Some days you are just going along fairly well and then something really sets you off. I was having a good day until Powerlineblog directed my attention to this NYT article on IraqTheModel. IraqTheModel is a generally, though not reflexively pro-American weblog run by three Iraqis. Last month, as the authors met with the President, there was a kerfuffle when Juan Cole repeated some rumors from anonymous web sources that the authors of the blog were CIA spies. This was pretty well put to rest as mere mean-spirited speculation at the time.
So, enter the New York Times:
When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A C.I.A. operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet.
What? Had a NYT reporter found out that the bloggers really were CIA plants?
The mystery began last month when I went online to see what Iraqis think about the war and the Jan. 30 national election. I stumbled into an ideological snake pit. Out of a list of 28 Iraqi blogs in English at a site called Iraqi Bloggers Central, I clicked on Iraq the Model because it promised three blogging brothers in one, Omar, Mohammed and Ali.
It delivered more than that. The blog, which is quite upbeat about the American presence in Iraq, had provoked a deluge of intrigue and vitriol. People posting messages on an American Web site called Martini Republic accused the three bloggers of working for the C.I.A., of being American puppets, of not being Iraqis and even of not existing at all.
I see. The NYT reporter hasn’t found out anything. She is merely repeating rumors from websites. Ah, the deep investigative powers of the mainstream media. She merely repeats the unfounded rumor, notes that the bloggers write in surprisingly (why surprisingly?) fluent English, and notes that the bloggers deny being plants. She also reports that when she spoke to one of them, he had withdrawn from the blog due to fears for the lives of his family.
This article pisses me off because it shows completely shoddy reporting, and doesn’t bother for a second to think of the ramifications of making this particular unfounded accusation. The brothers of IraqTheModel are already putting their lives on the line by being pro-American in Iraq. Do they really need the most important American newspaper to insinuate that they are CIA spies? Did Sarah Boxer think for a moment about the ramifications of that charge? There are basically two situations. A) The brothers are CIA plants. If this were true, and if there were something to be gained by exposing it, the insinuation might be defensible. I can’t think of why the reporter would need to reveal that–putting their lives in danger–but maybe it could make sense in certain situations. Of course Boxer’s article sets up no such important situation which tends to make the insinuation bad even if we were to assume its truth. B) The brothers are not CIA plants. If this is the case, Boxer just put their lives in even more danger for absolutely no defensible reason. If the evidence were to be judged on a perponderance standard–with the only evidence presented that IraqTheModel is pro-American, writes in good English, and that anonymous web-posters say they are agents–we would have to conclude that B) seems much more likely.
How can a NYT writer be so disconnected from reality? Even if the insinuation didn’t endanger people, doesn’t it violate the basic tenets of reporting to make a serious charge with no more than third-hand rumor? Did Boxer’s need to discredit a vaguely pro-Bush Iraqi source extend so far as to rely entirely on rumor? It makes me want to scream.
UPDATE: CrookedTimber discusses the article.
An example of poor reporting, who failed to fact check. The only issue was this pursued, or failed to be properly edited, because it fit into some NYT’s agenda or becasue the reporter was lazy. I go with the later.
Sarah Boxer is apparently this person and here is an interview. Rather than fitting in some agenda, it seems more that she is just trying to be witty, which probably accounts for the droll tone.
The NYT reporter hasn’t found out anything. She is merely repeating rumors from websites.
Yes. That’s what she says she’s doing in the article.
I concede that, were this article to be mistranslated by someone determined to twist it the wrong way, it is conceivable that it could be interpreted as “NYT says pro-American Iraqi bloggers are CIA plants” – especially if you pull quotes out of context. And that would be a very dangerous thing to imply about any Iraqi in Iraq.
Taken in context, however, it’s an article about Iraqis blogging in Iraq about Iraq, and about how what they have said has been used, misinterpreted, and responded to by non-Iraqis outside Iraq.
Me, I’m all in favor of reading what Iraqis inside Iraq actually have to say, as opposed to responding to what people outside Iraq have to say about these Iraqis.
I recollect some violent language being used against the original Salaam Pax, by American bloggers who objected to his lack of enthusiasm for the US occupation. Also some flagrant disbelief that Riverbend was actually an Iraqi blogging from inside Iraq. None of these responses are acceptable, no more than the reaction against the three brothers of Iraq the Model.
Is Sarah Boxer’s article acceptable? If she got Ali Fadhil’s permission to quote him for her article, yes, perfectly acceptable. She at least contacted Fadhil directly and let him speak for himself, rather than only writing about what he had written. To argue that a journalist should not be allowed to report that rumors are circulating, not even if she makes clear that she is reporting circulating rumors, not facts, is to fence off some areas of information as unreportable.
I didn’t hear to many conservatives complain when the Times was writing all of its WMD stories and cheering the Bush Administration on to war, or when they spent the 90’s writing about a non-existing scandal (White water).
Myself, I find it quite revealing how righties respond to this incident in the NY Times, and how they responded to the Hewitt incident regarding KOS and MYDD. When it’s the Dems, the argument isn’t about the slander that Hewitt perpetrated by lying, rather it’s about the ethics of disclosure. But when Iraq the Model is suggested to be working for the CIA – i.e. really the exact same issue of disclosure – it’s all about attacking (rightfully, I might add) the person who wrote the trash and the NYTimes for printing it.
Both case are absolutely identical. And yet, people like Jarvis railed mightily against anyone who got pissed off about what Hewitt, Reynolds and other jokers did to Kos. And yet when Iraq the Model is attacked in the same way, they are the ones “getting pissed” and – as Jarvis puts it – getting all snippy and vicious (witness Sebastian’s rant).
