ABC News terrorism analyst "discreetly dismissed" amid "controversy"
Ahem. Media Bloodhound is covering a fascinating breach of journalistic ethics. ABC news discovered they couldn't verify the credentials of their terrorism "analyst" Alexis Debat as having a degree from the Sorbonne, and it turned out he might have fabricated an interview with Barack Obama. Perhaps most serious are questions as to when ABC was using Debat as an information source and when he was a reporter paid by the network. It is clear that his producers loved some of the sensational stories he covered about "possible" post 9/11 terrorist plans.
It is also fact that Debat was on the payroll of ABC and a necon think tank at the same time.
[Debat was] quoted and used as a source for multiple post-9/11-related stories for the rest of 2001 and much of 2002, finally officially earns the title “ABC News consultant” in addition to “former French Defense Ministry official” in a story about how Zacharias Moussaoui, the infamous “20th hijacker” - according to “French intelligence authorities,” which in this case appears to be, well, Debat – was actually “part of a second wave of suicide hijackings planned for early 2002 in Europe and the United States.” Read more....
Is it any wonder that the blogs are taking over journalism? I can't imagine any blogger getting away with making up an interview with Barack Obama. Blog readers would catch that before you could say "the audacity of hope." Perhaps viewers who get their news primarily from television are more passive and therefore have lower standards? Naah.
Update: Media Bloodhound has posted updated information on this story here...
Standards don't get lower than Fox.
In all likelihood, he's an intelligence operative.
Halperin is a tool's tool!
Not just Obama...."Former President Bill Clinton, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan have added their names to the list of people who say they were the subjects of fake interviews published in a French foreign affairs journal under the name of Alexis Debat, a former ABC News consultant."
Alexis Bebat= I likes debate. Is that his real name?
This is news? I mean...its confusing, and who cares anyway. Don't you people realize that there are real issues out there...like missing white girls, Britney Spears chunky body and the war on Christmas.
I cant imagine what our soldiers and national guard think when they find out what has been going on "back in our country"..
I wonder if they know.
-Terrorism propaganda on ABC News,
-Iraq War propaganda all over our news...
-the Bush Administration’s use of trumped up terror alerts to manipulate the American people..
-bogus terror threats that specifically targeted Capitol Hill to manipulate members of Congress just hours before a crucial vote on the FISA bill last August.
--> Iraq vet plans to return his medals in protest
www.armytimes.com/news/2007/09/ap_vetmedals_070925/
“I’m going to give those back because I truly feel that I did not defend my nation". ...He said he will do so during an event scheduled for this Wednesday
Now the most important question:
Will he just say "I'm sorry" and everything will be forgiven, and life in the vile, lying sewer of corporate "news" will go on?
So wait, they don't even know if he fabricated the interview or not? So they can't just, say, ask Barack Obama if he did the interview? For that matter, I'm surprised Barack and none of his staff were even made aware yet of the apparently phony interview.
It's amazing how quickly ABC is willing to follow Fox news down the crapper. Apparently all you need to become an expert on these news program is lie your ass off and tell them what they want to hear, which apparently is that terrorists want to kill us and liberalism is the root of all evil.
I'm also betting this won't get half the coverage of Dan Rather's slip up about GWB's army documents either. Because a respected newscaster letting a forged document get past his radar for one story is much worse then some letting a phony terrorism expert make up information on the subject for several years.
Sorry, I meant air national guard documents, not army documents
BREAKING - I just interviewed Alexis Debat. He admits he is a Shill for the Military Industrial Complex and generally feels like a piece of sh**. This was all "off the record " of course. I'm just trying to live up to the MSM's standards of Journalism.
Peace.
Operation Mockingbird
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird
freejack @ 4:
Thank you for mentioning the rest of the fake interviews. Those are also some pretty major names, not just Obama, right? What took them so long to fire that guy? What he did was so blatant for so long, jeez!
No spin zone my ass! That interview made me motion sick!
What is the date of the O'Liely interview in video above? Seems to have occurred
back sometime prior to Nov. 06, so what is the purpose of having on this thread?
The story is largely about ABC News. I wanted to show the political director of ABC news and his journalistic standards. Nothing deeper than that. --BG
But he's a neo-con liar, so that makes him okay.
As long as what they do doesn't piss off the advertisers, getting them to stop buying commercials, nobody in the news room gives a shit.
http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/fellows/Debat_bio.htm
Here's the"advisor's web page and personal bio on the department of Homeland Security think policy tank site.
