ABC News has attained an alleged video of a US Marine tossing a puppy off a cliff and then laughing alongside his buddies once the dog hits the ground dead. Naturally, ABC News then spends the next couple dozen paragraphs compiling psycobabble from various "experts" to rationalize that the behavior is simply a natural consequence of the War in Iraq.

I've got two words: Scott Beauchamp.

Until this is verified I've got no reason to believe it's true. Indeed, we have EVERY reason to believe this is nothing more than a fabrication that our "willing-idiots" media will gladly promote without further investigation -- See, Beauchamp or Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair or Hassan Fattah or Adnan Hajj or Eason Jordan (a CNN bigwig at that) and so on and so on.

Here's some of the illogical bile which ABC News peddles as science:

The motivation for such an act, if it did indeed occur, may be as complex and deep as the U.S. war that has dragged on for more than four years, experts told ABCNEWS.com. Chief among them: Having to live with the constant fear of being injured or killed might have led this Marine to take his aggression out on a defenseless animal, several psychologists said.

..."They're on such a power trip about what they're doing that it doesn't dawn on them how disgusting it is," said Stanford's Siegel. "A person can get set to such levels of psychological arousal that ordinary life can seem kind of drab, and the only way to keep yourself feeling kind of good is to do things that are dangerous or anti-social." ..."One of the horrible problems is that we have men and women coming [home] who have participated in horrendous violence," said Stanford's Spiegel. "They've crossed the line [of violence] once, and it makes it easier to cross the line again."
Blah, blah, blah. Pass the sick bag. They call these people experts?

Maybe it's because the Marines were shot at the other day... or, if the story is even true, maybe they're just sick punks who happened to join the military.

Someone needs to remind Mr. Siegel that we had an entire generation of war veterans who saw plenty of combat, "lived in constant fear," etc., and indeed had experiences (Normandy's first 12 hours for example) when we suffered more combat dead in one day -- IN ONE DAY! -- than during the entire War in Iraq.

Thus, if war automatically made such monsters, as Siegel Psychobabble implies, then we've got to believe that the Greatest Generation should have been filled with puppy killers.

Just one problem... it wasn't.

And it seems to me that there are plenty of sickos right here at home -- old men shooting up people at Wendy's -- that were never even in war.

The reasoning being peddled is a pile of garbage. It's an insult to common sense blanketed in the comfy fabric of the all-knowing academic. It's an agenda to undermine our troops. Having failed to end the war through logic or argument, having failed in the marketplace of ideas, the reactionary Left (so often employed as journalits, academics, etc.) will simpy make stuff up.

Labels: academic bias, Beauchamp, Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias

I suppose I might eat the words but were I a betting man I'd wager that one day we'll group Jeremy Hall and Scott Beauchamp in a single breath. I don't buy Spc. Hall's claim either.

Labels: Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias, military

On the sixth anniversary of the murder by Islamic extremists of WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl, his father, Judea Pearl, opines on the responsibility of media.

One of the things that saddens me most is that the press and media have had an active, perhaps even major role in fermenting hate and inhumanity. It was not religious fanaticism alone [that killed Daniel Pearl].

This was first brought to my attention by the Pakistani Consul General who came to offer condolences at our home in California. When we spoke about the anti-Semitic element in Danny's murder she said: "What can you expect of these people who never saw a Jew in their lives and who have been exposed, day and night, to televised images of Israeli soldiers targeting and killing Palestinian children."

At the time, it was not clear whether she was trying to exonerate Pakistan from responsibility for Danny's murder, or to pass on the responsibility to European and Arab media for their persistent de-humanization of Jews, Americans and Israelis. The answer was unveiled in 2004, when a friend told me that photos of Muhammad Al Dura were used as background in the video tape of Danny's murder.

Al Dura, readers may recall, is the 12-year-old Palestinian boy who allegedly died from Israeli bullets in Gaza in September of 2001. As we now know, the whole scene is very likely to have been a fraud, choreographed by stringers and cameramen of France 2, the official news channel of France. France 2 aired the tape repeatedly and distributed it all over the world to anyone who needed an excuse to ratchet up anger or violence, among them Danny's killers.