Also, notice that the left universally believes this attack on Iraq the Model was unfounded and universally condemns it.
Notice that there still is no condemnation of Hewitt’s bald faced lies and the right is either tsk, tsk’ing the left, saying that the left’s reaction is just confirmation that Dean was an out of control lunatic, and that the whole issue is about ethical disclosure.
The same reaction applied to Iraq the Model would have been (rightly) condemned and laughed out of the blogosphere.
To my observations, the reactions to these two events pretty much sums up the problems with the Right half of the blogosphere completely.
And yet, people like Jarvis railed mightily against anyone who got pissed off about what Hewitt, Reynolds and other jokers did to Kos.
Don’t expect me to make a habit of this, but in defense of Instapundit. You can tell he’s defending Kos because he is so wishy-washy about it. I’m going to take a shower now…
The NYT reporter hasn’t found out anything. She is merely repeating rumors from websites.
So now Times writers are behaving like bloggers. What’s the big deal? Isn’t this where all the “Advantage: blogosphere!” people wanted to go?
This is the sort of story “Letters to the Editors” was invented for. It’s not any reason to call the integrity of the entire news entity into question. Here’s the link, send the Times a piece of your mind. It remains the best newspaper in the country, even with it’s occassional mistakes.
I agree with, basically, everyone. I agree with Sebastian that the article is a disgrace to the Times (and I’m not meaning to put whole chunks of stuff off limits; I just think that unverified speculations from the blogosphere are generally not newsworthy (at least when the participants do not have both a serious reputation for accuracy and also reason to know what they’re talking about — the counterexample I’m trying to leave room for is, say, Steve Clemons at Washington Note reporting an off-the-record conversation with a policy source), and moreover in this case it’s irresponsible, since it might expose people not just to slander but to real danger.
I agree with Edward and Timmy (!! — first the Wire, now this: can the invasion of Iraq be far behind? (Yes.)) that this is more likely to be stupid laziness than anything else. Not that that excuses anything.
And I agree with Hal that it’s interesting to compare this to reactions to what people said about kos. Both Hugh Hewitt and Robert Novak referred to kos as being ‘on the take’. This is a serious allegation (though luckily not a life-threatening one), and it differs from the NYT article in not being presented as speculation but as fact. The WSJ article is probably more directly comparable: it presented the facts, but put the crucial ones about Jerome having shut down his website and kos having disclosed everything way down in the article, so that it read much worse than it was. Still, at least they said what they knew, instead of just making stuff up, as Hewitt and Novak did.
Comparing reactions, to me, doesn’t imply losing sight of the badness of the original. As I said, I thought the Times piece was really bad. It’s meant to add something, not to subtract or distract.
I agree that the story was dumb and irresponsible, but I hate the blogger triumphalism.
Still waiting for Jeff to correct himself on this.
Craaaaaptacular.
I want to make it clear that I don’t believe Boxer was intentionally trying to endanger the IraqTheModel bloggers, I just think that she wasn’t thinking beyond the US ramifications. Which is horrible. But I’m not accusing her of intenrionally endangering them.
However, the journalistic standards are very poor in this article.
I suppose many of you don’t get the physical paper. But did anybody notice it was on the front page-of the Arts section? What up with that?
Hal, it may be that I don’t have enough information, but I don’t understand your point about Kos. Are you talking about the Dean campaign disclosure issue? I agree the ‘issue’ is lame since Kos had disclosed it though there are questions about those whom he admits he has not disclosed (I refuse to openly speculate about who those might be), but I don’t see what it has to do with using the “Paper of Record” to insinuate that Iraqis are CIA spies.
In a rare instance of my disagreeing with hilzoy, I think this is merely a not very good Arts article.
“Craaaaaptacular”
In a unique instance of my disagreeing with Anarch, I find the article discussed by Kleiman
here much worthier of that description.
“I’m not afraid of Death, I just don’t wanna be there when it happens”.
Woody Allen.
I suppose many of you don’t get the physical paper. But did anybody notice it was on the front page-of the Arts section? What up with that?
I did. Had it been in the News section, or even Op Eds, Bird’s polemic against it would have been to some degree justified. But in context? It’s an Arts article about blogging, which reports rumors circulating in the blogosphere as rumors circulating in the blogosphere, without giving them the slightest degree of credence.
The whole thing is mightily over the top.
In a unique instance of my disagreeing with Anarch, I find the article discussed by Kleiman here much worthier of that description.
Ah, but the beauty of “Craaaaaptacular” is that it applies to so many things nowadays…
As it happens, btw, I hadn’t realized this was in the Arts section and not the news section. I suppose that renders it a “not very good Arts article” — which means we’re not really in disagreement, rilkefan — but I’m not really sure what the appropriate parameters for Arts articles are, anyway. [Still think it’s pretty crappy, though.] I do agree, however, that the article Kleiman links is even worse.
fwiw, I too read the NYT on the web, so didn’t know it was an Arts article. I still think that printing speculation from random bloggers is stupid, and speculating that someone in Iraq is CIA is irresponsible.
The NYT seems to think the blogging world is funny, or lightweight, somehow not worthy of serious journalism.
I see this NYT piece as a not-very-effective part of the mainstream media’s effort to come to terms with and understand the world of bloggers.
Too bad the reporter is so dismissive. The Iraqi blogs are fascinating to read. I’m using them in my classroom to teach reading for inference and point of view.