I just found out that the source for Michael Slackman's 12 June 2007 article on the fatuous fatwas issued by Izzat Atiyya of Al-Azhar University and Sheik Ali Gomaa was Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):
L. Lavi, "Al-Azhar Lecturer Suspended after Issuing Controversial Fatwa Recommending Breastfeeding of Men by Women in the Workplace," Inquiry and Analysis Series, No. 355, 25 May 2007 <http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA35507>;
and
L. Azuri, "Media Uproar Following Egyptian Mufti's Fatwa on Companions of the Prophet Muhammad Being Blessed by Drinking His Urine," Inquiry and Analysis Series, No. 363, 13 June 2007, <http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=ia&ID=IA36307>.
Very interesting.
Recently, a question about how much research journalists do on their own for their reporting came up, with regard to Alexander Cockburn's cavalier articles about climate change. It's possible that most of them do very little most of the times, much of information coming right out of governments, think tanks, and so forth, to which must be added fixers, translators, and so on in the case of foreign correspondents.
Cf. MEMRI: <http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1511>. -- Yoshie