not the Christian West going after the Islamic East anymore. Is that a bad thing? If we had a muslim in office, the "blow yourself up on the bus" crowd would have damn little they could say to justify calling America a "Great Satan". Right?

Discuss.

[CKMD]

Originally posted by The Mockingbird:
I don't know why this didn't occur to me earlier.

Madrasah, for those of you who don't speak the language, is an Arabic word meaning "school". Depending on dialect and what region you are in.
Madrrasah in it's current form is not just a school...especially in Pakistan.

[The Mockingbird]

Originally posted by News Is Broken:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by The Mockingbird:

Madrasah, for those of you who don't speak the language, is an Arabic word meaning "school".
So wait... if that's the case then why did the headmaster state emphatically that he was NOT running a "Madrasah"? If it's not a school, then what is it? A supermarket?

And so what if he did attend a "Madrasah"? Seriously. We are at war with Islamic radicals, are we not? Suppose the next President is muslim. All of a sudden it's not the Christian West going after the Islamic East anymore. Is that a bad thing? If we had a muslim in office, the "blow yourself up on the bus" crowd would have damn little they could say to justify calling America a "Great Satan". Right?

Discuss.</font>[/QUOTE]Insight magazine did a breathless job of reporting facts which, presented in a misleading fashion, look an awful lot like a smear job.

CNN, in attempting to set the record straight, didn't get all their facts right either. Insight never said they taught Wahhabism at the school, despite CNN's claim.

It would sure be nice if "journalists" would stop having frigging agendas when they write stories.

It's Westerners that made the word "Madrassah" a dirty word. The problem is all the terminology connected with Islam has been corrupted with derogatory meaning in the American Public's consciousness.

[2:30]

Insight indeed did a smear job, and FNC tried to help it along.

Then those pesky facts got in the way.

The school was a public school. It didn't teach Islam to non-islamic students, and wasn't even vaguely related to the kind of fundamentalist/jihadi teaching the Moonies and FNC ideology police wanted to hang on Obama.

FNC's defense? Well, we never really checked the facts...we just reported what the Moonies told us. Sounds like their defense in the New York Doctor case - we don't do fact checking, and we reserve the right to make up our own "facts" to make the story more interesting.

Pathetic.

[TV Dad]

Originally posted by 2:30:
FNC's defense? Well, we never really checked the facts...we just reported what the Moonies told us. Didn't we crucify Dan Rather for doing something very similar to this?

[Produce man]

Dan Rather didn't attribute a news source, he attributed a Kerry-loving, Bush-hating ex serviceman.

The hatchet job was done by the Clinton Smear Machine. They wanted to hold this until the fall, but Insight has a source on the inside, and the machine is pissed it got leaked early.

Another compelling part of the story is this. Obama claims his father is/was secular. So why did he first give his son two distinctly muslim names, (Barack and Hussein) and send him to a muslim school?

Hmm...

[The Mockingbird]

Apparently someone hasn't done the required reading for this course.

Obama says in his book they went to the schools because his family wasn't very well off at the time.

Anyway, when FNC reported what Inisght said about it, it was on their morning show, but they were unable to get a hold of Obama's camp before the airing of the story.

You can criticize Fox for the rush to air, but given the current way news is handled industry-wide, it's not particularly surprising. The question that determines true bias is how FNC handled the story afterwards.

[2:30]

Yes, TVDad...precisely.

And Veggie...
Dan Rather didn't attribute a news source, he attributed a Kerry-loving, Bush-hating ex serviceman.
FNC didn't attribute a news source, they attributed the Moonies.

[Kace]

Call me crazy, but I read the initial post and got that notion that this was to have been viewed as a big, "all in this together," type thing between Fox News and the Washington Times.

[ January 25, 2007, 08:20 PM: Message edited by: Kace ]

[Spike]

Originally posted by News Is Broken:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by The Mockingbird:

Madrasah, for those of you who don't speak the language, is an Arabic word meaning "school".
So wait... if that's the case then why did the headmaster state emphatically that he was NOT running a "Madrasah"? </font>[/QUOTE]Because the school is in Indonesia, and the predominant language at the school is probably Malay or English. The headmaster considers it a secular public school that offers some courses in Islam to Muslim students. That wouldn't make it a Madrasah in either the religious sense or the linguistic sense. Mockingbird's point is really irrelevant, and calling it a Madrasah would be factually inaccurate.

