A Hot News Lead From Turkey for My Stateside Counterparts
It's my job to cover Turkey from Turkey. But there's a part of the Turkish mystery that American journalists should be covering, and as far as I know, not one of them is on the job. Fethullah Gülen is in Pennsylvania. No one has any real idea what the guy is up to. No one has any real idea where his money's coming from, where his money's going, or what he really wants. This profile in the New York Times is so inadequate it's laughable--there's not one mention of the main point, which is that many Turks fear he's their Ayatollah Khomenei. I don't know if the Turks who fear and loathe him are right. But I don't know that they're wrong, either, and some of the people who tell me his influence is a major cause for concern have turned out to have been right about a lot of things.
Outside of a handful of academic publications, his name never makes it into the American news at all. It's a perfect story for a dedicated investigative journalist in his neighborhood.
Hey there, fellow journalists, if you're reading this--do you think the Abdul Rauf story is interesting? Try this one. The more you look, the more curious you'll get.
- Comment (2)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (1)
Comments :
Jun '10
Re: A Hot News Lead From Turkey for My Stateside Counterparts
Two perspectives:
Tucson Weekly, 12/31/2009: "Hidden Agenda? Parents raise concerns that a Tucson charter school has ties to a Turkish nationalist movement"
http://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/hidden-agenda/content?oid=1694764
Pocono Record, 4/18/2010: "Muslim radical lives in the Poconos -- but it's not what you think"
http://www.poconorecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100418/NEWS/4180350
Re: A Hot News Lead From Turkey for My Stateside Counterparts
These are good to see. At least there's some curiosity. I'd like to see a lot more. And I want to see someone following the money. Journalism 101, you know?