Looks like someone gave it a good scrubbing!
Any chance discussions will shift from Moonbats to Debats?
He'll blame it on CNN and MoveOn.
Hey check this out. This is refered to a little in the story, but Alexis is, was, a consultant for Homeland security. Below is the think tank he had a position at. So this guy, a fraud, not only influenced bogus news on ABC, but he was formulating policy for Homeland security as well.
http://www.gwumc.edu/hspi/index.cfm
Why do they keep saying it's the liberal media? I guess they don't want us to figure out that it's the corporate media. Anything that the big corporations don't want us to know doesn't get on the news.
Right, and anybody takes what the mainstram media says about Iran (or any of our other boogymen) seriously? Face it, we are living in a complete fantasy world made up by liars and flimflam artists. Every time that they confiscate a bottle of liquid, remember the plot in Britain where we were breathlessly told that terrorists could bring down a plane by mixing chemicals into a sports drink! The whole thing was ludicruous to anybody with even a slight understanding of chemistry, yet we now have to surrender our toothpaste.
The blogs get away with this sort of stuff all the time -- it is just that the other journalism has sunk to the same level. I'm not sure how far it has actually sunk, in the "good old days" there was hardly any alternative to the mainstream media at all. They got away with outrageous lies about the war in Vietnam for years.
Who would have known it was that easy to get a job at ABC. I suppose ABC News will now be flooded with fake resumes. Of course, they will probably check them for accuracy now though.
Okay, I'm confused as to why a vid with O'reilly and Halperin is stuck in with an article regarding Alexis Debat. What am I missing?
IgnoranceIsNotBliss @ 24:
Is it because Halperin works or worked for ABC and therefore we shouldn't believe his creds either?
I give up. It's time for a drink.
Drink's on me, IINB, you guessed it. I was answering my own question directly above the vid. -BG
The reason 60 minutes did a piece on Pelosi is because she was the first woman speaker of the house! What glass ceiling did Newt break through? I mean seriously.. do conservatives even notice these comparisons? They are so good at confusing points to justify an irrational perspective.
I wouldn't believe ABC if they told me that the sky is usually blue. That guy is probably a B-Team CIA plant.
This might be a good thread to post some of the more egregious examples of journalistic misconduct over the last few years. It is tough to remember them all.
There was the smear that Barack Obama is a Muslim -- a lie that even some of his supporters seem to believe. Yeah, it should be OK if he were a Muslim, but in fact he isn't.
There was a story (again in the MSM) that Iran required all Jews to wear yellow stars. The Canadian paper that published it refused to retract it, despite a complete lack of evidence and a denial by the Chief Rabbi of Iran. (Yes, they do have one.)
There was the whole Iraq/Niger yellowcake story which started in an Italian right-wing newspaper. It is apparently a favored tactic of the neocons to plant stories in foreign papers, so the MSM can just say "A French paper says that... " without verifying any facts.
Major media reported that Governor Blanco had yet to declare a state of Emergency after Hurricane Katrina -- a claim easily disproved by going to her website and seeing the declaration was made days in advance. I got into an email exchange with the reporter which I should post someday, it was interesting. He said that "a senior White House official" had made the claim, so the paper was in the clear. I asked him to identify the official in their retraction and to write a story about the misinformation campaign. He refused, citing the confidentiality of sources!!!!!!!!!
It goes on an on. What are your favorites?
BTw- I think they did a whole segment on Condi Rice too! First African American first lady.... oops, I meant secretary of state. The same "Liberal Media" that brought us support of the Iraq invasion.
The Nixon Center is far from a "neocon" think tank. They're realists, not neocons.
Note to cable subscribers:
If you like feeding the hand that bites you keep watching ABC/Disney. Every time you watch one of their shows you boost their ratings and that = revenue in terms of advertising rates they can charge.
You should have learned your lesson after they aired that piece of sh*t "The Path to 9/11." So quit whining and put the cable blocking function on all ABC Disney channels and the same goes for Fox. Boycott their programming!
Starve the beast!
ABC can go to Hell for this and John Stossel and "path to 9/11"
Lord of Karma @ 9:
Here's a link to the English version of Rue89: http://www.rue89.com/2007/09/15/how-alexis-debat-managed-to-cheat-everyo...
