I've been very fortunate to establish cordial email relationships with what I regard as some of the most "real" reporters of the Iraq war, men who go out and join up with combat units, staying with them, and chronicling their movements. They have been termed "embeds," short for "embedded reporters."

Michael Yon spent nine months with the "Deuce Four" Striker Brigade. Read through his site when you have the time (Get a brief taste here), and you'll have a much better understanding of the American experience in this war.

Pat Dollard spent seven months, and survived two IED blasts, while embedded with the Marines. He's just finished up a documentary series that promises to be raw, and brutal, and if I don't miss my guess, historically important.

I'm presently reading a review copy of We Were One by embedded historian Patrick K. O'Donnell, who was with 1st Platoon of Lima Company, 1st Marine Regiment, when they took on the worst of the fighting in Fallujah.

I've recently talked to USAF airmen just back from their fourth and sixth tours, Army soldiers back from their first and second deployments in Mosul and Ramadi, and via Central Command, interviewed two soldiers (MPs) working with the Iraqi police in Baghdad.

Because of all this contact with folks who actually know firsthand what is going on, I know the media is frequently inaccurate. The single word I've commonly heard from those who have been in Iraq as part of the military regarding MSM reporting is "lies."

Find someone on your own who has been to Iraq. As them if the media is reporting the truth. They'll likely tell you the same thing.

Iraq sucks. All wars suck. But in many respects things are not as bad as the media reports, just as in some cases things are actually worse. Better or worse, the majority of reporting is inaccurate.

The problem with the general manner of Iraq war reporting was summed up quite well by another embed, Michael Fumento:

Would you trust a Hurricane Katrina report datelined "direct from Detroit"? Or coverage of the World Trade Center attack from Chicago? Why then should we believe a Time Magazine investigation of the Haditha killings that was reported not from Haditha but from Baghdad? Or a Los Angeles Times article on a purported Fallujah-like attack on Ramadi reported by four journalists in Baghdad and one in Washington? Yet we do, essentially because we have no choice. A war in a country the size of California is essentially covered from a single city. Plug the name of Iraqi cities other than Baghdad into Google News and you'll find that time and again the reporters are in IraqÂ’s capital, nowhere near the scene. Capt. David Gramling, public affairs officer for the unit I'm currently embedded with, puts it nicely: "I think it would be pretty hard to report on Baghdad from out here." Welcome to the not-so-brave new world of Iraq war correspondence.

Vietnam was the first war to give us reporting in virtually real time. Iraq is the first to give us virtual reporting. That doesnÂ’t necessarily make it biased against the war; it does make it biased against the truth.

The overwhelming majority of international journalists "reporting" from Iraq have never ventured out of their hotels in the Green Zone, a small area in Baghdad, and yet try to convince us they are reporting facts from around the entire nation. Based upon what, precisely? They are only reporting what stringers—local Iraqi and other Arab reporters, with sectarian, regional, and in some cases suspected insurgency-related biases—tell them.

These Baghdad reporters have no way of knowing if these stringers are reporting facts or are relaying propaganda, if the witnesses quoted are reliable or coached, or if the photos submitted to them are an accurate visual account of the events discussed in a story.

As Fumento notes elsewhere:

The London Independent's Robert Fisk has written of "hotel journalism," while former Washington Post Bureau Chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran has called it "journalism by remote control." More damningly, Maggie OÂ’Kane of the British newspaper The Guardian said: "We no longer know what is going on, but we are pretending we do." Ultimately, they canÂ’t even cover Baghdad yet they pretend they can cover Ramadi.

In short, we aren't questioning all of AP's stories based upon a single story, we are questioning a broken methodology that lead to such a story. There exists in the mediaÂ’s reporting in Iraq no effective editorial checks at the very root level of reporting, to verify that the most basic elements of the story are indeed factual, much less biased.

This is not just about one questionable story, or even one questionable source.

