Scandal over Britain's military echoes critique of murdered journalist Steven Vincent

By David Paulin

Three years ago this month, American freelance journalist Steven Vincent was kidnapped and murdered in Basra, Iraq, a port city then under British military control. His murder occurred as Britain's military – as Vincent had earlier reported -- was turning a blind eye to the rise of menacing Shiite religious groups, including those of bellicose rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

Now, three years later, the ineptitude of British forces in Basra has boiled over into a full-fledged scandal in Britain, as today's Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial, "Basra and the Brits.” The scandal concerns the failure of British military forces to lift a finger to help Iraq's Army prevail in a pivotal battle earlier this year. Explains the WSJ:

...(W)hen the Iraqi military ran into trouble at the start of their operation this year, the 4,100 Brits remained in their garrison at the airport outside the city. The Iraqis had to call in the Americans from the north for air cover and other support to help defeat radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. It was the first time the U.S. had deployed to the British-controlled region of Iraq in five years. The operation turned into a major success, with the Mahdi Army routed and the Iraq government in control.

But the British failure to act was an embarrassment, even a humiliation, and explanations have begun to emerge. All point to a failure of political leadership. It turns out that last September the British had struck a deal with Mr. Sadr, essentially ceding him control over Basra and releasing some 120 militia regulars from custody.

In exchange, the Mahdi Army let U.K. troops beat a retreat from their base inside Basra to the airport unmolested. The Times of London reports that under the deal no soldier could set foot back in the city without express permission from Defense Minister Des Browne. Reports from Iraq add that the British performance has led to significant cooling of relations between the U.S. and British military forces in Iraq.

The Brown government implicitly acknowledges the deal with Mr. Sadr -- albeit without apologizing to the people of Basra who were terrorized for half a year by the Mahdi Army.

Vincent, had he lived, would hardly have been surprised by such revelations. The art critic-turned-war reporter was the among first journalists to criticize Britain's peacekeeping effort. In an Op-Ed he published in the New York Time on July 31, 2005, “Switched off in Basra,” Vincent noted that religious groups were infiltrating civic life in Basra, including its police force; and they were, reportedly, participating in political assassinations. It was occurring while the British military sat on its hands. Vincent wrote:

...(T)he British stand above the growing turmoil, refusing to challenge the Islamists' claim on the hearts and minds of police officers. This detachment angers many Basrans. "The British know what's happening but they are asleep, pretending they can simply establish security and leave behind democracy," said the police lieutenant who had told me of the assassinations. "Before such a government takes root here, we must experience a transformation of our minds."

What accounted for such a poor performance by America's closest alley? In a sense, Britain's military was paralyzed by political correctness and a lack of ideological will, according to Vincent's account three years ago. He wrote:

Fearing to appear like colonial occupiers, they avoid any hint of ideological indoctrination: in my time with them, not once did I see an instructor explain such basics of democracy as the politically neutral role of the police in a civil society. Nor did I see anyone question the alarming number of religious posters on the walls of Basran police stations. When I asked British troops if the security sector reform strategy included measures to encourage cadets to identify with the national government rather than their neighborhood mosque, I received polite shrugs: not our job, mate.

Two days after Vincent's Op-Ed appeared, he and his Iraqi translator, Nour al-Khal, were snatched off a Basra street, shoved into a car, and driven off by men that, it's thought, may have been rogue police officers. The 49-year-old Vincent was brutally beaten. He was shot in the back. Nour, who's about 30 years old, was shot and left for dead. A year ago, Vincent's widow, Lisa Ramaci-Vincent, brought Nour to America, making a home for her in her Manhattan apartment. She thereby honored her husband's pledge to remove his translator, an aspiring poet, from harm's way in Iraq.

Vincent, a former art critic, answered his calling as a war reporter after watching the 9/11 attacks from the rooftop of his Manhattan apartment. Much of his perceptive reporting may be found in his book, “In the Red Zone: A Journey into the Soul of Iraq.” Unlike Britain's current political leaders, he leaves a legacy that will endure as a testament of physical courage and moral clarity.

This was originally published by The American Thinker. The article and readers comments my be found here.

Edwards Sex Scandal Enrages Huffington Post's Gal Pundits

By David Paulin

Over at the lefty Huffington Post, John Edwards' confession of being a cheat has, interestingly, provoked fury among some of the gal pundits. They're mercilessly trashing the pretty boy populist -- spitting a toxic venom that even their like-minded male counterparts cannot match. Some, incredibly, are even digging their nails into Edwards' wife Elizabeth (who is battling cancer) for having aided and abetted her husband's public lies.

What's going on?

Could these ladies be writing with some deeper understanding of the issues at play, perhaps having suffered, like so many American women, at the hands of philandering boyfriends or spouses? According to one survey, 50 to 60 percent of married men have broken their marriage vows -- compared to 45 to 50 percent of women. Perhaps the columnists are subconsciously tapping into their outrage over the humiliation that their sister, Hillary, suffered in the White House.