The Pakistani Consul was right. The media cannot be totally exonerated from responsibility for Daniel's murder, as well as for the "tsunami of hate" that has swept the world and continues to rise.

Ironically, the increase of independent news channels in the Arab world, a process which is generally considered a positive step forward, has contributed significantly to this spread of hatred and violence. On the one hand, this process has led to the democratization of the media, for it allows viewers to examine alternative viewpoints, occasionally opposing the official party line. On the other hand, democratization has led to vulgarization. Competition has forced news channels to echo, rather than inform, viewers' sentiments -- to reinforce, rather than examine, long-held prejudices.

Eager to satisfy their customers' appetite for self-righteousness, these channels have not thought through the harmful, in fact lethal, long-term effects of choreographing victim-victimizer narratives as news coverage.

Surely they have an obligation to expose villainy and excess. This is what journalism is all about. But in a world infected with fanatics who run around with lit matches, journalists cannot simply pour gasoline into the street and pretend they bear no responsibility for the inevitable explosion.

Labels: Islamic extremism, Journalism scandals, media bias, palestinians, war on terror

[Front Page Magazine] Charles Enderlin is the France 2 Jerusalem correspondent who broadcast the incendiary account of the death of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura at the hands of Israeli troops operating in the Gaza Strip in September 2000. Based on film footage provided by a Palestinian cameraman, Enderlin's report has become infamous among students of Arab propaganda both for its destructive effects and for its probable falsity. The al-Dura affair now bids to join the Dreyfus affair in the French hall of shame.

Flogging his new book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (The Lost Years) at Harvard's Center for European Studies on January 17, Enderlin himself exposed a probable Palestinian media hoax in which he had no involvement. The story exposed by Enderlin involved widely circulated reports by the Associated Press, Reuters, and the BBC. As Joel Pollak recounted online at the site Guide to the Perplexed, Enderlin told his Harvard audience "that Yasser Arafat had faked his blood donation to the victims of the September 11th attacks. Enderlin said the event had been staged for the media to counteract the embarrassing television images of Palestinians celebrating in the streets after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks."

The story of Arafat's blood donation was reported around the world in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, usually accompanied by photographs depicting Arafat in the apparent act of giving blood at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Enderlin elaborated on his contention that the scene depicted in the photographs was staged. According to Pollak's account of Enderlin's remarks, "Arafat didn't like needles, and so the doctor put a needle near his arm and agitated a bag of blood. The reporters took the requisite photographs."
The BBC, Reuters and AP, apparently all willing participants in deceiving their readers and viewers. Who will watchdog the so-called "watchdogs"? Thank heavens for the Internet is all I can say.

Labels: Israel, Journalism scandals, media bias, palestinians, war on terror

What was I just saying about media legacy? Add Beauchamp to that. Hardly a surprise though.

Labels: Beauchamp, Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias

Wow.

The story would be shocking were it not for the legacies of the Duke rape case or Dan Rather's "fake but accurate" documents.

Via Michelle Malkin, the Christian Science Monitor has published a full debunking of the Jena 6 story.

The media got most of the basics wrong. In fact, I have never before witnessed such a disgrace in professional journalism. Myths replaced facts, and journalists abdicated their solemn duty to investigate every claim because they were seduced by a powerfully appealing but false narrative of racial injustice.

I should know. I live in Jena. My wife has taught at Jena High School for many years. And most important, I am probably the only reporter who has covered these events from the very beginning.

The reason the Jena cases have been propelled into the world spotlight is two-fold: First, because local officials did not speak publicly early on about the true events of the past year, the media simply formed their stories based on one-side's statements – the Jena 6. Second, the media were downright lazy in their efforts to find the truth. Often, they simply reported what they'd read on blogs, which expressed only one side of the issue.

The real story of Jena and the Jena 6 is quite different from what the national media presented. It's time to set the record straight.