It's about one often-used and verified questionable source, among many verified questionable sources, including just this partial list for starters:

Lt. Ali Abbas; police Capt. Mohammed Abdel-Ghani; police Brigadier Sarhat Abdul-Qadir; Mosul police Director Gen. Wathiq al-Hamdani; police Lt. Bilal Ali; Ali al-Obaidi, a medic at Ramadi Hospital; police Maj. Firas Gaiti; police Captain Mohammed Ismail; Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman (a.k.a. Police Brigadier Abd al-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf); Mohammed Khayon, a Baghdad police lieutenant; police spokesman Mohammed Kheyoun (a.k.a. Police Lieutenant Mohammed Khayoun); Lt. Thaer Mahmoud, head of a police section responsible for releasing daily death tolls; police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid; police Lt. Ali Muhsin; police 1st Lt. Mutaz Salahhidine (a.k.a. Lieutenant Mutaz Salaheddin); Col. Abbas Mohammed Salman; and policeman Haider Satar.

Again, these men are just a partial list of questionable and potentially false witnesses used to lend an air of credibility to hundreds or thousands of news articles... and these are just from those sources claimed to be within the Iraqi Police and Ministry of Interior.

This is not to mention the dozens or hundreds of other witnesses in thousands of other stories that could have been either influenced in some way, or may be entirely fictitious, and far more difficult to prove false.

The flawed methodology that weakens the essential credibility of the news-gatherig process effects the overwhelming majority of stories printed and broadcast about Iraq each week. This weakness, this inherent and unchecked instability and inability to verify the core facts and actors in the most basic of stories, points out a methodological flaw in the news gathering efforts common to every major news organization reporting in Iraq.

After what was initially a spirited defense, the Associated Press has gone silent about the supposed existence of Police Capt. Jamil Hussein.

No one else seems to be able to find him.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 10:56 AM | Comments (19) | Add Comment
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Bill Roggio is heading back to Iraq as an embed, an act I've come to respect as day-in, day-out the most dangerous assignment a journalist can undertake in Iraq.

He's also getting new gear, and incorporated as his own media company.

Check it out.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 09:19 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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The resolution of this evolving story is going to be very interesting, and I think we can all agree that the one bit of evidence that matters is the material proof of the existence of one Iraqi Police Captain.

The Associated Press and U.S. Central Command are gambling, to different extents, their reputations on the existence of IP (Iraqi Police) Captain Jamil Hussein, with the Associated Press being much more at risk.

The AP has relied upon Captain Hussein as a primary source of information on many stories for months, and the news organization has effectively doubled-down by insisting he exists, and that their reporters have visited him in his office.

Central Command has reported that according to Iraqi Police and Ministry of Interior records, they do not employ a Jamil Hussein as any sort of police officer (much less a captain), nor as a MoI employee in any capacity.

If CentCom is wrong, their reputation will be tarnished, but only as much as relying on bad Iraqi record-keeping can be blamed.

If the Associated Press is wrong, then all the stories (including this one) that relied upon this expert witness—and potentially the dozens or hundreds of stories that relied upon 16 other IP/MOI "witnesses" that may not be legitimate—could go up in smoke.

The task for the Associated Press here is clear, immediate, and pressing: they must show, and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their Captain Jamil Hussein is a living, breathing, legitimate member of the Iraqi Police.

I'd suggest a simple test: have the AP reporters that vouch for Captain Hussein drive with him to the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, where they can watch officials verify his paperwork and employment status. Central Command, of course, can have representatives on hand to witness the verification of Captain Hussein's credentials.

Captain Jamil Hussein must materialize, and quickly, or the credibility of Associated Press reporting in Iraq will suffer a tremendous blow.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:30 PM | Comments (37) | Add Comment
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Apparently, even nominal quantities of over-the-counter cold medications can cause you to see the most interesting things.

I know this, because this Reuters picture has all the earmarks of a crudely-edited PhotoShop, from the rather odd smudges and apparent artifacts around the heads of the two women on the left when the photo is enlarged, to the rather uncanny resemblance that one person in the picture has to someone I feel I should know.

After Adnan Hajj, Reuters wouldn't fall for this sort of stuff again, would they?

ItÂ’s a good thing I can chalk this up to cough syrup. If not, I might have to start questioning the mediaÂ’s accuracy.

Update:Jeez. Take a little cough syrup, disappear for a few hours, and the world goes nuts. FWIW, some credible experts have said that the artifacts that I thought may be evidence of photoshopping may have been the result of JPG compression, and that any resemblence to the President was purely coincidental. I can live with that.

