The rumor-mongering media

[the light of truth]

The rumor-mongering media

You will not read one of the most significant stories of the week out of Iraq on the front page of The New York Times. CNN will not make it headline news. The Associated Press has yet to touch it.

That's because the story exposes the media's own widespread malfeasance in reporting on the war on terror — and its refusal to be held accountable when challenged by "amateur" bloggers investigating fishy sources and claims recycled recklessly by "professional" journalists.

One of the most sensational news items over the Thanksgiving holiday came from the Associated Press, which reported on six Sunni civilians burned alive as they left Friday mosque services. The shocking dispatch received global coverage. The front cover of the Philadelphia Daily News blasted:

"WORSHIPPERS BURNED ALIVE: Capping deadliest week of war, 6 Sunnis doused with kerosene, set afire as Iraqi soldiers reportedly stand idle." The Chicago Sun-Times blared: "Sunnis burned alive in revenge." The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia headlined: "Shi'ite militia burn Sunnis alive in revenge attacks." The Calcutta Telegraph in India echoed: "Shias burn Sunnis alive."

The Washington Post announced: "New savage twist to violence in Baghdad." The lead paragraph reported: "Revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers, drenched them with kerosene and burned them alive, and Iraqi soldiers did nothing to stop the attack, police and witnesses said."

The story continued: "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area."

Just a few small problems with the massively publicized story:

1) "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein" is an unreliable, unauthorized spokesperson whom the military has warned the Associated Press about before.

2) The incident cannot be verified.

Newspaper readers around the world who carried the story have not been informed of any of this by the Associated Press or any other mainstream media outlet. But those who follow the blogosphere have been unraveling the story over the past week at lightning pace. Curt at the Flopping Aces blog (http://floppingaces.net/) has led the way, first raising questions on Saturday morning about "police Capt. Jamil Hussein's" account. He noted an official Multi-National Corps-Iraq (MNC-I) statement in response to the AP report that "neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story."

Next, he published a bombshell e-mail from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Iraq (which CENTCOM also confirmed to me). Since September, Multi-National Forces in Iraq (MNF-I) have worked with a group of retired police officers there to verify the legitimacy and employment of Iraqi Police (IP) and Ministry of Interior (MOI) "spokesmen" quoted in the media. According to the military, the Associated Press has been warned previously about these unreliable sources who have not been established as bona fide employees — but "they have pretty much ignored us."

The list includes the following sources, many of whom have appeared in countless AP stories: police 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.

And that's a partial list.

After Curt's inquiries, CENTCOM sent a request for retraction to the Associated Press. Public Affairs Officer Lt. Michael Dean of the MNC-I Joint Operations Center wrote:

We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee. We verified this fact with the MOI through the Coalition Police Assistance Training Team . . .

. . . Also, we definitely know, as we told you several weeks ago through the MNC-I Media Relations cell, that another AP-popular IP spokesman, Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq, supposedly of the city's Yarmouk police station, does not work at that police station and is also not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP. The MOI has supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning. . . . Unless you have a credible source to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a minimum, acknowledging that the source named in the story is not who he claimed he was. MNC-I and MNF-I are always available and willing to verify events and provide as much information as possible when asked.

The Associated Press has yet to respond to queries from both Curt and me regarding its reporting on the incident. As of Tuesday afternoon, I could find no retraction, correction or reference to the shady spokesman angle in any Associated Press report. The silence from AP (and the rest of the media, for that matter) comes as no surprise. This is, after all, the same organization that sat on the news for five months that one of its Iraqi-based stringers, Bilal Hussein, had been and remains in detention after being captured by U.S. military forces with an alleged al Qaeda operative.

At least we know how to get the blabbermouth media to clam up now: Just start asking them questions and a mammoth hush will fall over newsrooms faster than you can press "mute."

by Michelle Malkin
http://jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin112906.php3

[almostlive]

... but you'll read it RIGHT HERE, thanks to Medialine's Right-Wing-website ringmaster, Light o' Truth!

(Standing by for something from Newsmax or Neal Boortz...)

[Produce man]

The MSM exposed again. No surprise.

[almostlive]

Originally posted by Produce man:
The MSM exposed again. No surprise.It's true. We have a club and everything.

[Michigan J. Frog]

Originally posted by Produce man:
The MSM exposed again. No surprise.Please define "MSM." And I don't mean the words. I mean tell us what the phrase "Main Stream Media" means.

Then you can explain how the place for which you work is NOT a part of the MSM.

[Produce man]

Originally posted by Michigan J. Frog:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
The MSM exposed again. No surprise.Please define "MSM." And I don't mean the words. I mean tell us what the phrase "Main Stream Media" means.

Then you can explain how the place for which you work is NOT a part of the MSM.</font>[/QUOTE]MSM= The nets, major newspapers and large-mrket news radio shows.