However, perhaps their outrage underscores something really profound: Yes, America is in the midst of a culture war -- but marital infidelity, it seems, is definitely not an issue that any longer divides many Republican and Democratic women -- if it ever did. Indeed, none of the Edwards-hating Huffington Post lefties reveals a trace of the sophisticated “European attitude” about cheating husbands: the belief that flawed marriages with wandering men are not a big deal, even with all those lies (both public and private) that usually go along with keeping mistresses and fathering “love” children.

“What a C.R.E.E.P” declares Huffington columnist Nancy Snow, sniffing that the Edwards scandal distracted her from writing about the Olympics. “Now the 300 million dollar extravaganza in Beijing will have to wait as I contemplate the rise and fall of the 400 dollar haircut man.”

"Infidelity affects the daily rhythm of life,” columnist Jill Brooke thoughtfully observed, before letting loose some choice words: “It's easy for many women to say, 'I'd dump the bastard,' until it actually happens to them.”

“Imagine being Elizabeth Edwards,” she wrote. “Not only is she battling terminal cancer, but she now must muster the strength to deal with the news that her husband had an affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter.”

And then there's Bonnie Fuller, whose column is perhaps the most perceptive of the lot:

It's easy to understand why John Edwards first felt he was entitled to cheat on his wife and family, and then second, thought he could keep it secret from the American public. He is a self-admitted "narcissist", and narcissists believe they are entitled to whatever they want, whenever they want it. As psychologist Cooper Lawrence told me, "they always think some other poor schnook will get caught, not them.”

On the other hand, there's Jane Smiley: Parting company with her sister columnists, her column argues that the that the sex scandal is much ado about nothing. After all, there are things “a lot worse than adultery,” such as “denying people health care, swindling the taxpayer, starting an unnecessary war by forging documents and lying, and stealing the oil belonging to other nations..."

Yet Smiley in her way reveals some feminine outrage, too, observing that she'd “never thought adultery was a big deal in the abstract, because, as we all know, I am a liberal...” Well, Ms. Smiley, if adultery is not a big deal in the “abstract,” what might it be like if it really did happen to you? And interestingly, Smiley's not-to-worry conclusion is out of sync with her column's title: “Hiding the Scumbag.”

Regarding Edwards' wife, Fuller offers these trenchant observations:

The bigger question is "why did Elizabeth Edwards drink her husband's Kool-Aid? How could she have possibly believed that her husbands affair would remain a private matter when he was running for President of the United States? Hello, the National Enquirer had already broken the story last fall. Why in fact, did she knowingly encourage her spouse to even enter the campaign when she had been fully informed about the affair for over a year? And she helped support and propagate John Edwards' image as a devoted husband and family man.

No, Elizabeth Edwards had to be in some extraordinary form of denial and that's why she became her husband's "ambition enabler," when she supported his recent run for the presidency. My belief is that after almost thirty years of marriage she too had become so invested in his political ambitions, his cause, that she couldn't give up either, even after he cheated and she knew there was a chance his affair could be reported in the mainstream press.

His success, now defined her success, so she was willing to go along with the fraud that that their marriage was fine," believes psychologist Victoria Zdrok, currently working on a book titled," Dr. Z on Straying."

Her terminal illness may actually have also played a role in her decision to publicly stand by her man and his presidential ambitions, according to Zdrok. "When we seek death, we often seek to achieve a symbolic immortality. And becoming a presidential wife could have been that for her.

In any case, Elizabeth Edwards was a victim when her husband cheated. She did nothing to deserve that and as a wife she had every right and many reasons to forgive the jerk. But the decision to stand behind him and publicly broadcast his staunch family values image was her own doing. As courageous and admirable as she has been in dealing with her cancer, she is now the latest member of the Publicly Humiliated Wives Club, and she has no right to complain about the public's interest in knowing exactly what has happened. She helped get herself in this situation.

The title of Fuller's column: “Elizabeth Edwards Drank Her Husband's Kool-Aid And Became his 'Ambition Enabler.'”

As for Arianna Huffington, she endeavors to look at the big picture:

I've long pushed for a giant border fence separating public life and private lives. But the issue here wasn't Edwards' infidelity, it was his lying directly to the American people. The last thing we need is a sexual purity test for our politicians, but we desperately need political leaders whose word we can trust.

Well, it's interesting that telling the truth, in this context, is now so important for Huffington, one of the left's de facto spokespersons. This criteria, after all, was not one that most Democrats (including women in the party) used to judge Bill Clinton when his cheating scandal broke; and nor was it a criteria Democrats applied to Clinton when he was running for office and was known, at the time, to be a serial philander, and lier, in respect to his womanizing in Arkansas.

Could it possibly be that Huffington, a native of Greece who lived for years in Europe, has shed some of her sophisticated views about such things, too?

All in all, it will be interesting to see if the gal pundits on the conservative side of the fence muster as much venom over Edwards martial infidelity as the lefties at the Huffington Post.

This was originally published at The American Thinker, which offers up readers comments along with the story.

