Recently an interesting pattern has been growing on writing repetitive “so called Gulen Charter Schools”.  The common threads among those articles are so apparent that one can easily assume that these are some journalism 101 class college students’ assignments by their supervisors. Just like the rookie artists trying to draw the pieces from Picasso or Van Gogh during their initial steps into their career. There is a slight difference though.

The rookie artists while trying to draw others’ art pieces, they are under the assumption that they will gain some skills along the way and no harm will be anticipated on others. However, the aforementioned rookie journalists have come up with such a new fashion of journalism that one can hardly gain any skills and beyond that, the rookie could even be blamed for plagiarism while attacking others.

It has become a pattern at some local papers and seldom at some free distribution weekly local published materials that the rookie journalists are given assignments to attack some local charter schools in their region and that’s step number one. It must be a charter school to be attacked. The second step is the school should have some international employees working in the States legally. It’s preferred if at least one staff member has some level of connection with Turkey, i.e. has a Turkish friend. The charter school should be a successful one and this is step four. The charter school should have had it students participated in local, national and international STEM competitions, step five. Here is the backbone of the article… The name of the charter school or at least one of its current or even former employee’s names should be published in a non-credited, non-confirmed and anonymous site with unchallenged and unconfirmed allegations about so called Fethullah Gulen connections or Turkey, step six.  That really helps things get as blurry as possible and here comes the light to be shed on that grayness…Referring to a rookie writer’s article on a big paper such as New York Times… In such a way saying that “yes, I am a rookie writer, yes, I am taking a lot from a lot of anonymous internet sites and yes, I am aware of the lack of credibility but if you do not believe me check the New York Times rookie…” What a shame for a writer… And for some they lack so such confidence that they choose not only to refer but also copy and paste paragraphs of pieces from those articles to their rookie assignment, step 7.  Of course, it needs to look as objective as possible and that requires some local testimonials, so let’s find a former, unhappy staff or parent member and dig why they left that school and massage it hard enough to make the connection that Fethullah Gulen, step eight. They also talk to some current staff members and spice their article few of their rookie selected almost neutral statements, step nine. And comes the conclusion. It must be very powerful, it does not have to be justified, and even better if it could not be justified i.e. an investigation has been taking place initiated by FBI or CIA or MI5 some well known, highly busy agency who would care less about some local, cheap lies, step ten.

In none of those articles you can read anything about former President Bill Clinton’s commendations about Fethullah Gulen, or some highly respected Christian and Jewish authorities talking favorably on Mr. Gulen and his recommendations for humanity. Isn’t that a major missing piece on the act of objective journalism?

The same claims, the same unknown sources, the same known irrelevant sources, the same sequence of presentation and the same cheap 10 steps…The funny part is all of them are acting as if there is no plagiarism tools available to check and see what’s really cooking in the kitchen.

We have not been to their kitchen. However, whatever is cooking in there, it stinks so strong and it stinks bias, discrimination, xenophobia and lack of experience all over their house.

You want to read a true example to that, read the article below from Samiha Khanna and good look luck with your nose!!!

http://www.indyweek.com/indyweek/questions-loom-about-group-proposing-raleigh-charter-school/Content?oid=2748999

Posted in News.