Investigation Time: NRO has some explaining to do...
By John Amato Friday Nov 30, 2007 5:20pmTisk, tisk, tisk...The NRO tried a Friday night document dump to gloss over their own reporting scandal:
Dumped into the Friday afternoon cycle is this cryptic post on National Review Online from editor Kathryn Jean Lopez concerning material that appeared on their military blog, preposterously named "The Tank". The issue is that one of the bloggers on The Tank, W. Thomas Smith, was forced to acknowledge that his accounts of witnessing various Hezbollah activities were incomplete: giving the impression of being eye-witness accounts, but in fact cobbled together from eye-witness accounts, extrapolations, assumptions, and other unspecified sources' accounts of what they had seen...
This is the kind of "reporting" that has launched a thousand right-wing "outrages" when its subject matter is insufficiently good news from Iraq (e.g. Bilal Hussein). But even stranger than the quasi-apology is Smith's defence of his methods and actions in "reporting" on Hezbollah --read on
(h/t via Thers@Atrios)
Will Howard Kurtz check into this? I'm sure Malkin and her crew are poised to pounce on the NRO, aren't they?
And then there's this...
Kenner's response to the NRO spin can be read here. My summary of the charges here. The alleged factual inaccuracy - reporting 4,000 Hezbollah gunmen when they didn't exist - dwarfs any alleged incident Beauchamp reported for TNR.
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FRIST. IMPEACH. INDICT. CONVICT. IMPRISON.
It's not reporting, but appears to be propaganda. That's how US government non-sense gets enabled, whether it's GOP or DNC-non-sense is merely nuance.
It's one thing to find out they're doing this; quite another to have this wisdom ready to challenge them when subsequent "reports" are provided. Don't blame the Malkins. She's not there to protect us. Blame those who've been burned by this, but refuse to learn the lesson: They're spewing out unreliable information that isn't getting challenged when it first is provided as an open source report.
Perhaps the "lessons learned" from this incident could be applied to future GOP-NRO "reporting". For example:
This period of time includes elections, were his falsehoods quoted by any campaigns or referenced at all as an independent source of information?
what will be done?
It's unfortunate the progressives are so merciful, cuz this guy deserves a prolonged non-torture but really hurts penalty. I expect no less from the right wing. Hypocrite.
All together now,
"Its ok if you're a republican!"
The real question is, why doesn't the left take up the same furry as the right would? Is it civility, passivity, apathy, a sense of common decency?
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Who is this NRO that you speak of?? Isn’t that another one of those terrorist organizations? You can bet they’re on the “watch” list.
Sweet revenge is a dish best served cold, or, ( why do we suffer the little idiots]
From Andrew Sullivan's blog cited in the body:
This is a case where I should have caveated the reporting by saying that I only witnessed a fraction of what happened (from a moving car) ...
... at night
... w/ no headlights
... and a lunar eclipse going on
Oh, yeah - that's "eyewitness" accounting ANY neocon, Faux News reporter, Milkin ilk, etc. would count on as "truthful".
oompapa48 @ 1:
I think you forgot the first step: KUCINICH.
Well, basically all of the crap that has been reported on since 9/11 has been propaganda. ONce you have the populace scared shitless, there is no reaons to tell the truth. As long as you promise to take care of them - they'll do/make/vote whatever. Americans are such wimps since WWII. We do not appreciate what we have(had) and we don;t know how to keep what we need.
Why did you have to bring up Malkin’s name? She is so vile and disgusting I can’t even think straight. Her response to the CNN debate was so over the top it bordered on insane. Well my day is ruined. Thanks.
Fear not! I hear Matt Sanchez, the intrepid
gay porn star/$250-an-hour male prostitutewar correspondent who brokebackedthe Scott Thomas Beauchamp story wide open, is being air lifted to the scene. He'll get to the bottom of this -- as he so often does.Ben Domenech style "borrowing" always on the march in bedwetter circles
Man, I went straight to his mea culpa. He backs up his story that he saw 200 + heavily armed men in a tent city by saying that, from a moving car he saw two AK-47s and enough tents to house 200-300 people. And he backs up a reported deployment of 4000 Hezbollah millitants into a Christian neighborhood, by saying he actually only saw a portion of this deployment which consisted of some men at a road intersection with radios; and he was told about the rest. He finishes up by saying he left out the actual details to protect his sources - and mysteriously, to protect his sources from each other.
