Fox News’ Anna Kooiman fell for the old parody news trick when reporting on Fox News that though the government has closed its national parks, including WWII memorials, an event that has greatly upset veterans of that war who feel their sacrifice for the country and for the world is being answered coldly with government shutdown, President Barack Obama is nevertheless willing to pay out of his own pocket to keep a museum of Muslim culture open during the shutdown.
After Fox News reported on the shut down (see video below), which has been in effect since Tuesday, and has had repercussions, as just mentioned, with WWII vets, Kooiman said that “it doesn’t seem fair especially” considering that “President Obama has offered to pay out of his own pocket for the museum of Muslim culture.”
The source of that was the National Report, a parody site. The site claimed Obama said the shutdown was “a great time to learn about the faith of Islam.” Perhaps the irony of the article wasn’t palpable to the otherwise perspicacious Fox News reporters, and was felt to be just the sort of thing we would expect from our so-called president.
Kooiman later tweeted, as the Huffington Post reported, “Just met w producers- I made a mistake yday after receiving flawed research abt a museum possibly closing. My apologies. Won’t happen again.”
Well, such things apparently even happen to news sources. Many people, when they first get a link to the Onion, a popular parody news source, are so appalled at what they read, that they angrily tell their friends – “J.K. Rowling really is trying to promote witchcraft and Satanism. She said so in the Onion,” – leading to a face-palm and a quick lesson in the nature of parody news. However, we expect better even from Fox News.