What I do have a harder time living with is the foul language of our left wing guests. As a result, comments are closed, and the most offensive comments have been removed.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:29 PM | Comments (54) | Add Comment
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It turns out that "Iraqi police sources" that that have provided the Associated Press with so many of their Shia on Sunni violence stories since April are not, in fact Iraqi police, and that at least some of the stories they're reported are more than likely false.

This is hot on the heels of an investigation by Patterico that revealed that the L.A. Times may have relied on sources that may be (to be charitable) unreliable.

In both instances, facts and ethically-sound journalistic practices were in very short supply, as "journalists" apparently holed up at the bar in the al Rasheed Hotel breathlessly and uncritically reported what anonymous Iraqi stringers provided to them as news. That this practice of blind reporting is apparently widespread and accepted by the professional media should be very troubling to those who read major news site and make the (apparently erroneous) assumption that the stories being reported are based on objective, verified facts, not the whims of stringers citing sources that do not, in fact, exist.

It is increasingly apparent that the guy sitting in his living room in his pajamas may know about what is actually going on in Iraq than does his professional counterpart hunkered down in the Green Zone in Baghdad, due in no small part to the fact that the reporters in the Green Zone seem to swallow the uncorroborated reporting of Iraqi stringers of dubious allegiances and influences readily, and uncritically.

The media isn't necessarily willfully reporting false stories, they are simply too lazy to verify what they are reporting is comprised of actual facts instead of fantasy. They seem to have adopted a worldview that whatever act is the most depraved, must be the most infallible.

Call it "absolute immoral authority."

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 03:38 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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The BCC published an article today on the Israeli use of cluster munitions during the recent war with Hezbollah in Lebanon:

The Israeli army is to investigate the way cluster bombs were used during the recent conflict with Hezbollah.
The chief of the defence staff has said he prohibited the wide use of the munitions during the conflict.

But human rights observers in southern Lebanon say up to a million "bomblets" were left in the country after the war.

No one will dispute that the aerial bombing conducted during Desert Storm was far more intense than the bombing raids conducted by Israel against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, and in Desert Storm, the U.S. Air Force dropped 10,035 CBU-87 cluster bombs on military targets. The CBU-87 a 950-pound bomb has 202 submunitions. Doing a little quick math, and we can determine that 10,035 bombs times 202 submunitions per bomb means that a total of 2,027,070 submunitions were dropped during Desert Storm.

But these cluster munitions have a reported dud rate of up to 16%, meaning that in this much larger conflict, 324,332 submunitions would have failed to explode.

Much larger war, many fewer duds. Do you detect an odor yet? Read on.

In the recent war between Hezbollah and Israel, most of not all of the cluster munitions fired were delivered not by aircraft, but by artillery. Human Rights Watch notes that the Israelis used 155mm artillery to deliver DPICM projectiles. Each 155mm DPICM shell contains 88 submunitions.

To get to a figure of the million unexploded "bomblets" claimed by the BBC, Israel would have had to have fired 7,142,858 155mm DPICM shells submunitions (1,000,000 dud submunitions is 14% of 7,142,857.143, according to this handy little tool).

To say that Israel did not have the number of weapons, stockpiles of a minimum of 7,142,858 DPICM shells submunitions (7,142,858 submunitions is 81,169 shells), or time to deliver them in a conflict less than a month long, would be a gross understatement.

So where did the Beeb get it's figures? I have a suspicion:

MAG has sent a special team from Iraq into Lebanon to help get rid of the thousands of cluster bombs and other unexploded munitions from the villages and towns in the south of the country.

MAG's technical field manager, Salaam Mohammed Amin, leading the 19 highly-trained Iraqi-Kurd technicians, said: "Our staff cleared more than a million unexploded items in just one year in Iraq. It meant we helped reduce civilian victim rates after the conflict from a devastating high of around 500 per month to nearer three per month today - we hope to help the people of Lebanon in the same way."

It appears that the Beeb may have botched the Mine Advisory Group press release, somehow getting it into their heads that million of rounds of unexploded munitions in Iraq (munitions dispersed over decades of fighting) translated to a million submunitions in Lebanon.