I may be wrong but I think they're the ones who broke the story.
Not a problem for Debat -- if he wants to survive an egregious breach of journalistic ethics, he picked the right side. All he's gotta do is wait a couple weeks, then get his agent to book a guest spot on Faux News and BINGO! He's a pundit.
What does the O'Reilly/Halperin footage have to do with the ABC News terrorism analyst?
I think somebody screwed up.
I posted it deliberately. Halperin is the ABC news political director and an inside the beltway conservative. Conflict of interest much, ABC? Really folks... --BG
Rasputin @ 31:
Disney Corp. Putting a happy face on Fascism since 1928.
ABC has gone from the "American Broadcasting Company" to the "American Bullshit Channel."
News media shouldn't favor or give preferential treatment to conservative or liberal views. It should favor the truth and skepticism to any political claim. To give news without verification of facts is nothing more than propaganda. Today, if you're watching cable news it's like you're reading an issue of Pravda. Classic case of trying to "manufacture consent" of what the Beltway Pundits think we should see.
I'm not naive. Cable news has become entertainment and addresses their marketing base. Unregulated media consolidation at its finest.
Yet, as a proud Progressive. I take pride in the fact that reality is on our side. Conservatives, Neo-Liberals, and Neo-Cons have to spend a lot of money and use a lot of energy to even keep up with us. Reality always wins in the end.
In order to get a bigger picture of the world, I get my news from Free Speech TV, Democracy Now, Keith Olbermann, Daily Show, Colbert Report, BBC World, and the Internet. Too bad large groups of Americans get their news from other weak, lazy journalistic sources.
I thought you only discreetly dismissed the upstairs maid, who mysteriously got knocked up.
"BOB GARFIELD, HOST: When ABC News learned of Debat’s bogus Ph.D. last May, the network swiftly fired him. It also scrutinized the stories in which Debat had served as a source, but did not find any inaccuracies."
So, guess those PhD's are just superfluous. Why bother with grad school? /snark/
60 minutes did not do a similar story on Newt Ginrich when he was speaker. So what? I don't recall Newt being the first female elected to be speaker of the house.
Context, Fox Noise! You can't ignore the context.
i agree with alex debate. he is correct, if the liberal media would have do more reporting about how pope john paul 2 and george bush church leader, jim winkler who came out against the invasion of iraq or all the facts about there being no wmd in iraq or that it really is about the oil instead of spending their time demonizing president and using talking piont given to them by rupert murdoch, bill kristal or all those think tank own by neoconservative, we won't be in this mess that we are today.
if conservative would just continue to be suspcious about the liberal media bias reporting they wouldn't have fallen for the liberal lies and be cheerleader for the invasion of iraq, just like how ron paul question the invasion of iraq and was intelligent enough not to vote for it because iraq have nothing to do with 9/11. damn those liberals.
What does the O’Reilly/Halperin footage have to do with the ABC News terrorism analyst?
I think somebody screwed up.
I posted it deliberately. Halperin is the ABC news political director and an inside the beltway conservative. Conflict of interest much, ABC? Really folks… –BG
A little explanation goes a long way, especially when there's only a tenuous connection between the story and video posted. Otherwise, you only muddy the waters, hence this conversation.
Oh God, I'm going to puke.
Oh, this must be that liberal mainstream media I keep hearing about.
The most telling statement is when he tells Bill O what networks need to do if they want to match Fox News RATINGS. You can get great ratings talking about any blond girl gone missing, but it doesn't make it news. And trying to present two sides to every issue, like this guy seems to advocate and like many others seem to advocate, is so much less important than presenting facts. At one time the two sides to an issue were deciding whether or not a witch would float or not when tied to an anchor.
#45 Sense- You make plenty of sense.
And' " all Bill wants is a fair media ". Bush reportedly said, “I am optimistic because I believe I am right. I am at peace with myself.”
Reality just doesn't get much consideration from these paid prevaricators. Its ideology and how much money? People aren't important. If they were they wouldn't be supporting holding our troops in Iraq on lengthy recurring tours of duty.
Ah, this is an interesting story about Debat but the Halpern video should be put into some context -- I watched the video thinking Debat would pop up somewhere along the way. Yeah I get the point that the MSM are a bunch of shills, but why subject us to any more O'Liely and Halpern than is necessary -- was that video inserted into the post to torture us more than just the story of Debat?
Comments are closed on this entry