46 Comments

1. Tom Holsinger:

I agree. It has become necessary to identify newsies by name as too many have become publicity agents for terrorists.

Dec 24, 2004 - 9:18 am 2. Ben:

“Those who sow the wind are destined to reap the whirlwind.” For all of those who belittled the bloggers for questioning Dan Rather or who said the story should have been reported because it was “essentially true” even though the documents were clear forgeries, this is the result. I know that I no longer give the presumption of trust to things I see reported in the media — and I suspect that a lot of other people see things the same way.

In order to regain its credibility, the media must first regain the trust of the public. A good first step would be a very public housecleaning at CBS and the New York Times, followed by a sound thrashing of the obstructionists in those organizations. This must be done publicly, and the effort to clean up the organizations must be serious. Nothing less will do.

The media has demanded transparency of every other major organization for years. Their credibility demands they live up to a similar standard.

Dec 24, 2004 - 9:28 am 3. David Thomson:

ìIf true–and I don’t, of course, know that they areî

You are right to be cautious. Still, the odds are that the AP is hiring stringers who cooperate fully in violent crimes. We have every right to demand answers.

I also strongly recommend that everyone view the DVD, ìControl Room.î This superb documentary revolves around the journalists employed by Al-Jazeera. These Arab news reporters are conflicted whether to embrace the values or the West, or remain loyal to the dictators in the region. Cynically, it appears that they perceive their authoritarian rulers as bastards—but they remain their bastards! One young lady even blurted out her discomfort over the fact the Americans were liberating the Iraqis. Why should we expect anything different from the AP stringers?

Dec 24, 2004 - 9:38 am 4. sammy small:

The AP seems to have chosen the same path as the tv news media…hype, staged excitement, and ratings are the holy grail of “new journalism”. It takes no imagination to see their credibility go from bad to worse.

Roger,

You said that …he or she had been notified in advance that there would be a “demonstration”.

I can’t imagine the camera toting reporter roaming the streets of Baghdad as a “she”. That would be doubly suspicious.

Dec 24, 2004 - 9:45 am 5. Ron:

”

Below are some of the excerpts from the Belmont Club site. It seems most fortuitous that the photographer wasn’t blown out of his or her shoes by the killer’s unless he/she was somehow complicit in the exectutions. The AP needs to be a little more transparent in their explanations about this. This seems more like enemy/terrorist propaganda than anything else.

“In Baghdad, dozens of gunmen– unmasked and apparently unafraid to show their faces– executed three election officials on Sunday, part of their campaign to disrupt next month’s parliamentary ballot.”

“Two or three dozen people, at the most, would normally have witnessed these events. But due to the great good fortune of the killers, a photographer from the Associated Press was present and pictures of the execution were carried on newspapers throughout the globe, sending the executioner’s message not merely to a handful of bystanders to hundreds of millions of readers throughout the world.”

Dec 24, 2004 - 9:54 am 6. David Thomson:

ìI can’t imagine the camera toting reporter roaming the streets of Baghdad as a “she”. That would be doubly suspicious.î

It is very unlikely that the stringer is a female. Nonetheless, we who comprise the blogging community must be very careful with our rhetoric. Itís best to be safe than sorry. Any mistake, however minor, will be held against us. In many respects, we are held to a higher standard than the MSM.

Dec 24, 2004 - 9:56 am 7. Ron:

ìThe New York Times allowed one of its reporters, Jayson Blair, to lie time after time on the front page of its newspaper of record.”

This wasn’t the most famous case of lying by the New York Times that was done by a reporter who lied about genocide in the Ukraine in the early 1930’s where 10 million people were murdered by every means possible but mostly by contrived starvation.

The reporter who did the lying was Walter Duranty who ran the Times Moscow Bureau, he purposely mislead the Times about the killing by Stalin’s NKGB; he said that it wasn’t happening and didn’t happen. He won a Pulitzer Prize for that reporting.