Myth 1: The Whites-Only Tree. There has never been a "whites-only" tree at Jena High School. Students of all races sat underneath this tree. When a student asked during an assembly at the start of school last year if anyone could sit under the tree, it evoked laughter from everyone present – blacks and whites. As reported by students in the assembly, the question was asked to make a joke and to drag out the assembly and avoid class.

Myth 2: Nooses a Signal to Black Students. An investigation by school officials, police, and an FBI agent revealed the true motivation behind the placing of two nooses in the tree the day after the assembly. According to the expulsion committee, the crudely constructed nooses were not aimed at black students. Instead, they were understood to be a prank by three white students aimed at their fellow white friends, members of the school rodeo team. (The students apparently got the idea from watching episodes of "Lonesome Dove.") The committee further concluded that the three young teens had no knowledge that nooses symbolize the terrible legacy of the lynchings of countless blacks in American history. When informed of this history by school officials, they became visibly remorseful because they had many black friends. Another myth concerns their punishment, which was not a three-day suspension, but rather nine days at an alternative facility followed by two weeks of in-school suspension, Saturday detentions, attendance at Discipline Court, and evaluation by licensed mental-health professionals. The students who hung the nooses have not publicly come forward to give their version of events.

Read the other 10 myths at the links.

There's a full chronological order of events at The Jena Times.

Labels: jena, Journalism scandals, media bias

Honestly, one could devote a blog just to left wing bias exclusively from Reuters.

Both the Wall Street Journal and MRC's blogs picked up this sham of journalism from Reuters: Spinning an implied metaphor by Bush as a literal comment simply as an attempt to make him look stupid.

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - Nelson Mandela is still very much alive despite an embarrassing gaffe by U.S. President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader's death in an attempt to explain sectarian violence in Iraq.

..."I thought an interesting comment was made when somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, 'now where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead. Because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandela's.

He was a brutal tyrant that divided people up and split families and people are recovering from this. So there's a psychological recovery that is taking place and it's hard work for them and I understand that it's hard work for them."
That's "Mandelas" with an "s" (Reuter's added the apostrophe). Clearly Bush was making a comparison, and neither calling Mandela dead nor labeling him an Iraqi citizen.

James Taranto at the WSJ justifiably claims the Reuters gang is guilty of "stupidity," "laziness," or "dishonesty."

"The reporter knew full well that Bush was speaking metaphorically and deliberately twisted his meaning in order to fit the stereotype that Bush 'has a reputation for verbal faux pas,'" wrote Taranto.

Well, what's worse, having a reputation for the verbal faux pas, or having a reputation for outright fabrication of stories, eh Reuters?

Labels: Journalism scandals, media bias

Research from columnist Jack Kelly:

A great moment in journalism it wasn't. At 6:58 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday, Aug. 14, Agence France Presse distributed a photograph by Wissam al-Okaili, an AFP stringer, of an elderly Iraqi woman holding two cartridges in one hand. The caption that accompanied the photo read: "An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she said hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City."

I used the word "cartridges." The caption writer used the word "bullets." Let me explain the difference for the benefit of the photo editors at AFP. A cartridge consists of three elements: the bullet (the pointy thing at one end); the propellant that forces the bullet through the barrel of the gun when the trigger is pulled; and the casing, in which the bullet and the propellant are held together until the cartridge is fired. But once the cartridge is fired, the bullet and the casing go their separate ways.

The casing of the cartridges in the woman's hand is clearly visible, which alone should have told AFP's photo editors that the only way these "bullets" could have hit the woman's house was if they'd been thrown at it. They'd obviously never been fired. There were other tips. Bullets deform when they strike something (like, say, a house in Sadr City). The pointy things don't stay pointy.

Modern firearms have rifling -- grooves in the barrel that cause the bullet to spin, making it more accurate. Rifling leaves striations on bullets which actually have been fired. There are no striations on the bullets in the AFP photograph. But if the editors couldn't grasp the significance of having the bullets still in their casings, I suppose these other clues would be too subtle for them.

