This is why I sometimes can’t stand the blogosphere … people just think they can make shit up, speculate on the basis of very little evidence, and generally cherry-pick their facts.
For example, a number of bloggers are claiming that Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena staged her own kidnapping at the hands of Iraqi insurgents.
Michelle Malkin calls it a “strange abduction” and asks, “has anyone seen Wassef Ali Hassoun lately?” (The Marine who allegedly faked his own kidnapping).
In the Bullpen says “it would make perfect sense for a rabid anti-war newspaper to stage the taking of one of it’s [sic] reporters” and and calls details of the case “more than strange.”
Rusty Shackleford, who apparently got the ball rolling, says there’s “something fishy about this” and asks, “Could her own sympathies with the ‘resistance’ lead her to stage her own abduction? The coming weeks will tell.”
Others similar accusations are made here, here, here and here.
The evidence behind these claims is so underwhelming, though, it’s not even funny:
- She’s an anti-war leftist, and therefore, I guess, a liar.
- Her translator wasn’t taken hostage as well. ( “extremely abnormal” ) (In fact, the insurgents attempted to snatch the translator, but he ran as the kidnappers exchanged gunfire with university guards.)
- “She just happened to be on the phone with another journalist Barbara Schiavulli during the abduction” (Not quite. Schiavulli’s phone rang when the assault was underway. “I heard shots and people running but I did not hear her speak,” Schiavulli has said. “I only heard pistol shots … I heard shots and began to shout Giuliana, Giuliana, but she did not reply.” Why is it strange or unlikely that Sgrena would try to call a friend as she was getting kidnapped?)
- The competing claims put out by three terrorist groups said to be holding Sgrena, as well as the “generic name” of one of them, the Islamic Jihad Organization. (As Reporters Without Borders has noted, the claims of that group and one of the others, the Jihad Organisation in Rafidain, simply aren’t very credible. On the Internet, anyone can claim to have captured anyone, as some bloggers have noted.)
- In one of its statements, the Jihad Organization alluded “to a ‘judicial committee’ which would be the first in any terrorist organization. In all terrorist organizations, the leader is the judge, jury and often executioner.” (What is this guy talking about — doesn’t he watch 24? Hasn’t he heard of a show trial?)
- That her eyes watered during the video and at one point she waved the camera to stop, supposed evidence that “she was not only starring in the video, but directing it.” (Yup, this is what passes for analysis in the blogosphere…)
There’s some other stuff, but it’s really not worth repeating. It’s really just appalling. Basically, people are making a defamatory claim with hardly any evidence to back it up — much like the blogosphere accused Eason Jordan of doing. I’m no lawyer, but I tend to think Sgrena would have a strong libel case against these bloggers, assuming she gets out alive.
One wonders if any of them will even issue a public apology for so baselessly questioning Sgrena’s integrity, once her fate has been resolved.
UPDATE 3/7/05: Well, Sgrena is proving bloggers aren’t the only ones who traffic in ridiculous conspiracy theories. Obviously, she is out of line.
Certain bloggers, meanwhile, continue to insist the whole thing was a hoax … here, here, here, here and here. The evidence in favor of a hoax posited by that last blogger, Cold Fury?
Sgrena writes for the openly Communist Il Manifesto; the Italian Left has been in the forefront of demanding that their thugs in the former Iraqi kleptocracy not be bothered by Italian troops.
Apparently devoid of irony, he then concludes:
The difference between Left and Right … [is that] the Left invents unfalsifiable scenarios and ignores facts; we require, both for ourselves and others, proof of our ideas.
NOTED IN THE COMMENTS: Joust the Facts notes he didn’t call Sgrena’s story an outright hoax, just a “strange tale.”
Derek,
Good work at taking a close look at those feverish claims. I must read different blogs, however, because I have never read these accusations.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I need to do more than mention Dan Rather and the looting of the Iraq antiquities to persuade you that “cherry picking” is only possible with bloggers, right? As you know, I’ve spent several weeks researching the Iraq National Museum story. By the end of the week, I’ll probably be finished with a longer piece on the Iraq National Museum story, one that is detailed, sourced, and sobering.
Listen, you and I want the same thing. When claims are made, we prefer evidence and we want follow-up when new information surfaces, right?
Jeffrey — New York
*
Derek,
Good work rebutting those feverish claims.
Now you know how I felt when I started researching the Iraq Antiquities looting story. No verfication of eyewitnesses’ testimony. “Cherry picking” of facts and views. And very little follow-up when new information surfaced.