Just this year the Ukrainian government asked the Pulitzer committee to take the prize from the New York Times but they refused, saying it had happened to long ago. The Times refused once again to give the bogus and ill deserved Pulitzer back. Mr. Duranty set the United States up for Stalin making him look beign; some of the articles Goggled up even suggest he was an apparatchik of Stalin’s Security Organization, the NKGB.

Dec 24, 2004 - 10:38 am 8. scaramouoche:

There’s only one explanation for all this: AP is in league with the enemy.

Dec 24, 2004 - 10:52 am 9. PeterUK:

Judging by the quality of the pictures and the coolness of the cameraman, implicit in those pictures,whoever took them was a seasoned professional.

In Hussein’s Iraq,all professions were members of the Ba’ath Party,to be otherwise meant that they would not prosper,no different from the Nazis or the Communists in this.

It would be de rigour for those in sensitive jobs, such as photo-journalists to be party members,not to have been would be far too dangerous.

From the assault and form of “execution” the murders would appear to have been committed by Ba’thist holdouts rather than the Zarqawi wing of the Iraq terror-masters.

It is not too much to ask that details are provided by AP,otherwise we might conjecture that the killers could have been calling in a favour from an old party colleague.

Dec 24, 2004 - 10:57 am 10. PeterUK:

Roger,

Do you think that the blogospere could start awarding a “Walter Duranty Prize for Mendacity” to the M$M? I was going to say like a reverse Nobel Prize,but Nobel Prize will do.

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:01 am 11. Brian:

Yesterday a sagacious young man asked Rumsfeld this:

“How do we win the war on the media?” asks a soldier. “How do we win the propaganda war?”

I like that phrase: “war on the media”. But Rumsfeld responded with dreary platitudes about press freedom.

I’d say that just as the freedom to swing your fist ends at the end of my nose, so too the media’s freedom to lie ends where it starts costing us lives.

scaramouoche: There’s only one explanation for all this: AP is in league with the enemy.

Well, yes.

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:09 am 12. kbdabear:

Question to legal minds…

Can the AP and other media outlets which knowingly withhold information or actively participate in an enemy action which results in casualties be sued for wrongful death, negligence, or other torts?

I’d like to see someone try, a multimillion dollar judgement tends to cause media conglomerates to re-think “FREEdom of the press”

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:27 am 13. Rick Ballard:

“so too the media’s freedom to lie ends where it starts costing us lives.”

I agree with the sentiment but the imposition of limits by the government could lead to me being barred from naming AP as a propaganda arm of the Islamofascists. When that segment of the population that believes that the M$M is objectively working for enslavement and acts by cancelling subscriptions and refusing to watch even the entertainment side of the networks who willingly promote serfdom, then the AP, the NYT and others of their ilk will either change or cease to exist.

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:28 am 14. jerry:

My guess is that the AP and other western news organizations are taking a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude about their local stringers. They know that some of the people they use are probably working for the insurgents/terrorists. They don’t care because it gets them the a competitive leg up on their rivals. I am also sure that since most of MSM sympathizes with terrorist objectives because a US failure is a Bush a failure, they are will to be an accessory to murder as long as they don’t know the details. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:36 am 15. Joe Dees:

There is definitely a problem with a particular AP “journalist”, Slobodan Lekic, who appears to be, in my mind, displaying anti-Coalition or pro-Jihadist sympathies. He is connected not only with the campaign voter assassination piece (Salon’s article mentions him in connection with it), but also wrote the slanderous piece posted on the Mosul attack that is excoriated by 2slick here:

http://2slick.blogspot.com/2004/12/ap-mosul-celebrates-suicide-bombing.html

What are the chances that, sheerly by coincidence, this person would also be associated with the electoral official assassination piece? It seems to me that, absent some collusion with the Jihadists, they are surpassingly small. Could the Mosul piece be a payoff for the Haifa Street tip? And will we be seeing more of the same or similar from Slobodan Lekic in the future?