The place I work at is 99% local. We don't editorialize. As long as we make money, management is happy. We're locally owned, and he has no agenda to push...except to make money.

[Produce man]

Originally posted by almostlive for the holidays:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
The MSM exposed again. No surprise.It's true. We have a club and everything.</font>[/QUOTE]Yes, I know. They meet daily at the morning editorial meeting.

[CKMD]

Never heard or read about this incident.
So, it makes the whole thread moot.

Next?

[Produce man]

Originally posted by Can't Keep Me Down:
Never heard or read about this incident.
So, it makes the whole thread moot.

Next?Apparently some of us are more informed than you.

Next?

[CKMD]

Informed about a story that isn't true and hasn't had major media attention?
OK...if you consider that informed?

Next?

[Republican Hater]

Considering both, um, sources in the original post, I'll take it for what it's worth.
http://i56.photobucket.com/albums/g161/majorturbo/poo-flag_eastside.jpg

[Republican Hater]

Originally posted by Produce man:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by almostlive for the holidays:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
The MSM exposed again. No surprise.It's true. We have a club and everything.</font>[/QUOTE]Yes, I know. They meet daily at the morning editorial meeting.</font>[/QUOTE]Michael Richards, is that you?

[the light of truth]

Originally posted by Produce man:
They meet daily at the morning editorial meeting.http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd3815/wicklow-mountains-sheep-58.3.jpg

I'm sure they do.

[Produce man]

Bingo!

[almostlive]

What a goober! We are NOT sheep. We are LEMMINGS, brainwashed by James Carville and the liberal corporations that dominate the broadcast media (defense contractor GE, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, etc.).

http://www.zi.ku.dk/popecol/webbio/Study%20species/Two%20lemmings%20i%20burrow_001.jpg

The other day, some guy at ABC said something conservative, so we killed him. Everyone fell into line after that.

[Michigan J. Frog]

Originally posted by Produce man:
We don't editorialize. No, of course you don't.

[Produce man]

Originally posted by Michigan J. Frog:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
We don't editorialize. No, of course you don't.</font>[/QUOTE]That's it?

Thank you for confirming that I'm correct.

Again.

[ November 29, 2006, 05:37 PM: Message edited by: Produce man ]

[s'news]

Is there a secret handshake?

[Produce man]

Originally posted by s'news:
Is there a secret handshake?Actually, there is. It's called "the reach-around".

[Michigan J. Frog]

Originally posted by Produce man:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michigan J. Frog:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
We don't editorialize. No, of course you don't.</font>[/QUOTE]That's it?

Thank you for confirming that I'm correct.

Again.</font>[/QUOTE]Certainly. Whatever makes you happy and secure..

[The Mockingbird]

I don't know about you, but I can't even begin to take someone seriously after they use the word "blogosphere".

[TVShootist.]

Originally posted by the light of truth:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
They meet daily at the morning editorial meeting.http://www.photo.net/photo/pcd3815/wicklow-mountains-sheep-58.3.jpg

I'm sure they do.</font>[/QUOTE]That looks like 2:30 and her minions.

[Kace]

I thought it was called MSNBC, not MSM...

[Bureau Chief]

Why isnt this in the political forum? I wasted .0010 seconds clicking on this story to see if I wanted to read it or not. Thats .0010 seconds I will never get back. :D :D tongue.gif

[The Mockingbird]

Because it's griping about the media.

[Republican Hater]

Originally posted by Kace:
I thought it was called MSNBC, not MSM...Hehehe. Anyone using the term "MSM" is showing their true colors.

[The Mockingbird]

I thought that was the company with the lion that roared when we were little.

[almostlive]

I thought it was the production company that brought us "St. Elsewhere," "Remington Steele" and "Newhart."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f5/MTM_logo_2.jpg

Meow.

[Produce man]

Psst...

MtM= Mary Tyler Moore

[almostlive]

Yeah... was aware of that Produce.

[SpxGrunt]

Originally posted by Produce man:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michigan J. Frog:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
The MSM exposed again. No surprise.Please define "MSM." And I don't mean the words. I mean tell us what the phrase "Main Stream Media" means.

Then you can explain how the place for which you work is NOT a part of the MSM.</font>[/QUOTE]MSM= The nets, major newspapers and large-mrket news radio shows.

The place I work at is 99% local. We don't editorialize. As long as we make money, management is happy. We're locally owned, and he has no agenda to push...except to make money.</font>[/QUOTE]It's hard to editorialize when you're running pre-packaged feed stories and a 6 minute weather cast. Do you still record the feeds on 3/4-inch or are you using VHS now?

[Produce man]

Originally posted by SpxGrunt:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michigan J. Frog:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Produce man:
The MSM exposed again. No surprise.Please define "MSM." And I don't mean the words. I mean tell us what the phrase "Main Stream Media" means.

