The Washington Post recently published a front page story that supposedly aimed to investigate whether Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama was a closet Muslim. It was little more than smear and innuendo dressed up as serious journalism.
The paper’s ombudsman – a role that simply doesn’t exist at Australian newspapers, but surely should – has concluded that the story was seriously flawed.
There will undoubtedly be stories about the 2008 election campaign, but for an allegedly serious newspaper to prominently place rumours on page one just shows how out of touch they have become.