He made a mistake and admitted it.

He explained how it could have happened and why it did.

He did not “blame” the IDF or its Gaza policies for his mistake.

Instead,it’s a video of a young Muslim girl being lynched by an Iraqi mob. Muslim honor is
maintained.

Most journalists are not allowed to write in the first-person. I insist on doing so, and it limits my ability to publish in the mainstream media.

What does it say about professional journalist that they don’t run names, photos through a search engine?

Where are their, and their editorsí skills, with linotype?

What does this say, that a famous video that has been on the net for months, and previously used as hoaxes, and the JP is clueless? If that is so, why bother with the Post?

I think we have an entrenched, groupthink mentality in old stream media. Watching the New York Times dissolves is like twenty years of corporate news out of Detroit.

Still though, this is yet another example of harnessing the Wisdom of Crowds idea that PM is working on. I don’t think as an institution the MSM can make the transition anymore then the Joint Chiefs are going to go to a week long symposium with NCO’s to flatten the organizational pyramid. Old organizations don’t fundamentally reform, they weather and fade. It is more efficient to build/buy anew. Homeowners who remodel know this. The elderly know. Americans who gave up on waiting for Detroit and bought Japanese know.

I used to buy two or more papers a day. On Sundays every single one. I loved the papers. Now, I hardly buy any.

He called people in Gaza who said they were eyewitnesses, and the story was yanked as soon as it was debunked. He didn’t pull a Dan Rather by any stretch.

I doubt very seriously he knew the story was bogus until after it was published. That Iraq video went viral on the Internet. It is very unlikely he would think he could get away with something like this if he knew it where the video actually came from.

He’s an Israel Arab who writes for Commentary Magazine’s blog, as well as the Jerusalem Post. I thought he might be Palestinian, but apparently not if he can’t go into Gaza.

I heard him speak in London, where he gave a similar account to this of his own early journalistic career under the auspices of Fatah and his loathing of them.

I think Fatah were delighted to set him up– no doubt they have wanted to settle scores with him for years. Shame he fell for it.

His credibility will have been badly damaged. But look at his coverage of the faction fighting in Gaza and the West Bank for the JP over years, and form your own view of whether there is a better correspondent currently reporting on the PA and Hamas.

Incidentally, so much does he loathe the corruption and dishonesty of Fatah that he used to say he would rather vote for Hamas. That was before Hamas came to win the election of 2006. I’m not sure he’d vote differently now.