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:43 am 16. heather:

One of the more interesting remarks by wretchard (see the thread at 2:02 AM) is

A. such an operation takes split second planning because American troops would be on the scene very quickly;

B. yet the killers DRAGGED THE VICTIMS OUT OF THE VEHICLES, instead of just killing them quickly INSIDE THE CARS;

C. therefore the point of the exercise was the photographs that the killers KNEW WOULD BE TAKEN AND DISTRIBUTED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD BY ASSOCIATED PRESS.

Also: Although we know that ’stringers’ are essentially privateers, many of them Baathists or Al Qaeda, many of them simply pirates, we have to ask where are the Editors, and who – in all of the Associated Press organization – makes the decision to distribute such pictures.

Also: It is time to demand of the Associated press that it decide whether its readership in the American heartland – and the American soldiers produced by that heartland – is worth so little that it can engage in active treason against the USA?

It is treason, you know: to provide a very expensive megaphone to the killers of American allies; which megaphone is owned by some 1500 newspapers, and which megaphone is overseen by an entirely American Board of Directors.

There is another interesting fact that one can derive from checking out the AP: the new Associated Press CEO is Tom Curley, who worked for years at USA TODAY, and indeed, succeeded Al Neurath as Pres/CEO of that newspapers. Al Neurath has publicly declared that the USA should get out of Iraq. I wonder whether this opinion is shared by Mr Tom Curley???

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:43 am 17. PeterUK:

Thanks Heather,or should we call you Moneypenny?That was the information I was trying to find.

Whilst the CEOs will probably not have ordered this,or even set the agenda,they are responsible for the climate within which the things happen.

I find it extraordinary that the CIA cannot employ those of dubious character or shadey background but the M$M can.

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:59 am 18. legion:

When the MSM plays cheerleader for the enemy, and helps the enemy kill more coalition troops, the MSM essentially becomes the enemy.

When the MSM makes itself the enemy of american soldiers, it makes itself the enemy of the families of these soldiers, and of everyone who wishes these soldiers well.

Historically, people who make themselves the enemies of americans tend to pay a price. Unless they unconditionally surrender to america. Then they come out of the conflict pretty well.

The media needs to unconditionally surrender to america. Starting with publically supported PBS/NPR, and continuing with CBS, NY Times, LA Times, CNN, AP, and all the other “american” media. Surrender, Dorothy er MSM.

Dec 24, 2004 - 12:13 pm 19. PeterUK:

At one time the M$M would respond to militarily delicate situations sympathy,understanding that they were on the same side as the military,kith and kin,citizens of the same nations.They understood that the peril lay before all of us collectively.Now there has been a disconnect,the M$M regards itself as a race apart owing allegiance to some higher power.They have become observers of the rest of humanity with Olympian disinterest,it is time they were brought down to earth.

Dec 24, 2004 - 12:31 pm 20. max:

1, Ron on Walter Duranty – The opposition to revoking Duranty’s egrgious Pulitzer came directly from ‘Pinch’ (or should he be called ‘Lynch’ given the nyt’s long record of concealing genocide) Sulzberger, who speciously whined that to revoke it be ‘airbrushing’ history.

What a contemptible, cowardly assertion – when Congress repeals a law or the Supreme Court reverses itself, they are not ‘airbrushing’ history, they are correcting a mistake. And the historical record is intact – the repealed law/overturned decision remains in existence, just not in force.

In taking this position Lynch showed his, the nyt’s amd the msm’s true colors – accountability, responsibility, integrity, heck, even common decency (in this case to the millions of murdered Ukrainians, at least some of whom would not have died had the nyt written the truth) are for other people, not for the ‘West Side boyars’ who believe they should tell the rest of the world how to behave.

2. Roger talks as though the nyt’s problems are a recent development when in fact when it really counted (the Ukraine, the holocaust, the Khmer Rouge) the nyt has played a major role in concealing the truth, with the common thread being ownership by the Sulzberger family. I have to ask “What is wrong with them?” So blessed, and yet so arrogant and so wrong so often. At best, it’s time for a new owner who is not steepped (sp?) in the nyt’s history of concealing/lying about evil.