Which is too bad, because Wissam has fished in these waters before. On July 10, AFP transmitted a photo by him which shows what seems to be the same old woman holding a larger caliber cartridge. That caption for that photo read: "An elderly Iraqi woman inspects a bullet which she says hit her bed during an alleged overnight raid."

In that photo, the woman had the wit to hold the cartridge so the casing isn't visible, but the bullet is not deformed, and there are no striations. It hadn't been fired, either.

There is no question the photo is a fraud. The question is, whose? Did the old woman fool the AFP photographer? Was the photographer blowing smoke by his photo editor? Were they all in on it?

AFP issued a correction of sorts Aug. 15, adding the word "unspent" before bullets, and deleting from the caption the woman's claim the bullets "hit her house." But AFP should have acknowledged the photo was a fraud, and sent out a kill notice.

Trust and confidence in AFP's accuracy and integrity was not enhanced when it was discovered Aug. 15 that AFP claimed credit a photo of U.S. troops in Afghanistan that actually was taken by Sgt. Brandon Aird of the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

I sent AFP an email asking whether disciplinary action has been taken or is contemplated against Wissam al-Okaili, who pretty obviously is a propagandist for the Mahdi army, or against the photo editor, whoever he or she is. I've received no reply.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias

To repeat: In the Internet/Dan Rathergate era, you'd think that a magazine formerly discredited by the Stephen Glass fiasco would never again allow themselves to be duped by fictional reporting.

Think again:

Washington Post - New Republic Iraq Stories Questioned

New York Times - Army Says Soldier's Articles for Magazine Were False

Associated Press - Army Concludes Baghdad Diarist Accounts Untrue

USA Today - Military: Soldier-essayist's allegations of misconduct in Iraq 'are false'

"The investigation is complete and the allegations from PVT Beauchamp are false," Maj. Steven Lamb, a spokesman for Multi National Division-Baghdad, says in an e-mail to On Deadline [USA Today blog].
Indeed!

It gets worse for The New Republic. Apparently these guys are flat out liars whose audacity in fabrication is only matched by their commitment to the half-truth.

According to Bob Owens, via this Weekly Standard report, the anonymous spokesperson of the manufacturer of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle System - whom TNR quoted as confirming that a Bradley could be driven in a manner in which Private Beauchamp described - has today informed the public that his statements to TNR actually contradicted Beauchamp's story!

The spokesman - Doug Coffey, head of Communications, Land & Armaments, for BAE Systems - instead reported what other experts have previously stated:

I can't pretend to know what may or may not have happened in Iraq but the impression the writer leaves is that a "driver" can go on joy rides with a 35 ton vehicle at will. The vehicle has a crew and a commander of the vehicle who is in charge. In order for the scenario described to have taken place, there would have to have been collaboration by the entire crew.

The driver's vision, even if sitting in an open hatch is severely restricted along the sides. He sits forward on the left side of the vehicle. His vision is significantly impaired along the right side of the vehicle which makes the account to "suddenly swerve to the right" and actually catch an animal suspect. If you were to attempt the same feat in your car, it would be very difficult and you have the benefit of side mirrors.

Anyone familiar with tracked vehicles knows that turning sharply requires the road wheels on the side of the turn to either stop or reverse as the road wheels on the opposite side accelerates. What may not be obvious is that the track once on the ground, doesn't move. The road wheels roll across it but the track itself is stationary until it is pushed forward by the road wheels.

The width of the track makes it highly unlikely that running over a dog would leave two intact parts. One half of the dog would have to be completely crushed.

It also seems suspicious that a driver could go on repeated joy rides or purposefully run into things. Less a risk to the track though that is certainly possible but there is sensitive equipment on the top of the vehicle, antennas, sights, TOW missile launcher, commander and if it was a newer vehicle, the commander's independent viewer, not to mention the main gun. Strange things are known to happen in a combat environment but I can't imagine that the vehicle commander or the unit commander would tolerate repeated misuse of the vehicle, especially any action that could damage its ability to engage.
As the Weekly Standard best summed up: "Yet the New Republic did not see fit to print Coffey's concerns. In fact, they didn't even see fit to show Coffey the original article."

