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Fox, CNN at Odds Over Obama Story
Rival cable news channels CNN and Fox News have gotten into a dispute over Fox’s coverage of a report on Sen. Barack Obama’s childhood schooling. The report was originally posted on the online version of Insight, a magazine owned by the Washington Times. It claimed that Obama had attended a madrassa, a school that teaches radical Islam, while he was living in Jakarta, Indonesia, as a boy. Obama, a Christian, lived in Indonesia from ages 6 to 10. Obama later wrote that while in Indonesia, "I had spent two years at a Muslim school, two years at a Catholic school." The Insight report was attributed to "researchers connected to” Sen. Hillary Clinton, who along with Obama is considered a front-runner for the Democratic nomination for president in 2008, the New York Times reports.
The Fox News Channel discussed the report on two of its programs, including "The Big Story With John Gibson.” Gibson interviewed a Republican political strategist about Clinton’s purported role in the Obama story, and said: "Look at what some anti-Obama Democrats are doing to her political rival now. They are playing the Muslim phobia card.”
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After Fox reported the story, CNN’s political director Sam Feist sent correspondent John Vause from Beijing to Jakarta to check out the story. He reported that the Jakarta school was not affiliated with Islamic fundamentalism. The president of CNN US, Jon Klein, complained that Fox "did seem to relish repeating the Insight-reported rumor without bothering to – or being able to – ascertain the facts,” according to the Times. Representatives of Obama and Clinton denounced the Insight report, with Obama’s spokesman calling it "appallingly irresponsible” and Clinton’s mouthpiece declaring it a "scurrilous charge” and a "smear.”
Insight defended the report on its Web site on Tuesday, saying: "Our reporter’s sources close to the Clinton opposition research war room confirm the truth of the story.”
Editor's note:
© NewsMax 2007. All rights reserved. Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Barack Obama Inside Cover Stories
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