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Monday, 22 January 2007

Fox, Insight Pull An AP 
Ed Morrissey

The curse of single sourcing has bitten more than just the AP lately. Insight Magazine, a publication of the Washington Times, ran a single-sourced story last Friday about Barack Obama regarding the choice of school his stepfather made while they lived in Indonesia, and Fox News spent all day talking about it. In this case, Fox used the news item to hit at both Obama and Hillary Clinton without ever confirming anything about the sourcing. Howard Kurtz, in his indispensable media-watch column, explains:

Insight, a magazine owned by the Washington Times, cited unnamed sources in saying that young Barack attended a madrassah, or Muslim religious school, in Indonesia. In his 1995 autobiography, Obama said his Indonesian stepfather had sent him to a "predominantly Muslim school" in Jakarta, after two years in a Catholic school -- but Insight goes further in saying it was a madrassah and that Obama was raised as a Muslim.

Fox News picked up the Insight charge on two of its programs, playing up an angle involving Hillary Clinton. The magazine, citing only unnamed sources, said that researchers "connected" to the New York senator were allegedly spreading the information about her rival for the Democratic presidential nomination. ...

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Don't miss Bob's observation about Indonesia in the comments.

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Insight responds here.   Hat tip: Michelle.

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Video: CNN debunks Obama madrassa story

Posted by Bill Faith on January 22, 2007 at 02:21 PM in Media Malpractice | Permalink

Comments

Posted by: Bob

Though Obama isn't my choice, I want to clarify a few things about Indonesia.

I worked on a project in Jakarta, Indonesia many years back. I was there for a period of 3 years. At one brief time during that 3 years we had Gulf War 1. Don't forget that Indonesia is approximately 90% Muslim. During the time of Gulf War 1 I didn't see a single extremist running through the streets. At the time also, I do know that there were Muslim schools and the Indonesian version of public schools.

Many of the people I met were what I would call "Part Time Muslims". They practiced only the parts of Islam that they liked. Pretty much like what is known as "Buffet Christrians". Hum, lets see. I'll have some of that, and that, and, no I don't like that.

It was sometime after I had left there that the extremist came into the picture with their Bali bombings, Hyatt bombing, etc. At the same time, the madrassah came into being sponsored in part by our friends the Saudi's.

Again, I don't care for Obama for his socialist leanings but I really don't buy any connection to Muslim extremists.

Posted by: Bob | Jan 22, 2007 2:45:54 PM


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