Or at least that is what I hope happened, because if that isn't the case, that would suggest that the BBC published someone else's press release without checking the validity—or even the statistical possibility—of what they are reporting.

And the BBC wouldn't do that... would they?

Update:Via Matthew Sheffield - Heh.

Update: Updated a screw-up above. A million dud submunitions would be the result of more than 7,142,858 submunitions fired, not shells. 7,142,858 submunitions is (at 88 submunitions per shell) 81,168 DPICM shells, still averaging an extraordinary rate of fire of 2,459 DPICM shells per day (33 days between 12 July and 14 Sept) on top of the more conventional ordinance fired inside the narrow swath of Lebanon that Israeli M109 155 mm SP artillery fire can reach, which is just 14.6 miles.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:41 PM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 I'm sure he's reporting the right number...but there's a catch: They are certainly counting each and every rifle and pistol round left behind and/or scattered from the IDF air strikes hitting Hezzy ammo bunkers. And you could get those kind of numbers if you did count each and every bullet you found...which is technically an unexploded ordinance. More hype to make their mission more "flashy" (if you'll pardon the pun) and the hype makes Israel look bad. So, were there a million UXO's out there after the IDF left? Sure, you could say that, but unfired small arms rounds aren't bombs unless you're into the whole apples and oranges comparisons (which is something the Arabs are always doing when it relates to Israel).

Posted by: WB at November 22, 2006 05:55 PM (hV3oD)

2 Given your estimate of 16% dud rate of unexploded bomblets, to get 1,000,000 unexploded bomblets you would have needed a starting number of 6.25 million (1 million / 16 x 100). If each shell contains 88 bomblets, you would need a mere 71,022 shells to leave behind a million unexploded bomblets (6,225,000 / 8 . That would make the actual number of shells less than 1% of your estimate.

Posted by: ff11 at November 22, 2006 10:33 PM (L5nKp)

3 Consider the source. BBC, Associated (With Terrorists) Press, CNN, the U.N., all noted for lying through their teeth. The U.N. reported a sharp spike in violent deaths in Iraq last month. The Iraqi Health Minister said 'the U.N. is lying' the deaths were 1/4 of the U.N. count. He didn't studder, 'they are lying'. I believe the Iraqi Health Minister since an in-country blogger also says the attacks have been greatly reduced. Remember, Oct was the all out effort by the U.N./Terrorists to influence the American elections. Americans like the people of Spain fell for the propaganda hook, line and sinker. That proves that over 50% of the American voting public doesn't have the guts to protect this country or support freedon anywhere in the world.

Posted by: Scrapiron at November 22, 2006 11:42 PM (YadGF)

4 Does the fact that you have a personal bias against the UN somehow magically correct the math this article was based on? Or are you just trying to deflect attention from the issue at hand?

Posted by: ff11 at November 23, 2006 12:52 AM (L5nKp)

5 ff11, thanks for catching my screw-up. I indeed wrote 7,142,858 shells when I meant to say submunitions. The 16% dud rate was for a specific kind of U.S. air-dropped cluster bombs; the 14% figure for the 155mm artillery-delivered DPICM shells is correct, meaning that 7,142,858 submunitions, or 81,168 DPICM shells, were fired in just 33 days. That is still a phenominal claim, by any standard.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at November 23, 2006 01:03 AM (HcgFD)

6 Does the fact that you have a personal bias against the UN somehow magically correct the math this article was based on? Or are you just trying to deflect attention from the issue at hand? I havea bias... towards honesty in the media's reporting. Check out the link to the MAG press release in the main post. They do quite a bit of the clean-up of submunitions and other unexploded munitions, and they cite a U.N. report that "they have seen around 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 separate sites in Lebanon." That's a far, far cry than the million that the BBC claims. You'll also note that MAG also does not try to claim that all of these submunitions came from Israeli artillery. Hezbollah had rocket-delivered cluster munitions of their own, some of which were destroyed by Israeli strikes on the ground and were photographed by the world's media. If anyone is being intentionally dishonest with numbers, or trying to deflect attention from... what exactly?... Hezbollah's complicity in starting this war, or their nearly 100% targeting of civilian targets?... I'd submit to you that that "anyone" would be the BBC.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at November 23, 2006 01:20 AM (HcgFD)

7 Sorry if I got overly aggressive. Your numbers for submunitions sound right. Whether that is a reasonable number or not, I don't know. I know that Hezbollah reportedly fired over 4000 missiles, so I'm not sure if 80,000 shells fired by Israel would be an unrealistic number.