[The Mockingbird]

A Muslim would consider the school a Madrasah, because that's the definition of a school with classes in Islamic study.

That being said, sekolah might have been a word to use, although Indonesnian in of itself is a pretty tricky language.

[dunebuggy]

Originally posted by News Is Broken:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by The Mockingbird:

Madrasah, for those of you who don't speak the language, is an Arabic word meaning "school".
So wait... if that's the case then why did the headmaster state emphatically that he was NOT running a "Madrasah"? If it's not a school, then what is it? A supermarket?

And so what if he did attend a "Madrasah"? Seriously. We are at war with Islamic radicals, are we not? Suppose the next President is muslim. All of a sudden it's not the Christian West going after the Islamic East anymore. Is that a bad thing? If we had a muslim in office, the "blow yourself up on the bus" crowd would have damn little they could say to justify calling America a "Great Satan". Right?

Discuss.</font>[/QUOTE]I guess that depends on if he's Sunni or Shia. We don't cotton to Sunnis in these parts.

[Tripe Face]

Originally posted by The Mockingbird:
...since Jesus was in J-school.Jesus went to J-school? No wonder he couldn't get a job until he was 30... and it was outside of the biz.

[Produce man]

Originally posted by 2:30:
Yes, TVDad...precisely.

And Veggie...
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Dan Rather didn't attribute a news source, he attributed a Kerry-loving, Bush-hating ex serviceman.
FNC didn't attribute a news source, they attributed the Moonies.</font>[/QUOTE]So? The publication is merely owned by the "moonies". It's a business interest. Toyota will soon own most of Ford. Does tha mean my Mustang GT is a rice-burner?

[2:30]

Insight is an "investment"? Nice try.

It's part of their propaganda arm...just as FNC is part of Murdoch's GOP support machine.

[CKMD]

Originally posted by Produce man:
The hatchet job was done by the Clinton Smear Machine. They wanted to hold this until the fall, but Insight has a source on the inside, and the machine is pissed it got leaked early.
*sigh*
I like to make stupid comments as fact.
*sigh*

As for naming a son Obama and Hussein then trying to say he's not secular is as retarded as you actually thinking you are anything in this world.
You're a phucking joke.
*sigh*
:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

There...my post is filled with truth because of the eye roll!!!

[ January 27, 2007, 08:42 AM: Message edited by: Can't Keep Me Down ]

[Lazlo Toth]

Originally posted by 2:30:
Insight is an "investment"? Nice try.

It's part of their propaganda arm...just as FNC is part of Murdoch's GOP support machine.You sound liek the people on the right who say that about the NYTimes and CNN as shills for the left.

[Lazlo Toth]

And why do you automatically assume the Insight report is wrong just because the headmaster denies it. I don't know if the Insight report is right or wrong. But I have to consider that he might not be telling the truth or shaping it somehow.

You jumped to a conclusion because it fits your political beliefs. That too is bad journalism.

[2:30]

I jumped to no conclusion. CNN had video from the place. If that's a madrassah, then the public schools in this country are basic training camps for the U.S. Army.

Since there are pinheads abounding here, let me make it clear that I'm not suggesting that the public schools in this country actually are basic training camps for the U.S. Army.

[Lazlo Toth]

Did you call up and verify all of this before you passed it along to us?

[CKMD]

Originally posted by Lazlo Toth:
Did you call up and verify all of this before you passed it along to us?Do all producers in your shop in San Fran call up and verify everything in the AP wires before running it?
How about all the info from the Nets?

CNN went and verified the info was false that was in Insight..
I can understand you being a cynical journalist, as we all should, but the info has been verified .by many other soruces proving Insight wrong.

[Lazlo Toth]

Originally posted by Can't Keep Me Down:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lazlo Toth:
Did you call up and verify all of this before you passed it along to us?Do all producers in your shop in San Fran call up and verify everything in the AP wires before running it?
How about all the info from the Nets?

CNN went and verified the info was false that was in Insight..
I can understand you being a cynical journalist, as we all should, but the info has been verified .by many other soruces proving Insight wrong.</font>[/QUOTE]How can you be sur4e what CNN reported wasn't false if you didn't call up yourself and verify it? And even if you did, how do you know the people verifying it aren't lying to you?

