Two Washington Post Reporters Criticize Paper For Obama Muslim Story; Ombud Now Promises To Weigh In
December 3, 2007 -- 8:02 AM EST // //

Okay, there have been a few developments with regard to the widely-criticized Washington Post piece I posted about last week that recycled the Obama-is-a-Muslim rumors on its front page without declaring them to be false.

First, two WaPo reporters have now come out and criticized their own paper for the story. And second, WaPo Ombud Deborah Howell has now told readers that she'll be weighing in on the story in her column next week.

On Friday Howard Kurtz cited a post below which pointed out that the WaPo story failed to tell readers that a central piece of the smear -- that Obama attended a madrassa -- had been called out as false by a top official at the school he attended. Kurtz added:

I can't understand why the story didn't mention that the official at the Indonesian elementary school alleged to have been a madrassa -- according to an unsourced story in the conservative online magazine Insight -- had told CNN it had always been a public school and not a religious school.

Meanwhile, WaPo Congressional reporter Jonathan Weisman was asked during a chat with readers about the fact that the piece had buried the substance of the Obama camp's denials and had failed to label the rumors false:

New York: Considering that Obama's "denials" of the false (that's right false) charges were relegated to the twelfth paragraph in that article, do you understand why some of us who think journalism should be about reporting the truth (rather than parroting he-said/she-said) might be seeing red, as we peruse The Post's increasingly "neutral-about-the-facts" black-and-white?

Jonathan Weisman: Did you see Tom Toles's cartoon today, attacking The Washington Post? Wow.

I kinda think we should avoid doing stories on rumors, to be honest.

Obviously one would rather see more forceful stuff than this, but keep in mind that these guys are criticizing their own employer here.

Which brings us to WaPo Ombud Howell. She is supposed to address this kind of stuff; and she has now suggested that next week she'll do just that. At the bottom of her column yesterday, she wrote: "Next week: The Obama story that's burning up the Internet."

If she points out the obvious -- that the story might have done more than just reprint Obama's denials of the rumors and instead might have come out and said they were false -- it's not impossible that WaPo's editors will feel compelled to take this extra step in future stories. In which case all our yelling might end up paying off in some small way.

Relatedly, I would be remiss if I didn't point you to this post by Paul Krugman which sums up as pithily as one could hope for just how absurd WaPo's continuing refusal to call a falsehood a falsehood really is:

Krugman’s version of his appearance is disputed

I say I’m 6′4″, and thin as a rail. But this version is disputed by Republicans and even some Democrats, who say I’m 5′7″ and could stand to lose a few pounds.

Yep -- that's it exactly.

Debbie?

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