Posted by: ff11 at November 23, 2006 01:22 AM (L5nKp)

8 Regarding MAG, just because that 80 member team has FOUND 100.000 bomblets to date, does not mean that they have already found the majority. Regarding the Hezbollah rocket delivered cluster munitions, do you have a source for this claim? I seem to recall only hearing about rockets filled with bolts and screws.

Posted by: ff11 at November 23, 2006 01:36 AM (L5nKp)

9 A little article from Human Rights Watch called Lebanon/Israel: Hezbollah Hit Israel with Cluster Munitions during Conflict" which said, in part: Hezbollah fired cluster munitions into civilian areas in northern Israel during the recent conflict, Human Rights Watch reported today. This is the first time that Hezbollah's use of these controversial weapons has been confirmed. [snip] Each of the Type-81 cluster munition 122mm rockets used by Hezbollah carries 39 Type-90 or MZD submunitions. Each submunition in turn shoots out hundreds of steel spheres, about 3.5mm in diameter, with deadly force. Human Rights Watch discovered evidence of Hezbollah�s unprecedented use of this cluster munition in the course of ongoing investigations of the group�s attacks on northern Israel during the war that lasted from July 12 until August 14. Israeli authorities had until now prevented publication of details of Hezbollah cluster strikes in Israel, citing security concerns. Also in the article is another U.N. credited claim that Israel used as many as 4 million submunitions in Lebanon, 1 million of which didn't explode. So, the U.N. is claiming Israel alone dropped roughly twice as many cluster submunitions out of 98-lb artillery shells in Lebanon, as we did with neary 1000-lb airplane delivered bombs--with more than twice the payload--in the Gulf War. On top of that, they are claiming a dud rate nearly double that of the worst confirmed failure rates I've seen for these kind of munitions. By any chance did the U.N., like the media, get most of their numbers directly from Hezbollah?

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at November 23, 2006 02:01 AM (HcgFD)

10 Regarding MAG, just because that 80 member team has FOUND 100.000 bomblets to date, does not mean that they have already found the majority. Actually, you are more than likely wrong here, as well, on multiple levels. First, MAG doens't claim that their teams have found the munitions. Most submunitions were reported by civilians to the appropriate civil authorities. Second, DPICM submunitions are not like convential bombs still recovered in Europe after WWII that have the capabilty to bury themselves deep underground. DPICM submunitions sit on the surface, where they are easily found. Third, once one submunition is found, the entire area is typically swept by EoD to make certain other submunitions aren't laying around. It is quite likely that a supermajority of the duds have been found. Whether they will all be disposed of in a timely manner after being identified is another issue.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at November 23, 2006 02:12 AM (HcgFD)

11 It's not a matter of how many pounds of explosives were used, but what fraction was composed of cluster bombs. We tend not to use cluster bombs in areas that would be likely to affect civilian populations, and were upset enough with Israel for using them to hold up rocket shipments during this conflict. You seem to be shocked by the rougly 4000 bomblets used by Hezbollah, while you are totally accepting of the 4,000,000 bomblets used by Israel (both figures from the same article), and you don't see a bias in your position?

Posted by: ff11 at November 23, 2006 02:25 AM (L5nKp)

12 The equivalent of 102 shells an hour, 24 hours a day for 33 days, seems a bit much. And lobbing cluster-shells isn't the only purpose for firing artillery, so I'd expect there to be many more than just 80,000 to have been fired if 80,000 were fired at all. That would up the shells per day considerably. Artillery isn't fired willy-nilly by the IDF the way Hezbollah shoots off their rockets. Targets need to be determined and, with cluster-bombs, the intended targets aren't stationary, so I'd expect that forward spotters or some other surveillance would be required both for acquiring the targets and verifying elimination. To fire some 80,000 cluster shells seems like a lot of forward work, and rather ineffective at that considering the IDF claims they only killed some 500 Hezbollah fighters, not to mention that a lot of those fighters were killed by means other than artillery shells. And just to note, the IDF never even hinted at the efforts of the artillery work, neither did the press report much about the devastation visited on southern Lebanon by the IDF raining some 80,000 shells upon it during those 33 days. However, the IDF did make an effort to announce there naval and aerial efforts, which was reported in the press to a considerable extent. That was summarized by the IDF here: http://www1.idf.il/dover/site/mainpage.asp?clr=1&sl=EN&id=7&docid=56539 CY's skepticism seems fully warranted here and until the 80 member MAG team does find the majority, or even all, for that matter, the BBC ought to stick to reporting what is known, not what they want to presume. Then again, maybe CY is on to something: BBC reporters botch things rather easily.

