New Study Sorts Through Obama-Muslim Myth

March 10, 2010

Author: Robbie Brown

Source: The New York Times

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/new-study-sorts-through-obama-muslim-myth/

A new academic study finds that Americans who believed during the 2008 campaign that Barack Obama was a Muslim generally held tight to that misconception, despite efforts by the media, fact-checking Web sites and his own campaign to debunk the myth.

The number of people who incorrectly identified Mr. Obama as a Muslim held steady, at about 20 percent, between September and November 2008, according to an article in the coming issue of The Journal of Media and Religion.

During that time, many news outlets confronted the rumor, and Mr. Obama tried to set the record straight — that he is Christian — in a highly publicized interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.