Month: November 2005 Page 3 of 5

I’m going to take a pass for the moment on the Bob Woodward matter. If you just can’t get enough, Romenesko is accumulating links here. Instead, I want to look at a story that’s getting very little attention in the American media — and to ponder why that’s the case.

This past Sunday, the New York Times’ Week in Review section published an article that could prove infamous. Written by Scott Shane, the story is essentially a puff piece about the Open Source Center, a new U.S. intelligence unit. Shane wrote:

A documentary on Italian television on Tuesday accuses American forces of using white phosphorus shells in the assault on Falluja last year not just for nighttime illumination, their usual purpose, but to burn to death Iraqi insurgents and civilians. The mainstream American news media, whose reporters had witnessed the fighting and apparently seen no evidence of this, largely ignored the claim.

“We posted it because it was getting significant play on the Web and in foreign media, which means it could influence public opinion,” said Douglas J. Naquin, director of the center. The Web site — open to government workers and contractors — included links to the video and to foreign news reports about it from the BBC in London to The Daily Times in Pakistan.

Notice that the tone of Shane’s article is essentially one of debunking the phosphorus claims. We now know that what the situation called for was not debunking but, rather, aggressive reporting. Yet the story is still barely a blip on the U.S. mediascape.

The American media should have gone on full alert last week, when the phosphorus allegation became a major story in the European press. Here, for instance, is the top of an article that appeared in the Independent of London on Nov. 9:

A leading campaign group has demanded an urgent inquiry into a report that US troops indiscriminately used a controversial incendiary weapon during the battle for Fallujah. Photographic evidence gathered from the aftermath of the battle suggests that women and children were killed by horrific burns caused by the white phosphorus shells dropped by US forces.

The Pentagon has always admitted it used phosphorus during last year’s assault on the city, which US commanders said was an insurgent stronghold. But they claimed they used the brightly burning shells “very sparingly” and only to illuminate combat areas.

What part of “photographic evidence” do Bill Keller, Len Downie et al. not understand? Isn’t this something they would want to see for themselves to determine whether there’s a story? Apparently not.

A week later, the truth came out, when the BBC — not the Times, not the Post — reported that U.S. forces had, indeed, used white phosphorus in the Fallujah battle not just to “illuminate combat areas” but also to inflict injury and death on the insurgents. In a piece on the BBC Web site yesterday, we learned:

US troops used white phosphorus as a weapon in last year’s offensive in the Iraqi city of Falluja, the US has said.

“It was used as an incendiary weapon against enemy combatants,” spokesman Lt Col Barry Venable told the BBC — though not against civilians, he said.

The US had earlier said the substance — which can cause burning of the flesh — had been used only for illumination.

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial is a public relations disaster for the US.

It gets worse. It turns out that, under the terms of an international treaty — a treaty that the U.S. has refused to ratify — it is forbidden to use phosphorus as a weapon in areas where civilians might be exposed. And Fallujah, obviously, was a place where many civilians were holed up, even though there was some effort to evacuate them before the battle began.

Technically, it’s probably an exaggeration to call this chemical warfare. But it certainly looks like chemical warfare, doesn’t it? So here we are, some two and a half years into the war in Iraq, and we are now faced with the reality that U.S. forces have engaged in precisely the sorts of behavior that we found so appalling when Saddam Hussein engaged in them: torturing Iraqis and blasting them with lethal chemicals.

Atop the Independent’s Web site right now is a headline that reads “Incendiary Weapons: The big white lie.” It’s the lead story in the Times of London’s Iraq coverage. Oddly, it’s not played prominently on Al-Jazeera’s English-language Web site, but there’s still a fairly detailed story posted on the site. Yet the American media are still lagging.

The Washington Post, which managed to run a 222-word brief on page A16 on Wednesday, has nothing today. (WashingtonPost.com did run an interesting blog entry on Tuesday by William M. Arkin offering some perspective on phosphorus, and concluding that the manner in which it was used in Fallujah was “terribly ill-conceived.” But I wonder how many people saw that?)

NYTimes.com today has a Reuters story summarizing what we know so far, including the Pentagon’s defense of its use of phosphorus and its denial that it targeted civilians. But I had to use the Web site’s search engine to find it, and I’m not sure it even made it into the print edition. I do know that it’s not on the front page.

The Boston Globe, to its credit, gives the story front-page play today, publishing a Reuters piece with supplemental material from the Associated Press, as well as a Q&A about phosphorus. But the network news divisions take their cue from the Times and the Post, not the Globe.

There’s no doubt that the media are overwhelmed right now with negative news from Iraq, most prominently the discovery this week of a torture chamber run by our ally, the Iraqi government. But the phosphorus story could, over time, become as damaging a symbol of what went wrong as the Abu Ghraib photos did earlier. This story needs to be reported aggressively and thoroughly. What are the media waiting for?