This guy needs to report back to the mothership, his fillings are picking up the wrong frequency again.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: BILAL Press Release for Journalists
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Today over 1850 professional photographers and journalists from over 90 countries sent once again a petition to the U.S. Government demanding the imediate release of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein.
Bilal Hussein was detained by US Forces in Iraq on April 12, 2006, and has been held in prison ever since without charges.
This week, the US Military informed The Associated Press that they plan to seek a criminal complaint against Bilal before an Iraqi court on Nov. 29.
Despite the fact that the US Army had said to media outlets that they have "irrefutable evidence" that Bilal is "a terrorist media operative" who had "infiltrated the AP" they won't say what the charges are or what evidence will be presented.
We can only wonder why after holding Bilal for 19 months without charges they will not reveal to the AP defense lawyer the accusation or the evidence they feel so strongly about.
Futher, the US Army says that if the Iraqi justice system acquits him they could still throw Bilal back in jail.
A nearly 50-page report by former federal prosecutor Paul Gardephe on behalf of the AP and recently disclosed by the news agency concludes that there is no hard evidence for any of the allegations that the US Military has so far unofficially made about Bilal.
Considering the towering injustice committed against Bilal, we demand Bilal's immediate release.
Among the signatories are Pulitzer Prize winners Al Diaz, David Leeson, Judy Walgren, Anja Niedringhaus, Alexander Zemlianichenko, Oded Balilty, Lucian Perkins, John Moore and Charles J. Hanley. Agency VII photographers Gary Knight and John Stanmeyer, Noor agency photographer Philip Blenkinsop and Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado have also signed the petition. The full list of signatures is available at www.freebilal.org
The petition, transcribed below, was first faxed on Oct. 12 to the State Department, the White House, the Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, the Office of the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and to the Department of Justice.
More on Bilal's incarceration, and links to news coverage of efforts to free him, can be found at www.freebilal.org
We would appreciate it if you would consider reporting on Bilal Hussein's situation.
Free Bilal Committee
Contact:
Annika Engvall
annika.engvall@worldpicturenews.com
+1 646-454-5953
Cell +1 (347) 582-1165
Tomas Van Houtryve
tomas.van.houtryve@gmail.com
Cell +33 (678) 53 03 16
Petition:
"On April 12, 2006, Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein was detained by the US Forces in Iraq and has been held in prison ever since.
No formal charges have been presented yet against Bilal, who is behind bars for having the courage to photograph Iraqi insurgents. Bilal was part of an AP team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005 for its coverage of the Iraq war.
Bilal's arrest and imprisonment are a serious affront to the press as a whole, as well as to democratic traditions.
We, over 1850 professional photographers and journalists from over 90 countries, are seriously concerned for the life of Bilal Hussein, especially in view of the amount of time he has already been locked up and the prison conditions to which he is being subjected.
For these reasons we demand his immediate release.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned (see below)
Ps. The full list of signatures is available at www.freebilal.org"
--
Free Bilal Committee
www.freebilal.org
Newsletter mailing list
Newsletter@freebilal.org
http://www.freebilal.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/newsletter
Perhaps W. Thomas Smith is aspiring to MSM status.
(By the way, do not buy a car or play poker with a preposterous person who uses a first initial before his name)
Amazingly, Malkin gives Smith and NR a pretty good tongue-lashing. Of course, you'll first have to scroll past a screaming headline about the Beauchamp/TNR affair.
One might notice that NRO's response was quite different than TNR's.
1. They welcomed criticism.
2. They admitted they were wrong.
3. They immediately apologized.
So while the NRO reporter in question acted stupidly, this isn't on nearly the same level as Beauchamp.
If you want to have some fun goading some Beauchamp obsessed folks try patterico.com
But be polite he is nice enough to have open comments unlike MM and her flying monkey proxy HA.
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