They just can't get over it-Obama birthplace mistake: Yahoo! News declines comment

[n2doc]

By Erik Wemple,
In April 2011, Barack Obama, president of the United States, took the extraordinary step of releasing the long-form version of his birth certificate. As the New York Times wrote at the time, the idea behind the move was “to finally end a long-simmering conspiracy theory among some conservatives who have asserted that he was not born in the United States and was not a legitimate president.”

The certificate proved that Obama was born in Hawaii.

Rachel Rose Hartman, a White House reporter for Yahoo! News, couldn’t possibly have missed the “birther” story. It was unavoidable, after all, for an unhealthy chunk of the president’s first term.

Yet: In her story yesterday on Obama’s Africa trip, Hartman managed to say that “he won’t be stopping in the country of his birth.” From the context of the story, it’s clear she was referring to Kenya. The Wrap captured the original text of the error (see below).



http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2013/06/22/obama-birthplace-mistake-yahoo-news-declines-comment/?tid=pm_pop

The Stupid never ends....

[lpbk2713]

1. Just like the GOP

They think that if they ignore a major fuggup it will just go away.

[treestar]

2. Goes to show how looney they are that the 2011 release

didn't put a stop to it after all.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. She's an

Asshole.

[pinboy3niner]

4. Hartman didn't miss the birther story--in fact, she wrote this about it at the time:

Birtherist response highlights racial undertones of ‘debate’

By Rachel Rose Hartman, Yahoo! News | The Ticket – Wed, Apr 27, 2011

...


But the winner of the 2008 election, Barack Obama, has faced a relentless campaign questioning his U.S. citizenship--and thereby the legitimacy of his presidency--that has disregarded the facts.

Questions regarding Obama's birth certificate have persisted for more than two years, as the president noted Wednesday at a press conference announcing the release of his long-form birth certificate. A vast array of evidence attests to Obama's citizenship--including a certificate of live birth, signed affidavits from people who viewed Obama's long-form birth certificate, confirmation by Hawaiian officials, and independent investigations by news outlets. Nevertheless, "this thing just keeps going" as Obama said this morning. Even after the White House released the long-form certificate of Obama's birth, birther leader Orly Taitz—who has filed unsuccessful lawsuits seeking to obtain access to Obama's birth certificate—sought to cast doubt on the document's authenticity, suggesting that in 1961, Hawaiian officials would have classified Obama as "Negro" rather than using designation "African," which suggests, in her view, a more contemporary concern for "political correctness."

So what's fueling the dogged questioning of Obama's origins? Many critics of the birther movement say its core tenets--and its stubborn resistance to evidence disproving those beliefs--can be traced to racial hostilities. The fundamental birtherist conviction, these critics say, is that an African-American can't have legitimately won the presidency--and that his elevation to power therefore has to be the result of an elaborate subterfuge.


...


Birthers emphatically deny such criticism. But it's difficult to apprehend the ongoing resistance to proof of Obama's citizenship without crediting racial fear as a significant factor. At first, after all, many adherents of birtherism argued that the administration fueled speculation by failing to release the long-form version of Obama's birth certificate, but now that this version has been released to the public, the call continues to go out for other kinds of information about Obama's past to be released--a level of scrutiny that neither McCain nor Obama's 43 predecessors in the Oval Office were expected to face.

...


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/birth-certificate-won-t-end-race-related-attacks-213432124.html

[mainer]

12. Which makes it even weirder. Maybe a journalism intern wrote the recent piece

and she just pasted her name on it?

[PatSeg]

25. Or it was careless writing

She could have meant to say "place of his father's birth". Its rather strange that no one has apologized yet though.

[ljm2002]

5. That is disgusting...

...and IMO she should be fired.

[SylviaD]

14. Because she made a mistake? Or because she is a woman who made a mistake?

Tell me, would you be enthusiastically calling for a male reporter who made the same error to be fired?