That seems to be the logical question based on 2:30's original accusations against Insight and FNC.

[rootboyslim]

Are all reporters, editors and the publisher at the Washington Times Moonies? Is that a porerequisite, or just someone being inciteful. 2:30 seems to be getting a slide on the blatant bigotry and hate of Moonies.

And by the way, Howard Wolfson said so, so it's true? What a freakin' joke? Talk about huge liars.

[ January 28, 2007, 05:03 AM: Message edited by: Terps: Champs of the Disney Champs ]

[The Mockingbird]

When are you people going to get a clue?

A Madrasah is not a terrorist training camp, it's a bloody school. The vast majority of Muslims do NOT, I repeat, do not want to fly planes into buildings.

The vast majority of Madrasahs are just schools.

[Produce man]

Perhaps, but last time I checked, only muslims were flying planes into buildings and blowing up people in suicide bombings.

Let me know when other religions get in the mix. :rolleyes:

[cinehead]

Originally posted by Produce man:
Perhaps, but last time I checked, only muslims were flying planes into buildings and blowing up people in suicide bombings.

Let me know when other religions get in the mix. :rolleyes: Well, Timothy McVeigh blew up a building, but he wasn't a suicide bomber. Does that make him more noble?

[Lazlo Toth]

Originally posted by cinehead:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
Perhaps, but last time I checked, only muslims were flying planes into buildings and blowing up people in suicide bombings.

Let me know when other religions get in the mix. :rolleyes: Well, Timothy McVeigh blew up a building, but he wasn't a suicide bomber. Does that make him more noble?</font>[/QUOTE]No, just alive longer.

[AVandalay]

Originally posted by 2:30:
Sourcing a website run by the Moonies/Washington Times without doing easy basic fact checking is indeed, in my view, blatant disregard for the truth.Funny, Olbermann sources Insight regularly and no one seems to question him.

[2:30]

January 29, 2007
Feeding Frenzy for a Big Story, Even if It’s False
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
WASHINGTON, Jan. 28 — Jeffrey T. Kuhner, whose Web site published the first anonymous smear of the 2008 presidential race, is hardly the only editor who will not reveal his reporters’ sources. What sets him apart is that he will not even disclose the names of his reporters.

But their anonymity has not stopped them from making an impact. In the last two weeks, Mr. Kuhner’s Web site, Insight, the last remnant of a defunct conservative print magazine owned by the Unification Church led by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, was able to set off a wave of television commentary, talk-radio chatter, official denials, investigations by journalists around the globe and news media self-analysis that has lasted 11 days and counting.

The controversy started with a quickly discredited Jan. 17 article on the Insight Web site asserting that the presidential campaign of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was preparing an accusation that her rival, Senator Barack Obama, had covered up a brief period he had spent in an Islamic religious school in Indonesia when he was 6.

(Other news organizations have confirmed Mr. Obama’s descriptions of the school as a secular public school. Both senators have denounced the report, and there is no evidence that Mrs. Clinton’s campaign planned to spread those accusations.)

In an interview Sunday, Mr. Kuhner, 37, said he still considered the article, which he said was meant to focus on the thinking of the Clinton campaign, to be “solid as solid can be.” But he declined to say whether he had learned the identity of his reporter’s sources, and so perhaps only that reporter knows the origin of the article’s anonymous quotes and assertions. Its assertions about Mr. Obama resemble rumors passed on without evidence in e-mail messages that have been widely circulated over the last several weeks.

The Clinton-Obama article followed a series of inaccurate or hard-to-verify articles on Insight and its predecessor magazine about politics, the Iraq war or the Bush administration, including a widely discussed report on the Insight Web site that President Bush’s relationship with his father was so strained that they were no longer speaking to each other about politics.

The Washington Times, which is also owned by the Unification Church, but operates separately from the Web site, quickly disavowed the article. Its national editor sent an e-mail message to staff members under the heading “Insight Strikes Again” telling them to “make sure that no mention of any Insight story” appeared in the paper, and another e-mail message to its Congressional correspondent instructing him to clarify to Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama that The Washington Times had nothing to do with the article on the Web site.