The Minneapolis Star-Tribune has posted a slide show about Army reservist Jessica Clements, who suffered a severe head injury while serving in Iraq. The narrator is none other than Clements herself. This is a deeply moving look at the war from the inside. (Thanks to Media Nation reader M.S.)

The Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald (uh, not the Jay of “Jay who?”) reports that WTKK Radio (96.9 FM) has replaced trash-talking, Muslim-bashing afternoon-drive-time host Jay Severin with trash-talking, Muslim-bashing afternoon-drive-time host Michael Graham. (The Globe runs a squib in its “Names” column.)

Severin disappeared from the airwaves several months ago after signing a national-syndication deal with Infinity Broadcasting that kicks in next year. Coincidentally, the Long Island-based “live and local” host left the Boston mediascape at the same time that Globe columnist Scot Lehigh revealed Severin had falsely claimed to have won a Pulitzer Prize.

Among Severin’s numerous notorious moments in Boston was an incident that took place in the spring of 2004, when he referred to Muslims in the United States as “a fifth column” and told a caller, “I have an alternative viewpoint. It’s slightly different than yours. You think we should befriend them, I think we should kill them.” Severin later apologized for not making it clear that he was referring specifically to Muslim terrorists, not to all Muslims. But he also enjoyed an undeserved field day because the Globe inaccurately reported that Severin had actually said, “I’ve got an idea, let’s kill all Muslims” — wrong, but also a fair approximation of his actual words.

Trouble is, Graham has had his own widely publicized problems with making grotesque remarks about Muslims — and it is, in fact, the reason he was a free agent in the first place. Graham could go toe-to-toe with Severin in an offensive-speech contest, given that he was fired from a station in Washington this past August after referring to Islam as “a terrorist organization” following the London subway bombings. (No, it wasn’t just one off-handed remark. Read Fitzgerald’s whole story.)

Graham has posted a maudlin, self-pitying take on his ordeal here. Graham writes:

It is a new day, not just for my family and my career, but I believe it is an important day for talk radio and free speech, too.

It’s been three months since the Council of American-Islamic Relations demanded my removal from the airwaves and ABC Radio capitulated to their demands. In those three months, many things could have happened: If ABC had had their way, I would have been falsely labeled a bigot. Even worse, I could have given into their pressure and issued a false apology, abandoning my principles for the sake of a job (a very tempting idea whenever the rent payment came due). I could have been banished from the talk radio industry, deemed “unhireable” by the industry — which is what several radio muckity-mucks assured me would happen.

Instead, the talk radio industry rallied. KFI in Los Angeles led the way, putting me on the air the very week I was fired, a statement more about their values than my broadcasting abilities. I have had more than half a dozen job offers from excellent radio stations across the nation. Not one station — NOT ONE — demonstrated any reluctance at all to work with me due to fear of pressure from CAIR or because of ABC’s decision to fire me.

So I’m off to Boston to a better job at one of the most successful FM talkers in the country and I’m returning to afternoon drive, my favorite time slot. My family is excited about the move, Boston is a great city and I can’t wait to get started.

Well, isn’t that special? It’s nice to know that Graham’s First Amendment right to earn a six-figure salary at a government-licensed, cartel-owned radio station has been upheld.

As for Severin, maybe he’ll prove me wrong when his Infinity deal kicks in. Maybe he’ll even pop up locally — possibly on WBZ Radio (AM 1030), which is an Infinity-owned station. But I have the feeling that he might have blown the best media gig he’s ever had.

Perhaps I travel in the wrong circles (I’m reminded of the famous if apocryphal Pauline Kael statement that she couldn’t believe Richard Nixon had beaten George McGovern, since no one she knew had voted for Nixon). But I have heard absolutely no one say, “Gee, I really miss Jay Severin.”

Lisa Williams, who’s the force behind the excellent Watertown citizen-journalism blog H2Otown, has posted an essay on Jay Rosen’s blog. Williams writes:

Like most functional small cities and large towns, Watertown is a comic opera with real estate taxes. But a newspaper isn’t allowed to say so. In a small town, The Newspaper is an authority figure, and there’s a word for someone in a position of power who makes wisecracks about others: bully. Being “just a blogger” — and emphasizing my total lack of credentials or authority other than being a Watertown resident with a blog — meant that I could convey the fun and joy of where I lived without being mean.

Aside from a bad attitude, one of my other journalistic sins is my lack of objectivity. I live in Watertown. I love it, and I’m an unapologetic booster. I’m not in bed with the subject, but as it happens, my bed is in the subject. I’m not shy about my agenda, which is to make Watertown a better place to live (and I’m also not shy about what I think “better” means).