Then you can explain how the place for which you work is NOT a part of the MSM.</font>[/QUOTE]MSM= The nets, major newspapers and large-mrket news radio shows.

The place I work at is 99% local. We don't editorialize. As long as we make money, management is happy. We're locally owned, and he has no agenda to push...except to make money.</font>[/QUOTE]It's hard to editorialize when you're running pre-packaged feed stories and a 6 minute weather cast. Do you still record the feeds on 3/4-inch or are you using VHS now?</font>[/QUOTE]Oh, another "I can't debate you, so I'll say you work in a small market" post.

How original.

(Here's a little tip for you. Try calling me a janitor or MCO. That seems to be popular here, as well.)

[SpxGrunt]

Prodouche, no one can debate you because 99% of your posts are pointless. Also, you're a douchebag. There's little debate about that.

[McCovey Cove Returns]

We just had a big time "pooning" in this thread. One point for Grunt.

[Clever Login Name]

Wait ... "you must work in a small market, plus I'm calling you a name" is now a 'pooning'? Huh ...

[foxravens]

Clever...you seem to be very sensitive to "small market comments".
You're in one, huh?
Well, work on that tape and get out.
Simple, no?

[Produce man]

Originally posted by foxravens:
Clever...you seem to be very sensitive to "small market comments".
You're in one, huh?
Well, work on that tape and get out.
Simple, no?My point is made yet again.

God, you dumbasses make it so easy...

[Clever Login Name]

Originally posted by foxravens:
Clever...you seem to be very sensitive to "small market comments".
You're in one, huh?
Well, work on that tape and get out.
Simple, no?It matters not what market I'm in ... or might claim to be in on this board. The point is, it obviously matters to people like you. And that's, well, sad. Start defining your self-worth through the content of your character, your clarity of thought, your ability to defend your opinions and ideas through logic and reason ... at the risk of channeling buckpasser, if you're going to define yourself through others, it demonstrates a remarkable paucity of intellectual reasoning. I'll pause here while you go look up the word "paucity". ........ You (and others) continue to rebut other people's opinions with put-downs about what size market you imagine they work in. Can you possibly be more insecure? What's the relevance? Are you so fraught with self-doubt you can't possibly do anything but that? I take that back ... when two people share an opinion that happens to be the opposite of yours, you call them "gay" ... your other favorite comeback. You're a very insecure and insubstantial man and I pity you.

Here's where you reply to the effect that your house is paid for, you just got a big raise/contract/blahblahblahblah ... go ahead. I know you can't resist doing it. It'll make you feel better anyway. So go ahead. I'll give you a free one ... oh wait, am I sounding like another "keyboard warrior" or "Internet tough guy"? I thought you were over that lame posturing. We'll see.

[ November 30, 2006, 07:01 PM: Message edited by: Clever Login Name ]

[CKMD]

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!!!!!

[Produce man]

foxravings just got b!tch-slapped!

[CKMD]

Not really.

[Produce man]

Yeah, it was a b!tch-slap. Can't you see the handprint on the face?

[CKMD]

Nope.

[Clever Login Name]

Long (sorry, libs) but interesting read on the AP/Jamil Hussein issue and media bias in general:

MSM bias: "Everybody knows ..."
Michelle Malkin, Flopping Aces and many others have spent days chronicling how the Associated Press has been bamboozled into reporting an apparently fictitious (or, at least, greatly exaggerated) atrocity in Iraq. Yet AP continues to defend both its dubious story and its equally dubious sources.

Why? Why are we watching AP repeat the same basic mistake that CBS committed with Dan Rather's fake-but-accurate National Guard debacle?

Two words: "Everybody knows." Anyone who has studied anthropology, sociology or mass psychology understands how false beliefs can become conventional wisdom within groups if (a) high-status individuals within the group advocate the belief, and (b) there is no one inside the group to dispute the false belief.

That, in short, is the herd-mentality explanation of why liberal bias pervades the MSM. It's also the explanation of the Heaven's Gate cult (whose members acted on the belief that they must commit suicide in order to be taken aboard a cosmic mothership traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet). Where group membership is dependent upon shared belief, where skepticism of key beliefs is viewed as disloyalty to the group, and where non-believers are stigmatized, marginalized and excluded, the truth or falsehood of group beliefs is moot. Logic and evidence, so far as they might undermine belief, are unwelcome. This is how it becomes possible for groups to act upon false beliefs.

"Everybody knows" so-and-so to be true, and those who question what "everybody knows" tend to make themselves unpopular.

The most successful and influential people within the media are liberal -- in 1992, for instance, Washington journalists were surveyed and 89% of the respondents said they'd voted for President Clinton. Since Clinton got just 43% of the vote that year, that means that Washington journalists were twice as likely to vote Democrat as the average American.