“Some of the editors here get annoyed when Insight is identified as a publication of The Washington Times,” said Wesley Pruden, editor in chief of The Washington Times.

And in an interview, John Moody, a senior vice president at Fox News, said its commentators had erred by citing the Clinton-Obama report. “The hosts violated one of our general rules, which is know what you are talking about,” Mr. Moody said. “They reported information from a publication whose accuracy we didn’t know.”

Mr. Kuhner’s ability to ignite a news media brush fire nonetheless illustrates how easily dubious and politically charged information can spread through the constant chatter of cable news commentary, talk radio programs and political Web sites. And at the start of a campaign with perhaps a dozen candidates hiring “research directors” to examine one another, the Insight episode may be a sign of what is to come.

To most journalists, the notion of anonymous reporters relying on anonymous sources is a red flag. “If you want to talk about a business model that is designed to manufacture mischief in large volume, that would be it,” said Ralph Whitehead Jr., a professor of journalism at the University of Massachusetts.

With so much anonymity, “How do we know that Insight magazine actually exists?” Professor Whitehead added. “It could be performance art.”

But hosts of morning television programs and an evening commentator on the Fox News Network nevertheless devoted extensive discussion to Insight’s Clinton-Obama article, as did Rush Limbaugh and other conservative talk radio hosts.

And the Fox News rival MSNBC has picked up several of Insight’s other recent anonymous “scoops.” Among them: that Mr. Bush was afraid to fire his adviser Karl Rove because “he knows too much”; that there is a rift between President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the president’s support for Israel; and that Mr. Bush spent the months before the midterm elections in a bunker-mentality focused on the Iraq war and the elections to the exclusion of all else. Mr. Kuhner has appeared as a guest on both networks.

A spokesman for MSNBC declined to comment. Representatives of News World Communications, the arm of the Unification Church that owns Insight, could not be reached for comment on Sunday night.

Mr. Kuhner said, “Our report on this opposition research activity is completely accurate,” and he argued that all major news organizations relied on anonymous sources. Mr. Kuhner, in an editor’s note on Insight, said the Web site could not afford to “send correspondents to places like Jakarta to check out every fact in a story.” The Web site pays up to $800 for an article.

Mr. Kuhner said he was not yet convinced by reports from officials of the elementary school that Mr. Obama attended in Indonesia about its secular history. “To simply take the word of a deputy headmaster about what was the religious curriculum of a school 35 years ago does not satisfy our standards for aggressive investigative reporting,” he wrote.

Insight was founded two decades ago as a conservative print magazine called Insight on the News. It started the career of the journalist David Brock, who became famous for writing sensational magazine articles and books about Anita Hill and later Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Brock later recanted much of what he had written, and now runs a liberal media group dedicated to countering what it considers be conservative bias in the news media.

Insight had thousands of subscribers, but its reputation was checkered by its false reports, which included an assertion that President Bill Clinton was selling plots at Arlington National Cemetery to Democratic campaign donors, and, during the Bush administration, that Saddam Hussein’s purported weapons of mass destruction might have been found.

Officials of the Unification Church closed the print magazine about a year and a half ago, and tapped Mr. Kuhner to run it as a stand-alone Web site. He worked for three years, from 2000 through 2003, as an assistant national editor at The Washington Times. Before that, he was a history professor, but did not finish his dissertation. After leaving The Washington Times, he worked for a Republican policy group.

Mr. Kuhner said he insisted on editorial independence, reporting only to the board of New World Communications. Under his tenure, Insight’s Web site has claimed a series of anonymous scoops, many centered on the White House. In addition to the article about Mr. Bush’s feud with his father, there was also a January 2006 report that the United States was preparing for a covert attack on Iran and a February 2006 report that Vice President Dick Cheney would step down after the midterm elections.

Mr. Kuhner said Insight stopped using bylines to encourage contributions from reporters for major news organizations. He said such contributors could not write what they knew under their own names for their main employers, either for fear of alienating powerful sources or because of editors’ biases.

“Reporters in Washington know a whole lot of what is going on and feel themselves shackled and prevented from reporting what they know is going on,” Mr. Kuhner said. Insight, he said, “is almost like an outlet, an escape valve where they can come out with this information.”