Listen, you and I want the same thing. We want claims backed up by evidence and we want responsible follow-up when new information is revealed, right?
I’m just about finished writing a longer and heavily-researched piece on the Iraq National Museum story.
I’m also thinking of starting a monthly blog (is that possible?) that would bring together a teacher (me), a journalist (you), and a historian (a friend of mine) to look at one story at a time and discuss it from whatever angle we want.
The first issue (April 1) would use my Iraq National Museum story a focus-point and involve any number of issues, I hope. For example, the differences in primary and secondary sources in journalism and historiography. Or verification techniques. Anything you felt was important for the general reader should know.
If you don’t mind, I’ll send you the story in an email and you can think about it. Feel free, however, to disregard and just check in when the blog pops up in April.
*
Hey Jeffrey-
sorry you had to leave two comments… I’m experimenting with this wordpress 1.5 thing; your first was “held for my approval” as an anti-spam measure. Also, sorry you’ve had to wait so long for a response! I’ve been traveling etc. … normal blogging should resume this weekend. And I’m flattered you’d consider me as a member of a blog-team — of course, you’re dealing with a guy who likes Dan Rather … but I’d be happy to check out whatever you send me.
And absolutely, the mainstream media is sometimes guilty of cherry-picking sources, not verifying claims, etc. Still, I do see this a lot on blogs — the Sgrena claims were only extraordinary because they involved accusations against an individual. A lot of what bothers me is the speculation, written as authoratative fact, and the people making claims about stuff they know very little about. This does go on on TV talk shows and in newspaper columns, granted, but I think the blogosphere is somewhat worse.
IMHO, the blogosphere is at its best when it comes to firsthand accounts, like what it’s like to live in a war zone or serve in one, or people commenting about matters they actually have some expertise on, like typefaces, climate change and the like.
Good post.
Scott MacMillan
Derek
You’re asking for my apology when Sgrena is claiming the US military targeted her?
You are right to question my arguments since I offered no proof – the same as Sgrena.
Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. Sgrena has slandered the US military without proof. When she apologizes to them, I’ll apologize to her.
Scott Kirwin
http://www.therazor.org
I agree, you’re doing the same thing as Sgrena. But c’mon … two wrongs don’t make a right.
P.S. – I wrote that thing about an apology before Sgrena made her outrageous claims. I think it would be too much to ask for now. But still, don’t you have a responsibility to your readers? To truth?
Derek
I take that you live in a world where the US military can do no right and communist journalists and terrorists can do no wrong.
I think that part of the problem is that people who share your view have never been around the military. You’ve never served in it. You don’t know how it operates. To you it’s a big scary box.
Others of us have lived with it. We’ve served in it; we know how things work – and don’t. We also know what damage 400 rounds can do to a car.
400 rounds to a car is devastating. 400 rounds and people don’t leave it except in pieces.
So we start getting suspicious – just as some got suspicious about justified text in 1972 faxes. And we start asking questions.
This is why you hate the Blogosphere? Because it doesn’t fit your ideology?
Too bad.
This is taken from the comments at Joe Gandelman:
How credible is Giuliana Sgrena, writer for the Communist daily Il Manifesto?
In a series of articles describing the U.S. offensive against Falluja in the fall of 2004, Sgrena repeatedly accuses American forces of war crimes and massacres. One particularly revealing November 23 article accuses U.S forces of conducting napalm attacks on Falluja, and includes a passage in which Sgrena seems to suggest that Americans might have used nuclear weapons during the earlier capture of Baghdad. In her words:
“…other bodies found last year after the fierce battle at Baghdad airport were also completely charred and some thought of nuclear bombs.”
Was Sgrena implying that U.S. forces nuked Baghdad? (Maybe the guys who dropped a nuke in Baghdad without anyone noticing were the same guys who fired 400 rounds at her car without breaking the windshield). Or is this just another example of vicious and incredibly sloppy anti-American journalism?
Either way, she comes across as something less than believable.
A selection of her writing can be found on the Il Manifesto website at http://www.ilmanifesto.it. If needed, click “english” below her photo.
Criticize her writing all you want. Criticize her views all you want. Criticize her silly statement about the shooting being deliberate all you want. (I did, too, so I’m a bit confused why you’d think I believe “communist journalists …can do no wrong”).
But if you’re going to allege the whole thing was a big hoax, then you need proof — or at least some credible evidence — or else you’re just another wacko conspiracy nut.