Posted by: Dusty at November 23, 2006 02:53 AM (GJLeQ)

13 "Actually, you are more than likely wrong here, as well, on multiple levels." ---------------------------- Wrong here, "as well"? Let's not forget that you were the one who was wrong. Regarding MAG, Your guess that the majority of duds have been found seems to be entirely unfounded. First, over 100,000 bomblets have already been found. Second, the ones that are found are likely to be in the more populated areas (cities, villages) Third, we won't know if the supermajority have been found until and unless they stop finding any more.

Posted by: ff11 at November 23, 2006 02:55 AM (L5nKp)

14 The equivalent of 102 shells an hour, 24 hours a day for 33 days, seems a bit much. ----------------- Assuming they were using one launcher, yes, that would be a bit much. Assuming they were using hundreds, not so much, actually it makes it seem like they were loafing much of the time. Also note that just because Israel has used the DPICM shells to deliver cluster bombs doesn't mean that they have not used any other means: Israel has in its arsenal cluster munitions delivered by aircraft, artillery and rockets. Israel is a major producer and exporter of cluster munitions, primarily artillery projectiles and rockets containing M85 DPICM (Dual Purpose Improved Conventional Munition) submunitions. Israeli Military Industries, an Israeli government-owned weapons manufacturer, has reportedly produced more than 60 million M85 DPICM submunitions. Israel also produces at least six different types of air-dropped cluster bombs, and has imported from the United States M26 rockets for its Multiple Launch Rocket Systems.

Posted by: ff11 at November 23, 2006 03:02 AM (L5nKp)

15 BBC ? Its like getting your facts from a comic book BBC Mantra "put out story before getting facts or truth " 1984

Posted by: earth56 at November 23, 2006 03:39 PM (t9vOW)

16 ff11......Hezbolah did not fire "missiles" into Isreal, they fired "Rockets". Theres a huge difference between the two and do you really think that their warheads were filled with "nuts and bolts"? How do nuts and bolts start fires? Is there any circumstance where you can see Iran shipping expensive rockets but not shipping the inexpensive explosives for the warheads? get real

Posted by: senorlechero at November 23, 2006 11:51 PM (HbHrK)

17 You tell me, here is the reality: http://vitalperspective.typepad.com/vital_perspective_clarity/2006/07/human_rights_wa.html http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/7/24/154609.shtml Do your own search for "Hezbollah rockets filled with", pick a news source you believe. I'm not claiming that they were not deadly. It was war. But with very rare exceptions, they were NOT cluster weapons. The difference is that cluster weapons keep killing and maiming LONG after the war is over. Ball bearings do not.

Posted by: ff11 at November 25, 2006 11:08 AM (L5nKp)

18 As a former Fire Support Officer with a Paladin BN let me back up Bob here that this report is a turd blossom. No freaking way. I doubt if they even have the number of shells required to leave this many duds. I doubt they even fired that many into urban areas anyway. Israel has a professional military and professional militaries have restrictive measures against firing dual purpose improved conventional munitions into built up areas. Besides the humanitarian issues, it doesn't make sense to use the relatively small blast radius and explosive power of DPICM against fixed facilities. DPICM is good for area denial like a column of armor. If you are firing into an urban area at a building, HE makes more sense. Sounds like somebody is just trying to get free advertising for their business along with the benefit of propaganda.

Posted by: ray robison at November 27, 2006 10:27 PM (4joLu)

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Heads should roll.