“The team I have has some of the most seasoned, experienced reporters in this town, so I know the material I am getting is rock-solid.” he said. “The reporter has to give his or her word that, ‘It is solid, Jeff,’ ” Mr. Kuhner said.

During an interview, he invited this reporter to moonlight for Insight. “I will take a look at your work,” he said. “I will do a background check. You may get a call from me.” He declined to say where the contributor who offered the Clinton-Obama story worked.

“I said, ‘That is a sexy story, if you can confirm it,’ ” Mr. Kuhner recalled. After Insight posted the article on Jan. 17, Mr. Kuhner said, he was disappointed to see that the Drudge Report did not link to it on its Web site as it has done with other Insight articles. So, as usual, he e-mailed the article to producers at Fox News and MSNBC.

[Diplomat]

Originally posted by AVandalay:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by 2:30:
Sourcing a website run by the Moonies/Washington Times without doing easy basic fact checking is indeed, in my view, blatant disregard for the truth.Funny, Olbermann sources Insight regularly and no one seems to question him.</font>[/QUOTE]That's because nobody's watching him. :D

[Diplomat]

This opinion piece by David Kirkpatrick is a bit amusing. Given the NYT's own long history of transgressions, a headline titled "Feeding Frenzy for a Big Story, Even if It’s False" might also fit it. (Paging Jayson Blair, Walter Duranty, Howell Raines and Pinch Sulzberger.)

I've seen Insight maybe two or three times; a magazine store in my old neighborhood used to carry it. I always thought it was a bit out there. It's not something I would cite as a reliable source, but then, neither would I cite the NYT. I'd check elsewhere from at least two reliable sources.

[CKMD]

Originally posted by Lazlo Toth:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Can't Keep Me Down:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lazlo Toth:
Did you call up and verify all of this before you passed it along to us?Do all producers in your shop in San Fran call up and verify everything in the AP wires before running it?
How about all the info from the Nets?

CNN went and verified the info was false that was in Insight..
I can understand you being a cynical journalist, as we all should, but the info has been verified .by many other soruces proving Insight wrong.</font>[/QUOTE]How can you be sur4e what CNN reported wasn't false if you didn't call up yourself and verify it? And even if you did, how do you know the people verifying it aren't lying to you?

That seems to be the logical question based on 2:30's original accusations against Insight and FNC.</font>[/QUOTE]Because CNN is a trusted source...the ztimes is not.
We don't know if the people verfying it are lying...hence attribution. the Times attributed "unnamed sources". I'll take the school officials over unnamed sources.

2:30's accusations can be taken into debate here...that's fine.
But, the story itself has been proven wrong by at least 6 trusted sources for news.

[2:30]

Our favorite reactionary and Faux suckup doesn't like the Times? OK, how about a Chicago paper, the Tribune:

"what Insight did on its Web site, and what Fox News did in repeating the report, was not ideological at all. It was unethical, unprofessional and shabby, a trifecta, if you will, in the world of journalism."

[Lazlo Toth]

Originally posted by Can't Keep Me Down:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lazlo Toth:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Can't Keep Me Down:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Lazlo Toth:
Did you call up and verify all of this before you passed it along to us?Do all producers in your shop in San Fran call up and verify everything in the AP wires before running it?
How about all the info from the Nets?

CNN went and verified the info was false that was in Insight..
I can understand you being a cynical journalist, as we all should, but the info has been verified .by many other soruces proving Insight wrong.</font>[/QUOTE]How can you be sur4e what CNN reported wasn't false if you didn't call up yourself and verify it? And even if you did, how do you know the people verifying it aren't lying to you?

That seems to be the logical question based on 2:30's original accusations against Insight and FNC.</font>[/QUOTE]Because CNN is a trusted source...the ztimes is not.
We don't know if the people verfying it are lying...hence attribution. the Times attributed "unnamed sources". I'll take the school officials over unnamed sources.

2:30's accusations can be taken into debate here...that's fine.
But, the story itself has been proven wrong by at least 6 trusted sources for news.</font>[/QUOTE]I don't trust any of them (us). Too many years seeing the sausage being made.

Liars. I say, liars! String em up!