3. The nyt, the ap and the msm in general are, as Orwell said of pacifists in WW II, objectively evil. Unfortunately, the msm is also actively evil, and the real fight we have is as much, if not more, with it as it is with any exterior foe.

max

Dec 24, 2004 - 1:10 pm 21. Rick Z:

When I was an Air Force public affairs specialist during the Vietnam era, it could be safely assumed that most of the media folks I dealt with either had direct military experience themselves, or close family connections with with someone who did–generally during WWII or Korea. This was a two-edged sword in that while there was generally a basic level of understanding and sympathy with the military perspective, it was very difficult to awe them with a show of brass or dissemble to them with jargon-laden prevarication.

By the time of the first gulf war, it was apparent that the quality of coverage of military affairs suffered greatly from the absense of basic knowledge and understanding of the military on the part of the media. It is this lack of first-hand knowledge of military culture that, I think, more than any other factor has led to a kind of tone-deafness when it comes to matters that we who’ve served regard as basic life-or-death issues.

US media organizations now seem to regard themselves both apart from and above the existential concerns of those who give their very lives for the sake of their liberties. This is a sad state of affairs, indeed, and just one more example of the “blue state cocoon.”

Dec 24, 2004 - 1:13 pm 22. PeterUK:

Roger,

It would also seem to be the cult of cultural equivalence writ large as the statement by APs spokesthing would indicate, http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/,via lgf

Dec 24, 2004 - 1:54 pm 23. PeterUK:

Sorry

http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/

Dec 24, 2004 - 1:55 pm 24. PeterUK:

There must be very many shareholders in the small newspapers that are part of the AP co-operative who woild find this moral equivalence abhorent.Nothing like the sound of stock being dumped to concentrate minds of a board of directors.

Dec 24, 2004 - 2:10 pm 25. David Thomson:

ìInsurgents want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let Iraqi photographers take their pictures.î

—JACK STOKES, director of media relations, Associated Press

It is obvious that the AP is tacitly, if not even overtly, advocating a morally equivalent posture between the forces of democracy and the nihilistic ìinsurgents.î This organization desires to be perceived as above the fray and objectively providing everyone with the chance to explain their position. We are witnessing the post modernist mindset reaching it inevitable conclusion. The APís top managers probably fail to realize that they are now objectively pro-terrorism.

Dec 24, 2004 - 2:14 pm 26. David Thomson:

One more point: I should also add that APís top managers may very well concede that is it absurd to journalistically level the playing field between an Adolph Eichmann and his concentration camp victims. They might even consider you crazy for suggesting such a thing. But why do they treat the Iraqi insurgents as morally equivalent with the forces for democracy? That is because Eichmann was white—and our enemies in the Middle East usually possess dark skin. The latter are always to be regarded as victims of Western imperialism. How can you blame a victim for striking back in an unsavory manner? Donít they have the right to protect themselves and advocate for their own self determination?

Dec 24, 2004 - 2:26 pm 27. PeterUK:

The Tottenkopf SS want their stories told as much as other people and some are willing to let German photographers take their pictures. It’s important to note, though, that the photographers are not “embedded” with the Tottenkopf SS. They do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.

# posted by PeterUK : 10:59 PM

Dec 24, 2004 - 3:02 pm 28. heather:

Tracking down the members of the Board of Associated Press is so interesting!