[ljm2002]

16. OMG that is truly hilarious...

...excuse me while I settle down after a nice belly laugh. Snort.

Okay now, where were we?

Ah yes, you asked: "...would you be enthusiastically calling for a male reporter who made the same error to be fired?"

Yes I would. Any reporter who, in 2013, would say of Obama's visit to Africa that he is skipping "the country of his birth" (i.e. Kenya) deserves to be fired and if it was my employee, they would be fired.

I am sick of all this underhanded crap that our so-called press slides into the narrative these days in order to keep the rubes fed on their daily diet of disinformation and sickness. The gender of the offending party does not enter into it and really, that is one of the most ridiculous arguments I've seen recently. I mean, it is out of waaaaay left field. In fact, maybe it's out of waaaaay right field.

[SylviaD]

30. It was an error, the reporter quickly filed an amended story. Why should she lose her livelihood?

She is not a birther. In fact her previous stories helped expose and discredit the odious cretins who believe the president was born somewhere else.

Maybe its because I know what it's like to be fired for reasons relating to sexism, but I get a little sensitive when it is suggested that someone be thrown out of work for trivial reasons. And it's women who are treated this way a disproportionate amount of the time.

[ljm2002]

32. Glad to hear that...

...but that is still an idiotic error to make in the first place.

Furthermore, your challenge to me was in regards to her gender, implying that had something to do with my reaction.

You could have responded with this information in the first place, eh? Your response today adds information that I readily admit I was not aware of. Your previous response had no content other than to imply something about my motives, about which you had ZERO information.

So yes, I am glad to hear she does not subscribe to birtherism. I am glad to hear she has helped to expose and discredit birthers. Perhaps someone on staff put it in the story in order to sabotage her? Otherwise, I'm still not sure how it got in there. Usually a reporter with a byline is the one who writes the story in the first place, so when this sort of error occurs it is natural to assume that the reporter put it there.

My reaction was a knee-jerk reaction, yes. Your initial reaction to me was weird. This one is great. Thanks for the info.

on edit: BTW I am both female and a longstanding feminist. I did not respond to your first post with that information because I don't generally feel it necessary to present my bona fides in response to implied accusations from random strangers, particularly when they are irrelevant to the original topic.

[SylviaD]

35. I do apologize for my original response. n/t

[progree]

19. Oh Good Grief! Yes, of course its all about gender, the "mistake" is just a convenient pretext n/t

[SylviaD]

31. Sexism does lurk behind a lot of things. Are you willfully blind? n/t

[progree]

33. Not EVERYTHING is sexist. There was nothing, *NOTHING* in ljm2002's post that was sexist

it was because the reporter, regardless of gender, reported that Obama's birthplace was Kenya. Are you willfully paranoid delusional?

I should add that I don't think someone should be fired for one unintentional mistake, like this appeared to be, and I'm glad ljm2002 agreed with that in #32. But I didn't see anything sexist about her (ljm2002's) comment.

[SylviaD]

36. I apologize for the willfully blind remark. n/t

[progree]

34. ljm2002 is female, BTW.

[tridim]

6. We need to keep a sharp eye on new and revised history textbooks as they are released.

Because there are assholes like Rachel Rose Hartman all over the place in this nutty country.

I have zero doubt that history books in 10 years will be wrong on many, many issues RE: President Obama and his administration's accomplishments.

[freshwest]

20. He'll be listed in Newspeak as #666 instead of #44.

Ignorance is Strength for the GOP. Really.

It won't stop anytime soon, as they still have the big money organizing this stuff:

[Scurrilous]

7. Oh boy...

[Initech]

8. Birther FAIL

[Ganja Ninja]

9. I'll give her the benifit of the doubt, she could just be ignorant. n/t

[n2doc]

10. As somebody posted above, she actually wrote about the birther crap

She has no excuse what-so-ever. None. Neither does her Editor.