[Diplomat]

Originally posted by 2:30:
Our favorite reactionary and Faux suckup doesn't like the Times? OK, how about a Chicago paper, the Tribune:

"what Insight did on its Web site, and what Fox News did in repeating the report, was not ideological at all. It was unethical, unprofessional and shabby, a trifecta, if you will, in the world of journalism."Our resident NYT Kool-Aid drinker and shill for hate obviously didn't read my post. Oh, well. I shouldn't be surprised.

[rootboyslim]

After all I have read here and people predict the world of news is going to bloggers? Boy are we in for a world of trouble.

[Clever Login Name]

Dip, unclog your mailbox ... I have a question to axe you.

[Diplomat]

Originally posted by Clever Login Name:
Dip, unclog your mailbox ... I have a question to axe you.Done, sir.

[CKMD]

Originally posted by Lazlo Toth:
[QUOTE]Liars. I say, liars! String em up!OK!

[Paper Trail]

Obama's Grudge Factor
LINK (http://blog.washingtonpost.com/sleuth/2007/01/obama.html)

These are chilly days on Capitol Hill ... and on the campaign trail for Fox News journalists -- at least when they're anywhere near Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).

Sources tell The Sleuth that the Obama camp has "frozen out" Fox News reporters and producers in the wake of the network's major screw-up in running with the erroneous Obama-the-jihadist story reported by Insight magazine.

"I'm still in the freezer," one Fox journalist said, noting that the people at Fox "suffering the most did nothing wrong." (It was "Fox and Friends" host Steve Doocy who aired the Insight magazine piece, which reported that operatives connected to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) found out that Obama, as a child, was educated at a Muslim madrassah in Indonesia.)

Another Fox journalist called the network's airing of the story "unfortunate" for the network's journalists who have to cover Obama and who are being adversely affected despite not being involved in the incident.

Since the madrassah incident, Obama has given interviews to ABC, CNN, CBS and NBC -- pretty much every other network except Fox. Sources close to Obama acknowledged that they're not thrilled to play ball with Fox journalists, but they stopped short of saying they are freezing the network out.

One source familiar with the dynamic between Fox and Obama, who asked not to be named, said Obama and his staff are in for a rude awakening if they think they can write off Fox News. If a candidate is serious about running for president, he or she is going to need a network like Fox to reach out to all those voters in the red and purple states, the source said.

The same source pointed out that Fox News political correspondent Carl Cameron interviewed Obama on Monday during the senator's trip to attend a field hearing on Hurricane Katrina.

But, as others pointed out, Cameron's interview wasn't prearranged; Cameron walked alongside Obama, who didn't even stop while answering the questions.

No one is suggesting the icy conditions are permanent. In fact, a thawing of sorts may already have begun thanks to two telephone conversations Fox News Channel CEO Roger Ailes had with Obama.

Aides to Obama said they weren't sure what exactly was said during the conversations. A Fox News spokesperson, who, though an official voice for the company asked not to be quoted by name, could neither confirm nor deny that conversations took place between Ailes and Obama. But of the "alleged freezing out" of Fox journalists by Obama's office, she said, "If true, perhaps Mr. [Robert] Gibbs should reconsider that ill-advised strategy given his candidate is trailing by 20 points in the polls."

Asked whether Ailes apologized to Obama, an Obama campaign aide said the senator "has not received any written apology."

In other words, aides weren't breaking their backs to go ask the senator whether Ailes had, indeed, apologized.

So maybe there was no written apology, but at least John Moody, vice president for news at Fox, issued this missive to staff in his daily editorial note on Jan. 23: "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC. The urgent queue is our way of communicating information that is air-worthy. Please adhere to this."

[CKMD]

Originally posted by Paper Trail:
So maybe there was no written apology, but at least John Moody, vice president for news at Fox, issued this missive to staff in his daily editorial note on Jan. 23: "For the record: seeing an item on a website does not mean it is right. Nor does it mean it is ready for air on FNC. The urgent queue is our way of communicating information that is air-worthy. Please adhere to this."Best part of the entire article...by the way.
The management memo to staffers. Polite but the meaning is there. I've seen this before and so have most of you.

[Produce man]

Originally posted by AVandalay:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by 2:30:
Sourcing a website run by the Moonies/Washington Times without doing easy basic fact checking is indeed, in my view, blatant disregard for the truth.Funny, Olbermann sources Insight regularly and no one seems to question him.</font>[/QUOTE]Bad comedians aren't held to the same standard.