Yesterday I profiled Charles Leaf, a reporter for the New York Fox affiliate WNYW, whose investigation of figures related to the non-mosque that is not at ground zero (Cordoba House) was the subject of controversy.
As I noted in the profile, Leaf's reporting was saturated with innuendo and unsupported allegations. He engaged in almost comical ambush escapades that produced nothing newsworthy, yet he still surmised that the reluctance of his targets to talk to him was evidence of some fantasy wrongdoing. His behavior demonstrated that he has a complete absence of journalistic ethics.
And it gets even worse.....
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Here's a little context from yesterday's profile:
The story Leaf has been investigating is related to the controversial non-mosque that is not at ground zero. His premise is that persons associated with the project are either corrupt or connected to terrorists. However, his reports haven’t even provided enough evidence to start a rumor.
First Leaf conducted an ambush interview on real estate developer, Sharif El-Gamal, that yielded nothing to support his contention that El-Gamal was corrupt. Leaf merely insinuated that something must be wrong because El-Gamal was a waiter eight years prior to investing in the Park51 project. The implication being that anyone who starts a small business, works hard for nearly a decade, and achieves success, is deserving of suspicion.
Then Leaf turned his focus to investor Hisham Elzanaty. Again, Leaf ambushed Elzanaty without acquiring any usable information. The only purpose for Leaf’s ambushes is to suggest something sinister when the target declines to talk to him. To that end Leaf made wild accusations about Elzanaty’s contribution to a Muslim charity. As it turns out, the charity, the Holy Land Foundation, was later investigated for ties to Hamas. But that wasn’t until two years after Elzanaty’s donation, and the feds acknowledged that contributors would not have known about the organization’s relationship with Hamas as it was deliberately concealed.
[...]
The most recent edition of this phony story shows Leaf continuing to ambush unsuspecting figures with highly-charged questions that have no basis in fact. In a new segment broadcast on Fox News by Megyn Kelly, Leaf approached both New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand at separate events and asked a loaded question to the effect of: Do you still support the right to build the mosque now that you know it’s developer contributed to a terrorist organization?
What a dishonest piece of tabloid excrement Leaf is. First of all, neither Bloomberg nor Gillibrand "knew" of the allegations prior to Leaf making them. And there was certainly no reason to take his word for it based on his shoddy reputation. Secondly, Leaf outright lied by asserting that Elzanaty contributed to a terrorist organization. The HLF was a credentialed charity at the time of the donation and there is no evidence that he had any knowledge of any untoward activities. In fact, the evidence is to the contrary.
Today Leaf was featured again on Fox News' America Live with Megyn Kelly. Kelly is no stranger to sleazy, dishonest practices herself. But now a News Corpse commenter has provided information about Leaf's past that sheds light on his despicable and unprofessional tactics. Here is what Denver's Westword reported about Leaf back in 2005:
"During a stint at a station in Mobile, Alabama, he was the focus of a 1999 lawsuit that impugned him for a 'willful physical attack' against a local councilwoman; the case was eventually settled. Two years later, while working in Detroit, a man told police that Leaf spewed homophobic obscenities and tried to attack him after the reporter was pelted with eggs while covering a story. And Bobbi Barrow, spokeswoman for Denver Health Medical Center, believes Leaf misrepresented himself to get an interview with her boss, Dr. Patricia Gabow, at an event last November. 'What he did was unprofessional,' Barrow says."
The behavior described above seems consistent with the obnoxious bullying Leaf resorted to in his confrontation with the Cordoba House developers. While Leaf aggressively slanders the targets of his investigations without any substantive basis for doing so, it turns out that he is the one who ought to be under investigation. Most reputable news organizations would never have anything to do with someone that had Leaf's history of malfeasance. That's why he works for Fox.