According to PBS spokeswoman Anne Bentley, they had an initial conversation with O’Keefe’s “Muslim Education Action Center,” but put an end to discussions when they couldn’t verify the group’s credentials.

NPR could have saved themselves a lot of grief by doing the same thing.

NPR did manage to avoid an embarrassing check-handing-over ceremony by doing their own vetting after their fund raising exec’s initial contact:

npr.org

NPR’s David Folkenflik, who’s finishing up a report about this for All Things Considered, reports that there were clear signs that the Muslim Education Action Center Trust was not a long-standing organization — Internet records show the center’s website was created in mid-January. The address for the organization? A UPS store.

CEO Vivian Schiller tells David that NPR became aware of those peculiarities, and that NPR was vetting the organization. And he has obtained e-mails (not from an official NPR source, but which have been verified by NPR) showing that the network last week asked the fictitious Ibrahim Kasaam for, among other things, verification that the Muslim Education Action Center was qualified as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization. It was not, of course.

Vivian Schiller also tells David that the men posing as representatives of the Muslim Education Action Center asked several times for someone from NPR to come to their offices so that a photograph could be taken as a donation check was handed over. That request was turned down because NPR was not close to being finished with its vetting of the organization, she says.