H2Otown is just one example of what is becoming a citizen-journalist movement. I’ll have a lot more to say about this in the not-too-distant future, but, meanwhile, check out Adam Gaffin’s Univeral Hub for dozens of local links.

The first and only time I ever saw one of the celebrated Rice brothers was at Little People of America‘s 2004 national conference, in the suburbs of San Francisco. One of the brothers — I have no idea which one — was cruising about the hotel lobby on a Segway.

At any LPA gathering, you’ll find a sea of electric scooters, which take up a lot of space and don’t always fit into the nooks and crannies of buildings designed for people who are more mobile. Thus the Segway seemed like a brilliant solution — and the panache with which Mr. Rice carried it off only added to its allure.

I bring this up because John Rice died recently. Abby Goodnough of the New York Times has a wonderful story today about Mr. Rice and his brother, Greg. At 2 feet 11 inches tall, they were believed to be the shortest twins in the world, as well as a major force for good in their hometown of West Palm Beach, Fla.

Technologically, that is. Last night I sat down to check out the just-published New Republic. After reading Michael Crowley’s characteristically insightful piece on Wisconsin Sen. Russell Feingold, I tried to open Jeffrey Rosen’s essay on Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito.

Unlike Crowley’s article, Rosen’s was restricted to subscribers only — and I got a message saying that my print subscription had expired. No problem, or so I thought. I’d already decided that when my print subscription ran out, I would switch to the digital-only edition. (After all, if I had to wait for my mail carrier, Friday night would have turned into next Tuesday or Wednesday.)

But — incredibly — there was no provision to switch from print to digital online. When I tried to access a subscriber-only feature, I got a message that said:

Your subscription to The New Republic has expired…. If you feel this is inaccurate, or would like to switch to TNR Digital, please contact us at tnrdigital@tnr.com.

Unwilling to take “later” for an answer, I tried signing up for a digital subscription anyway. Naturally I got a message saying that my user name and password were already taken (by me, of course).

So, finally, I did as I was told and sent an e-mail to tnrdigital@tnr.com explaining what had happened and asking to switch my expired print subscription to online-only — something that should cut my renewal fee of about $70 to just $30. And now I have to wait for someone to read my e-mail, and to hope that he or she understands what I’m trying to do. This is 2005?

By the way, I’m not sure how he did it, but Andrew Sullivan found a free link to Rosen’s article. So there.

The Rev. Pat Robertson has some advice for the voters of Dover, Pa., who threw the intelligent-design theocrats off their school board earlier this week. (Via Raw Story.)

I’m Miller’d out and Theo’d out today. Enough is enough. So let me return briefly to an item I posted recently on problems I was having with the iTunes Music Store.

Bottom line: The distortion I was experiencing disappeared after I turned on Sound Enhancer in iTunes (set half-way) and Sound Check both in iTunes and on my iPod. Suddenly John Prine’s “Fair & Square” sounded as clear as if he were sitting in my living room.

Nice album, too, by the way — not quite as creative as “The Missing Years” (1991), but a big improvement over his last album of originals, “Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings” (1995). “Fair & Square” sounds very familiar, but in a good way. Unobtrusive production, too, unlike “Lost Dogs.”

She couldn’t go back. And now she won’t. The New York Times reports:

Lawyers for Ms. Miller and the paper negotiated a severance package, the details of which they would not disclose. Under the agreement, Ms. Miller will retire from the newspaper, and The Times will print a letter she wrote to the editor explaining her position. Ms. Miller originally demanded that she be able to write an essay for the paper’s Op-Ed page challenging the allegations against her. The Times refused that demand – Gail Collins, editor of the editorial page, said, “We don’t use the Op-Ed page for back and forth between one part of the paper and another” – but agreed to let her write the letter.

In that letter, to be published in The New York Times on Thursday under the heading, “Judith Miller’s Farewell,” Ms. Miller said she was leaving partly because some of her colleagues disagreed with her decision to testify in the C.I.A. leak case.

“But mainly,” she wrote, “I have chosen to resign because over the last few months, I have become the news, something a New York Times reporter never wants to be.”

Romenesko is compiling links, and already has Times executive editor Bill Keller’s memo.

The Phoenix’s Mark Jurkowitz defends the integrity of his fellow “Beat the Press” panelist Bob Zelnick, but says Zelnick probably should disclose the fact that he received a $4,000 fee to testify against the Boston Herald in a libel case whenever the Herald comes up as a topic. (Zelnick never actually testified.)

I’m with Mark. And, yes, I’m a semi-regular on “Beat the Press” as well, so make of that what you will. But I have not changed my belief that Zelnick’s ethics are above reproach.