For example, (I have to go to a party soon, but wanted to pass this on immediately)

R Jack Fishman is on the AP Board in order to represent cities of under 50,000 population. He owns LAKEWAY PUBLISHERS. Go to http://www.lakewaypublishersinc.com and take a look at the newspapers this guy owns:

Citizen Tribune, which “serves” EAST TENNESSEE (www.citizentribune.com) There are others too, all from areas producing the soldiers serving in Iraq; but get this:

AND

The Civil War Courier (!!!!) Ever helpful, I now provide the emails of the Publisher of that paper (Reece Sexton, cwc1861@lcs.net); Editor (John Ross, cwcedit@lcs.net); and Manager (Nancy Gibson, ipmmgr@lcs.net)

If you want to see the extensive list of newspapers owned by Mary Junck, also on the board, who is CEO of Lee Enterprises, with 44 daily newspapers in 19 states, and is Iowa based, check google, enter “lee enterprises”, there is a list of all the newspapers owned by Ms Junck at a site maintained by the columbia journal review… sorry, didn’t keep the url.

Pass this info on, will you?? I have already entered it at Belmont Club.

Dec 24, 2004 - 4:07 pm 29. PeterUK:

heather,

Lee Enterprises stock can be traded here http://www.investorguide.com/cgi-bin/research.cgi?name=LEE

Merry Christmas to you

Dec 24, 2004 - 4:22 pm 30. Terrye:

heather:

More rich pampered Democrats I see. Just like Michael Moore. What is it with these people anyway? Do they have something to hide?

I heard that Saddam paid off a lot of journalists, sometimes I wonder if they are still taking the loot and telling the lies..

If these journilists do not owe the American troops anything then I would say it should work the same way for the troops. Why should they risk life and limb for these guys? If they get in the way and die that is their problem. After all they above that whole loyalty thing.

And if they want to tell the terrorists’ story maybe they could explain to their gentle readers how it feels to slash a woman’s throat and then disembowel her. Really, I want to hear the psycho’s side of the story.

In truth if this was set up and the camera man knew what was happening then he is part of it. I am sure there are laws even in Iraq about such things. Maybe he should spend some time in an Iraqi jail. An experience like that might make giving up a source seem like not such a bad thing to do.

Dec 24, 2004 - 4:43 pm 31. David Thomson:

ìThey do not have to swear allegiance or otherwise join up philosophically with them just to take their pictures.î

This is indeed probably all that is required by the AP stringers cooperating closely with the Iraqi nihilists. They merely must behave in a so-called nonjudgmental manner. The murderers supposedly have a valid right to their feelings of anger and revenge. How can these victims be blamed for committing horrendous acts of violence? What values do the AP stringers, many who may very well be adamant secularists, and the ìinsurgentsî almost certainly share? The answer: their mutual contempt for both the United States and Israel. I also suspect that the works of Edward Said and Noam Chomsky are familiar to the AP news people who were born in the Middle East.

I earlier mentioned the DVD, “Control Room.” It might behoove you to purchase a copy from Amazon.com. A used copy, including delivery cost, should not be much more than $15.00 total.

Dec 24, 2004 - 4:52 pm 32. Jason Ramsey:

I noted the same thing a while back. Is there a point where secret sources are used to distort the truth rather than to reveal it?

Dec 24, 2004 - 5:41 pm 33. PeterUK:

Jason Ramsey,

Yes or if the man with the gun was the cameraman’s brother in law.

Dec 24, 2004 - 6:01 pm 34. Trent J Telenko:

I don’t think AP or the other major media that are acting as conduits for these terrorist snuff films appreciates the kind of legal liability they might incur via American criminal and civil RICO laws.

Dec 24, 2004 - 6:50 pm 35. wavewitch:

Once is just luck,

twice is coincidence,

three times is enemy action!

Dec 24, 2004 - 7:34 pm 36. PeterUK:

A different Peter posted this at the Belmont Club.

It would seem that AP needs to clarify this fast.

Stringers are paid generally for results.

“Definition of solicitation.–A person is guilty of solicitation to commit a crime if with the intent of promoting or facilitating its commission he commands, encourages or requests another person to engage in specific conduct which would constitute such crime or an attempt to commit such crime or which would establish his complicity in its commission or attempted commission.” -PA Title 18, S902

Dec 24, 2004 - 7:38 pm 37. Dishman:

Stringers are paid generally for results.