This isn't shoddy journalism. It's deceptive. One would hope TNR subscriptions are being cancelled tonight.

Labels: antiwar loonies, Beauchamp, Journalism scandals, media bias, Moonbats

You'd think that The New Republic magazine would be extra careful about its reporting following the embarrassing discovery in 1998 that former TNR "reporter" Stephen Glass fabricated a whopping 27 articles.

But The New Republic editor Franklin Foer seems to be stubbornly sticking to a story by a reporter who claims to be a member of the US military. As summarized by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post here, TNR has published that a soldier named Scott Thomas has personally witnessed various atrocities and unprofessional conduct by US military personnel.

Claims include that the military is covering up "a mass graveyard of children's skeletons" and that US soldiers had desecrated the site by playing with the skulls. Thomas also told a story where "a soldier used his Bradley Fighting Vehicle to run over dogs."

The allegations by Thomas, whose true identity has yet to be revealed, sparked a heated response by bloggers everywhere, especially those of a military background who could immediately punch holes in Thomas' claims, including those from past reports. Indeed, from those retorts one could reasonably wager that Thomas isn't even military because of the sheer number of factual errors.

The Weekly Standard has a slew of round ups here (Also, here, here, here and here)

But perhaps one of the best responses comes from the 1st Infantry Division's (DRAGONS FOB Falcon) Public Affairs Officer, Major Kirk Luedeke:

As the 4th IBCT Public Affairs Officer- I can tell you unequivocally: there was NO mass grave discovered in this area of operations in conjunction with the building of a coalition outpost anytime in the past 12 months. None. Zero. Zip. And Frank Foer's assertions to the contrary, there is no way that his mystery soldier "Scott Thomas" can prove it. Foer can produce all of the alleged "eyewitnesses" he wants- unless these individuals are willing to back up their claims with real evidence, it's just so much garbage on a computer screen. Some people seem to forget that the burden of proof should be on the New Republic to back up his unsubstantiated claims and not the other way around...

I invite Mr. Foer and the New Republic to actually give us something to go on. Proof. Any kind will do - and something more than one anonymous soldier's claims and a nebulous "we've heard from others who can corroborate it," kinds of responses he provided Howard Kurtz. It's kind of hard to take these allegations seriously, when you're hiding behind the cloak of anonymity. Just about every Soldier these days has his or her own digital camera or video camera. Talk to anyone here- every unit down to squad level in our brigade is *required* to have a camera on every mission. It's all part of being prepared for such a discovery. Surely- there would be photos of the skulls and mass grave if it truly existed, would there not? The reason there isn't any photos, is because simply- the story isn't true...

I invite Scott Thomas to come by the Dragon PAO shop at FOB Falcon- Bldg 301, Rm 119, and I'd be happy to share the DoD media policy with him. While he's here, I'd love to discuss with him the mass graves, Bradley IFV dog hunting and IED burn victim he's so intent on stating is fact. If he can provide the evidence, I will gladly retract every word I've posted on the subject. If he's not willing to do that, then it kind of makes you wonder about his credibility, and that of the New Republic's doesn't it?
Indeed! Has the New Republic forgotten their own past?

Reporters are highly ideological - often to the point where they jeopardize their own careers by fabricating baseless allegations.

It happens far more often than you think. Recall Jayson Blair in 2003, fired by the New York Times for his "creative" reporting. CBS fired long-time anchor Dan Rather for accepting without question obviously manipulated documents disparaging of President Bush before the 2004 election. Recall both the LA Times and Reuters fired Michael Hiltzik and Adnan Hajj, respectively, for their separate attempts to photoshop photographs taken during the last Israel-Lebanon conflict.

The Wikipedia site, for example, is full of such examples, and those examples seem to have skyrocketed of late.

Why is that? Simple: the blogosphere - independent reporting - does the simple-stupid fact checking that gutless, unprofessional and ideologically-motivated newsroom editors don't do themselves.

Labels: Iraq, Journalism scandals, media bias, New Republic, Shocktroops