admin 25 March 2014 General 10 Comments  Email This Post

WHLT 22 Connecting the Pine Belt

The President. A Mississippi museum. A satirical article and more news coverage to bring them together.

Back in October 2013 – during the Federal Government shutdown – FOX NEWS host Anna Kooiman would later apologize for a statement she made based on an article from the website “National Report”.

The article was titled “Obama Uses Own Money to Open Muslim Museum Amid Government Shutdown”.

Although Kooiman would make a retraction – now – the story has been shared 145,000 on Facebook and ‘Liked’ almost as many times, according to the counters on the web page.

The article originally use an image of the Milwaukee Art Museum. But the address given was in the city of Jackson.

And actually, the museum’s location and existence are things the article had right. The International Museum of Muslim Cultures is located on 201 E Pascagoula Street.

“Of course, we had no clue. We had not been keeping up with that and we just started to get these calls,” Okolo Rashid, museum co-founder and executive director, said.

Some callers were more angry than others, Okolo said.

“So we went and we saw the story. And the story of course was false. You know, we would love to have a contribution from president Obama but that’s not the case. We are not federally funded,” Okolo said.

And museum workers say they don’t necessarily see what happened as being completely negative.

“We had people that said they didn’t know it. They were going to come and check it out. And I think we seem to have gotten an increase in visitation during this particular period of time,” Okolo said.

Administration at the International Museum of Muslim Cultures said they’re the first museum of their kind in the U.S. and that’s likely why they were called-out in that made-up article.

If you have an idea for a MYSTERY MONDAY story contact Jacob Kittilstad at jkittilstad@wjtv.com or 601-664-8839.

Original post: MYSTERY MONDAY: Fox News Host Mistakes Jackson Museum Satire for Reality