“Definition of solicitation.–A person is guilty of solicitation to commit a crime if with the intent of promoting or facilitating its commission he commands, encourages or requests another person to engage in specific conduct which would constitute such crime or an attempt to commit such crime or which would establish his complicity in its commission or attempted commission.” -PA Title 18, S902

IANAL, but it seems to me that if AP is offering payment stringers to produce photographs of as-yet-uncommitted crimes, this comes dangerously close (possibly provably) to solicitation of murder.

I don’t think costing lives necessarily crosses the line, but solicitation of murder does.

Dec 24, 2004 - 7:39 pm 38. Terrye:

Needless to say if called on this behavior the AP would jsut hide behind freedom of the press.

But I have to tell you if was married to one of the men murdered in the street I would not be buying that.

Dec 24, 2004 - 8:12 pm 39. Dishman:

PeterUK, that was me on Belmont Club. I thought a few minutes before I posted it here as well.

BC seems to have an interesting conversation on this.

Dec 24, 2004 - 11:35 pm 40. foreign devil:

Good point, Roger. The Jayson Blair and subsequent Rathergate mess now allow us to ask the press for their bona fides, unlike in the past when they could get away with standing on the principle of freedom of the press from having to expose their sources. Now, due to the Blair and TANG business, we are entitled to ask them to prove the truth of what they assert. Thanks for pointing that out, Roger. Merry Christmas, btw! :^)

Dec 25, 2004 - 3:49 am 41. pajamazon:

Can a person actually commit treason today? If such a person chose to provide support to our enemies during wartime would it actually be criminal? Can anyone show me a successful prosecution in the last 50 years? Thanks to a reliance on the MSM for the last half century we’ve come to expect nothing but mush in public policy. Nothing means anything! If a traitor hired Jonny Cochran most prosecutors would quickly seek a deal. The AP reminds me of Qwest. In reality their assets are just a bunch of wires, but their influence is amazing! I salute this new century and the certain demise of obselete indoctrinators like the AP and Reuters.

Dec 25, 2004 - 6:28 am 42. PeterUK:

Treason no longer exists,since in the post-modern world personal principles trump loyalty,obligations and nationality.These are just part of the choices that are available to members of the new nuanced society.Moral equivalence rules,there is no right,no wrong,no good, no bad, just choices.

Dec 25, 2004 - 7:37 am 43. Cynic:

PeterUK

“I find it extraordinary that the CIA cannot employ those of dubious character or shadey background but the M$M can.”

Well, under Tenet it certainly seemed as if the CIA was employed by the Dems

Dec 25, 2004 - 8:06 am 44. PeterUK:

Cynic,

Sorry that should have read those of dubious character or shady background with a proven track record of efficiency.

Damn, all the adverts will have to be changed now.

Dec 25, 2004 - 9:34 am 45. Ron:

Reading some of these posts are making me realize something about what happened in Iraq. A foreign entity, a newspaper organization, in the guise of gathering breaking news decides to make some. They hire an unknown person called a ìstingerî who has connections with terrorists and might even be associated with them to film an event in the future which they will help stage. The news organization will make money through syndication of the filming. In other words they are complicit in a scheme to make money utilizing a public event, which happens to be an assassination of the election agents of the recognized government. Now just because they wrap themselves in the parchment of the 1st Amendment, does that make them fire proof for criminal charges which might be brought since they are the contributing financial force for the “news event”. Would these killing have occurred if the news organizations hadnít paid for the pictures or pandered to killers for their dissemination of world wide terrorist propaganda? How much was made on pictures like this, what was the overhead costs, what are three poor elections workers worth to the AP on this Christmas Day.

Dec 25, 2004 - 10:59 am 46. PeterUK:

Powerline has now joined the fray, http://powerlineblog.com/archives/009026.php

AP should take notice of Rathergate and come clean now.

Dec 25, 2004 - 3:49 pm

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