Early on in the Lebanon war, there was a photograph published by both U.S. News and World Report and Time Magazine, which according to captions published with the picture was of a burning Israeli jet, shot down by Hezbullah missiles. The blogosphere was quick to call B.S. on the photo, and the widely-circulated story was that the photograph was actually that of a tire dump.

Well, it seems that the photographer responsible for taking the photograph, Bruno Stevens, has finally sounded off on Lightstalkers, explaining the photograph and telling the true story of how things ended up the way they did. He also notes that the site was not a tire dump, but was rather an old Lebanese Army base that had either been hit by an Israeli jet, or by a misfired Hezbullah rocket (both possibilites he appears to have recounted in his original captions). The key point that Bruno makes is that, while he sent in a fairly balanced caption to accompany the photograph, the wire services rewrote the caption completely, changing the pertinent facts surrounding the story. Where have we heard that before?

As Ace notes in his post on the subject:

That makes three representations thusfar by Time:

1) Hezbollah did not score a huge victory by shooting down an IAF jet.

2) The target was clearly legitimate.

3) Not only was this a legitimate Hezbollah target, it was parked on a Lebanese Army base, demonstrating cooperation between the Lebanese Government -- depicted as an innocent and abused third-party to this conflict by the media.

To compound the magazine's duplicity, Time refused to run a different picture that showed a Hezbollah rocket launcher disguised as a civilian truck on a Lebanese Army base.

To put it mildly, Time editors mislead their readers, and while I'm not a lawyer, this journalistic malpractice would certainly seem to meet at least a layman's understanding of fraud, if not something worse.

Why would Time do something so risky, so dishonest, so stupid?

As I wrote back in August, follow the money:

Story after story, photo after photo, dead and distraught Lebanese civilians clog the mediastream, building a false, grim montage of a war in which primarily Israeli soldiers and Lebanese civilians die.

This is not the whole truth of this war, but a partial truth developed through complacency and an apparent willful disregard to report the facts on the ground. Instead of seeking and publishing the entire truth, newsrooms have decided that they will publish the stories and images framed by foreign, mostly Arab Muslim reporters, even though their own cultural interests in these events are a clear and undeniable conflict of interest precluding even a pretense of unbiased reporting.

This is beyond bias, it is a reckless and willful disregard for reporting the whole truth in favor of reporting "news" that is easier to sell in a larger world media market. The casualty statistics are there, but the media sticks to the narrative they have helped create because while honest reporting is a goal, the business of the media business is business.

If it "bleeds it leads," but only if what leads sells advertising. News consumers around the world consume the news that more closely matches their perceptions of how reality should be, and stories critical of Hezbollah, stories that show their failures and deaths, don't sell in world population featuring 1.3 billion Muslims that hope for Israel's demise, or at the very best are indifferent to their fate. It is anti-Semitism by cashflow, a pocketbook jihad that buys the media's silence.

And yet, the photographer cannot be blamed here; it was the Time photo editors that made the willful decision to run a dishonest caption at odds with the description provided by the photographer, while suppressing another photo that shows apparent collusion between the Lebanese Army and Hezbollah.

This goes well beyond a mistake. Time has made the willful decision to slant, cover, and conceal news on behalf of a terrorist organization.

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 04:12 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Just moments ago on North Carolina's Morning News with Jack Boston on Raleigh-based News-Talk 680 WPTF, former CBS anchor Dan Rather defended the infamous 60 Minutes story using forged documents to attack President Bush's service with the Texas Air National Guard as being, "absolutely true," a charge a testy Rather reiterated at least four or five times.

Rather not only defended the report, but the validity of the forged documentation that the report relied on, saying it had never been proven false (despite copious evidence to the contrary).

I've contacted the station, and hope to get audio of that portion of the interview posted later in the morning.

Note: While the show is North Carolina's Morning News with Jack Boston, Rick and Donna Martinez conducted the interview with Rather while Jack Boston is out fighting leukemia. Our prayers and best wishes go out to Jack and his family.

Update: The Raleigh News and Observer reports on the story.

Update: A reader taped an MP3 (3:34) during a re-airing of the Rather-Martinez interview this afternoon during WPTF's The Bill Lumaye Show. Enjoy!

Posted by: Confederate Yankee at 08:39 AM | Comments (54) | Add Comment
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