[Skittles]

11. anyone who would write such crap simply is not credible

she should be fired

[DallasNE]

13. Yahoo! Won't Even Comment?

Not even to say that Hartman misspoke and meant to say "country of his ancestors"? How tough can that be. Also, why would Obama be expected to stop in Kenya when the issue is trade and in this case means South Africa and Tanzania. Hartman is not just wrong, she is wacky.

[NutmegYankee]

15. Birthers just double down.

They will never admit they were wrong.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

18. "ancestors"? neglecting his Irish roots. Ireland should be all in her face.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moneygall

"Visit by Barack Obama

Falmouth Kearney, a maternal great-great-great grandfather of Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States, emigrated from Moneygall to New York City at the age of 19 in 1850 and eventually resettled in Tipton County, Indiana. Kearney's father, Joseph, had been the village shoemaker, then a prosperous, skilled trade. The whole Kearney family emigrated to Ross County, Ohio, in the first half of the 19th century. Falmouth Kearney's youngest daughter, Mary Ann, moved from Indiana to Kansas after her father's death in 1878. Mary Ann Kearney was a paternal grandmother of Stanley Dunham, President Obama's maternal grandfather.

On 23 May 2011, Obama and his First Lady, Michelle Obama, visited Moneygall as part of a visit to Ireland. They arrived to a rapturous reception by 5,000 people. The President was greeted upon arrival by his eighth cousin, Henry Healy, and following a walkabout on the main street where they shook hands with many local residents, the Obamas entered a house that had been built on the site where Falmouth Kearney had lived. Afterwards, they visited Ollie Hayes's pub to meet more of the President's distant relatives and to study the birth records of his ancestors. President and Mrs. Obama drank Irish stout to the traditional toast, sláinte (meaning "good health&quot , and Mrs. Obama went behind the bar to learn how to pull a pint."

[okaawhatever]

28. That's pretty great that he can meet his relatives like that. Can you imagine

someone saying, hey, did you know you're related to the President of the United States?

[SleeplessinSoCal]

17. tweeted ms. hartman

highly recommend others to do so too.

https://twitter.com/rachelrhartman

[Hekate]

21. The reader comments at the WaPo make my head hurt. The Stupid.. it burns...

[struggle4progress]

22. Maybe it was just a sly joke

[tkmorris]

23. Or maybe she's a moron

Place your bets ladies and gentlemen.

[struggle4progress]

24. Links upthread indicate she wrote stories debunking the birther crap

I guess she might have a very short memory, but I think I'll stick with sly joke

[Democracyinkind]

26. It looks like a mistake. Strange that nobody apologized. Makes you wonder.

[graham4anything]

27. It just goes on and on. One smear fails, bring back an old one.

President Obama has had like 1000 different smears thrown at him
The Clinton's had 100s. (remember the idiotic Vince Foster and Halle Boggs stories that still pop up from time to time).

I can't recall any presidents before that have had all this thrown at them day after day after day after day

When is this crap going to stop forever.

Why does racism still exist? Didn't we win a war to stop it? Didn't we sign the Civil Rights Acts?
Why are some still living in 1850s???

(yet Mr. Trayvon Martin was killed in cold blood for just living in the same town where 70 years earlier a lynch mob
forced Jackie Robinson to flee during spring training in Sanford Florida.

WHY?

The best satisfaction though is knowing Barack Obama is President. They cannot take his name away.
President Barack Obama.

When they have nothing to hit one with, they resort to things like this

Through all of time, it will always remain PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA.
(same as it has Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt(s), Johnson (2(, Kennedy, Carter, Clinton(s) etc.

[okaawhatever]

29. Since she had a reasonable and informed story on the birthers, i'll assume it was

a careless error. Why Yahoo won't print a correction is a mystery. it seems like a trend with the press lately. They seem to think they're entitled to print whatever they want without proof reading.
The Jonathan Karl story about the emails "he had his hands on" from the republican congressman that he never had his hands on and that was heavily redacted being just one example.