Remember last year when Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency reported as fact a Gallup poll showing that “the overwhelming majority of rural white Americans said they would rather vote for Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than US President Barack Obama”?
It turned out, of course, to be a report from the satirical Onion. Fars took it down but, as far as I know, never acknowledged the mistake.
In another example of wishful thinking or bias (or perhaps just plain dimness) trumping common sense, Fox News’s Anna Kooiman reported that despite the partial government shutdown, President Obama was using his own money to keep open “the Museum of Muslim Culture.”
There is an International Museum of Muslim Cultures (in, of all places, Jackson, Mississippi), but it has nothing to do with the federal government. And in fact the source of the “story” was the parody web site National Report.
To Kooiman’s credit she acknowledged the error, sort of, although blaming it on “flawed research” is a bit much.
Just met w producers- I made a mistake yday after receiving flawed research abt a museum possibly closing. My apologies. Won't happen again.
— Anna Kooiman (@annakooiman) October 6, 2013