The estimate of 300 to 400 rounds, offered by Sgrena’s editor in Italy, is of how many rounds were fired, not how many hit the car. And the photos of a car that circulated on the blogosphere were of the car she was kidnapped in, not the one that was shot.
P.S. – Okay, here are photos of Sgrena’s car. Obviously, it wasn’t hit by 300 to 400 bullets. I guess it’s possible that that many were fired, possibly some as warning shots, and the vast majority missed. But a simpler explanation is just that the “300 to 400” estimate was wrong … you don’t need to invent some massive conspiracy involving the Italian secret service.
Derek
I think if you read my post, to which you sent a trackback, I did not ever say that the kidnapping was a “hoax”, merely unusual, a “strange tale”.
In fact, this is as far as I went:
“Thanks, I’ll take mine with a grain of salt, for now.”
I do think the entire thing is very unusual, unless the simple explanation applies – that Ms. Sgrena’s car did not stop despite warnings, and was fired upon, appropriately given the frequency of VBIED’s on that road.
Giacomo
Joust The Facts
Giacomo,
Noted in an update. I shouldn’t have used such strong language to describe your views. By the way, you called it a strange tale in part because
Actually, there have been quite a few hostages in Iraq who have been released unharmed after being featured in videotapes. There were these eight Chinese hostages who made a videotape, these truck drivers who also made a videotape, these French journalists who made a videotape, and these Japanese hostages who were threatened on video with being burned alive.
“…people just think they can make shit up, speculate on the basis of very little evidence, and generally cherry-pick their facts.”
Faced with withering criticism, I will back down from my claim that Giuliana Sgrena is, or was, a gay male prostitute.
Sobek
Hurray! After the beating I’ve taken elsewhere, I’ll take my victories anywhere I can find ’em…
Derek, you ask, “But still, don’t you have a responsibility to your readers? To truth?”
Well, no. These are blogs, after all. The blogger has no responsibility to anyone except themselves. Now – if they want regular readers, well then the equation is changed, isn’t it? 🙂
Here is precisely what is wrong with “the media”. They often ignore or distort the truth, yet they think their readers owe them an audience. IOW, they’re resting on the laurels of past reporters who plied their trade honestly, and they can’t understand why their audience won’t cut them any slack for present lies.
Now the blogosphere is competing with them on a level playing field. All engage in conjecture, innuendo and bias, and the reader gets to decide who to believe and who to reject. Those who are more objective (and I make no such claims for myself) will rise to the top, because they evidence a desire for objectivity.
But readers (hopefully) will learn to be much more cautious about accepting the word of any writer – even a mainstream media reporter – simply because of a “name” (NY Times, WaPo, etc.)
I was labeled, in a Slate article the other day, “the mainstream media haters”. Note that there is only one of me, yet the writer used the plural. This tells me that the writer didn’t even bother to read my profile before making a judgment about me and putting it into his story.
Just one example, I know, but it’s indicative of a much deeper problem.
Aww, call me old-fashioned, but I think all writers have a responsibility to be honest and forthright — whether they’re writing with the goal of attracting regular readers or not.
I’m a reporter, and I certainly don’t think we’re owed an audience … I can’t imagine any of my colleagues do, either. We’re out fighting for readers every day.
The mainstream press certainly has plenty of flaws, and there sure is some dishonest reporting out there. But I think American journalism is more honest than it’s ever been. Guys like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair have been around forever — as this Slate article notes, some of the journalistic icons of the ’30s and ’40s made stuff up. The cozy relationships the press had with people in power, the obvious conflicts of interest … okay, still far from perfect, but better than before.
Do you really see bloggers rising to the top by being “more objective?” I don’t know of any blogger that even tries to practice objectivity (including myself). Maybe product reviewers… but really, it’s a personal medium.
The whole idea of objectivity arose because newspaper publishers realized they could get more readers by appealing to the broadest possible demographic. But we live today in an age of customization, narrow-casting and niche appeal. Rather than reading a mass-market product that strives for ideological neutrality, people can find news aggregators like Instapundit that perfectly reflect their own biases. (And this is not a knock at Glenn — he has a great site, but obviously, he’s not striving for objectivity).
So the question is, in my mind — do people really want objectivity? Suppose the Daily Planet was completely objective — the placement of its stories perfectly reflected the overall views of Metropolis. Would people still want to read it, if they also had the choice of blogospheric news aggregators that play to their own biases? That trumphet stories that highlight their own worldview, and ignore or downplay facts inconvenient to that perspective?