Of the three broadcast network news anchors (all of whom are "executive producers" of their programs), do you think any have ever voted for Republican presidential candidate? Katie Couric at CBS? Brian Williams at NBC? Charlie Gibson at ABC? They voted for Kerry, they voted for Gore, they voted for Clinton twice -- they voted for Dukakis, for crying out loud, and no one who'd watched their broadcasts over the years would ever doubt it.

If one can become a multimillionaire news anchor, the very pinnacle of success in the news business, despite being transparently a partisan Democrat and a liberal ideologue, then obviously there is no penalty for such beliefs within the media profession. And since no conservative is a network anchor or executive producer, one might assume (and you'd get no argument from Bernard Goldberg) that conservative beliefs are penalized.

One might extend this argument outward to other major media outlets. The New York Times, for instance, would rather see its circulation dwindle and its stock price collapse, rather than abandon the kind of liberal bias that won a Pulitzer for Stalinist stooge Walter Duranty.

Thus, whatever liberals generally believe at any given time can be understood to function as conventional wisdom within the media. "Everybody knows" that Bush is stupid, that Cheney is a fascist warmonger, and that the GOP is under the control of neocons, Halliburton and "Christianists." Most of all, "everybody knows" that the war in Iraq is another Vietnam -- a "quagmire" in need of "an exit strategy."

It's Heaven's Gate, you see? Cult members knew that there was a spaceship behind that comet, because one could not believe otherwise and remain a member. To the extent that they actually studied the facts about the Hale-Bopp comet (and they were fairly obsessed with it), they did so only with the purpose of finding "evidence" to confirm the unquestionable belief. And this backward way of thinking is deeply related to group psychology.

If you've ever been in a workplace setting where there is an emphasis "being a team player" (i.e., cheerleading for whatever b.s. the bosses are pushing), you understand the strong incentives to stifle dissent within such an organization. The dot-com bubble produced several tales of this nature: Everyone with any sense in the office understood that it was impossible for the business to succeed, but the "be a team player" message meant that nobody could openly question the business model.

The same dynamic was at work, for example, at Enron. And, to choose a still more recent example, one could see this groupthink "be a team player" dynamic in action during the 2006 Republican midterm campaign. When Glenn Reynolds dared to offer his "pre-mortem," he was slammed by Rush Limbaugh as a "cut-and-run conservative," although after the election, Limbaugh himself expressed joy at being "liberated" from "carrying water" for Republicans.

Once the impact of FoleyGate became apparent, sensible observers, like Allahpundit, were profoundly skeptical about the GOP's prospects for maintaining the majority. As early as Oct. 4, I noted the defensive circle-the-wagons partisan meme taking hold: Do not question the leaders! Skepticism is heresy!

This denial-based response became the Official Conservative position, and as Election Day drew nigh -- while top conservative opinion-makers were herded into the Oval Office to get their marching orders and talking points -- one began to hear laughably optimistic claims: There's still hope for Rick Santorum! Don't count out Mike DeWine! Lincoln Chafee gained two points in the most recent poll!

If we conservatives could allow ourselves to be bamboozled by this kind of groupthink conventional wisdom -- "Everbody knows that the polls don't reflect the potential impact of the vaunted Republican turnout machine" -- then can't we understand how liberal bias in the media operates on the same principles?

Thus, if the MSM in their post-election gloating phase decide to push to ratify their long-held belief -- Iraq is another Vietnam and U.S. defeat is a matter of time -- then the hunt for "evidence" to support that belief is going to trump all skepticism. The reporter who provides a story that supports a decision to declare a "civil war" in Iraq (this burning Sunnis story pushed NBC News to make that call) can expect his editors to defend his reporting the way Dan Rather defended his fake-but-accurate documents.

Why? Because to allow the possibility of evidence that contradicts the group belief -- or in this instance, to cast doubt on some key piece of evidence that was accepted as support for the belief -- might not only inspire doubt in the belief, but might cause some members to question the entire group enterprise.

If AP's editors have been hoodwinked for months by reporters passing along insurgent propaganda from "Police Captain" Jamil Hussein, what does this tell us about those editors, and what does it tell us about the institutional agenda of the Associated Press? If the AP is not a reliable news organization, but is instead just another MSM outfit devoted to disseminating liberal talking-points ...

Well, "everybody knows" that can't be the case, right? And this is how transparently partisan Democrats in the media like Couric and Rather can claim that there is no bias in their reporting: They operate within organizations that exclude and marginalize conservatives, while promoting and celebrating liberals. Belief is good, disbelief is bad.

In such an organization, the conventional wisdom of liberalism is not bias, it is merely what "everybody knows."

[Produce man]

Further confirmation of what I've been saying for quite some time.

[McCovey Cove Returns]

You guys don't know your ******* from a hole in the ground. It's Rio by Duran Duran.

[ December 01, 2006, 12:07 PM: Message edited by: News Vampire ]