I don’t know the answer to that one. But if you look at the trend, particularly in the cable TV news, it seems to be toward greater subjectivity — i.e., opinionated hosts. Which must be, I imagine, what they think people want. (I’ve been watching the 9 and 10 p.m. talk shows on MSNBC and Fox this week and am pretty impressed with how right-dominated they are – but that’s a whole ‘nother subject).
Bias is no problem if it’s admitted. Innuendo isn’t so bad. Conjecture is fine, if it’s based on facts. The problems I have with the blogosphere is when people start making up facts, ignoring evidence, and generally not even searching for truth. (Okay, this is not the exclusive province of the blogosphere. And there’s a lot of great blogs out there. But I think you
Lastly, Slate strikes me as closer to a blog than anything mainstream. And all writers make judgments.
Hi Derek! I just stumbled in here. There’s enough tinfoil for everyone!
What’s the right-blog response been to the news it was an ad hoc checkpoint set up by a special security detail of Negroponte’s?
(That the agent was killed by a single shot to the temple of course adds to the intrigue.
And “Mujahadeen Without Borders”?)
— Tilli (Mojave Desert)
PS I don’t think many Americans understand what a Italian Communist is and that an “Armani Communist” differs from a “Dirty Commie”.
PPS We Americans really need to read more of the foreign press. We generally haven’t got a clue what others are thinking.
I think.
— Tilli (etc etc)
“I don’t think many Americans understand what a Italian Communist is and that an ‘Armani Communist’ differs from a ‘Dirty Commie.'”
I sure don’t!
So, when do I get an apology Derek? First you misquote an observation from my blog as an independent comment (it wasn’t), and then observation you panned, turns out to have been accurate.
You wrote:
“That her eyes watered during the video and at one point she waved the camera to stop, supposed evidence that ‘she was not only starring in the video, but directing it. (Yup, this is what passes for analysis in the blogosphere…)”
First, Ms. Dowd, the full quote was, “A mention in the MSNBC version of the story made it sound like she was not only starring in the video, but directing it…”
Get the quote correct Derek, don’t truncate it to obscure the fact that I was actually questioning someone else’s Associated Press article on MSNBC.com.
Second, and interestingly enough, that questionable comment I picked up on from MSNBC turned out to be true.
From The Jawa Report:
“She did suggest that she appeal to the Italian people to demonstrate in favour of a withdrawal of the country’s 3,000 troops. But when the guards filmed her, they told her the film wasn’t dramatic enough. She was a hostage, they insisted, she must be more convincing and ordered her to make a direct appeal to her boyfriend of 25 years, Pier Scolari. For the first time, Sgrena broke down in tears.
“Wait…so the film was her idea? Confederate Yankee noticed the day her hostage video was released that she appeared to be directing the film. Now she admits it. Great. Next we’ll learn the conversation at hostage headquarters went something like this.”
Not all bloggers dive blindly into conspriacy theories Mr. Rose, nor are all journalists fair in their treatment of subject matter.
As more of Guiliana Sgrena’s sympthies for her captors leak out and the more her story crumbles, the more it appears that the bloggers you derided were much closer to the actual truth of the matter than you were.
Of course, you were dead wrong about Eason Jordan as well, so I guess you are batting your average.
Err, I certainly don’t see how I’ve misquoted you or distorted your meaning. I did leave out the attribution in your post — which makes it clear you’d never even seen the video in question. But do you deny citing her hand-waving as evidence this was a hoax? What you wrote is right there, on your blog.
As usual, the Jawa Report is ludicrous in its reasoning. He cites an interview in which Sgrena says that fearing for her life, she did come up with the idea of the video appeal. From this, Jawa says Sgrena “admits hostage hoax.” It’s about as logical as saying Ashley Smith was in cahoots with Brian Nichols because she made him pancakes.
“Not all bloggers dive blindly into conspriacy theories Mr. Rose…” Agreed. Ther’es a lot of people out there who are fair and reasonable.
“As more of Guiliana Sgrena’s sympthies for her captors leak out and the more her story crumbles, the more it appears that the bloggers you derided were much closer to the actual truth of the matter than you were.”
Don’t give me this bullshit. Everyone knew Sgrena was anti-war, anti-“occupation” from the start. What you and the other bloggers argued wasn’t that she sympathized with her captors, but that the kidnapping itself was a hoax. So far, zero evidence of this has emerged.
And what do you mean I was “dead wrong” about Eason Jordan? Did you even bother to read what I wrote about him?