Fearing Muslim backlash, Random House scraps novel


By DAVID PAULIN

Nearly three years ago, millions of Iraqi voters participated in historic parliamentary elections. They shrugged off Al-Qaida suicide bombers and pro-Saddam reactionaries, and they headed to the polls in heavy number -- proving their courage and commitment to democratic values.

Sadly, both qualities were absent in Random House's decision last May to cancel publication of “The Jewel of Medina,” a novel by 46-year-old journalist Sherry Jones. Egged on by a politically correct professor of Islamic studies, publishing executives feared the debut novel could provoke the kind of violent backlash among Muslims that was touched off by Salman Rushdie's 1988 novel “Satanic Verses.” And they nervously recalled the Danish "cartoon riots" in Europe and the Muslim world.

The full story of Random House's cowardly self-censorship – a story of how “fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world” - was the subject of a Op-Ed column in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal by Asra Q. Nomani , the noted Muslim journalist and author. In her column, Nomani described a depressing story of intellectual cowardice and academic perfidy among members of America's intellectual elite. Jones' canceled novel focues on Aisha, a young wife of the prophet Muhammad. Some of the novel's scenes are described as being “racy” in the tradition of the controversial film “The Last Temptation of Christ, based on the novel by Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis;” the film portrays Jesus and Mary Magdalene as a married couple consummating their union. In her column, "You Still Can't Write About Muhammad," Nomani related:

Random House feared the book would become a new "Satanic Verses," the Salman Rushdie novel of 1988 that led to death threats, riots and the murder of the book's Japanese translator, among other horrors. In an interview about Ms. Jones's novel, Thomas Perry, deputy publisher at Random House Publishing Group, said that it "disturbs us that we feel we cannot publish it right now." He said that after sending out advance copies of the novel, the company received "from credible and unrelated sources, cautionary advice not only that the publication of this book might be offensive to some in the Muslim community, but also that it could incite acts of violence by a small, radical segment."

Who was the source for this ominous warning?

It was a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Texas in Austin, Denise Spellberg, whom Jones had innocently thought might write a blub for the book. Instead, the professor hated it. She regarded it as an “ugly, stupid piece of work”-- one that “made fun of Muslims and their history,” according to Nomani's account. Indeed, the professor thought the book could prove to be a “declaration of war...a national security issue” much worse than the violence provoked by the “Satanic Verses” and Danish "cartoon riots."

Nomani reveals a bit about Prof. Spellberg's academic background. But the most revealing profile of her may be found at her own webpage at the University of Texas. Not surprisingly, she earned her PhD in Islamic Studies from Columbia University in New York City -- a place where radical leftists and advocates of the pro-Palestinian cause (including the late Prof. Edward Said), have for years gotten a warm welcome. Among her recent publications: "Inventing Matamoras: Gender and the Forgotten Islamic Past in the United States of America."

Spellberg, who apparently believes most outraged Christians behave as many outraged Muslims, recalled going to the “Last Temptation of Christ,” released in 1988. She was quoted as saying: "I walked through a metal detector to see 'Last Temptation of Christ.' I don't have a problem with historical fiction. I do have a problem with the deliberate misinterpretation of history. You can't play with a sacred history and turn it into soft core pornography."

That's funny. I went to “Last Temptation of Christ,” too. But there were no metal dictators at the theater in southwestern Connecticut where I saw the film. But I do recall standing in a long line on a chilly and drizzly evening. Near the theater door, movie-goers walked past a polite and gentle Baptist minister. He was obviously outraged by the film. Yet he wished me and other movie-goers well. He handed me some literature that he said I might want to read. As much as I disagreed with him, I could not help but respect him. He had quiet dignity. There was no anger in his voice or demeanor.

Accordingly, I have to wonder about Prof. Spellberg's account of seeing the film. Her remarks about her movie-going experience are no doubt as suspect as her alamist remarks about “The Jewel of Medina." And they're obviously filtered through a radical leftist political view in the spirit of Edward Said. Now that Iraq is becoming increasingly calm, perhaps Prof. Spellberg and Random House's editors should visit Iraq and talk with ordinary Iraqis. If they learn nothing from the courage and convictions of those Iraqis, perhaps they will at least become aware of their own perfidy and cowardice -- and feel shamed.

Then again, maybe they'll see only want they want to see.

This article also was published by The American Thinker and FrontPage Magazine. For those articles and readers comments, click here and here, respectively.

A Kidnapping and Execution Highlight the 'Mexicanization' of Texas

By DAVID PAULIN

That Mexico's violence and dysfunction is increasingly becoming part of America's social fabric was highlighted by two recent events in Texas -- a kidnapping in Austin, and an execution in the state's death chamber.

Kidnappings-for-profit are common in Mexico and Latin America. Now, they're becoming more popular in Texas, too -- as was underscored by the recent kidnapping in Austin of two Hispanic men by at least two other Hispanic men. It's unclear when authorities first took note of the upsurge in Latin-style kidnappings in Texas. But presumably, the trend started a few years ago after "Anglo" Texans fell into a category that politically correct journalists call the "majority minority."

Regarding Austin's recent kidnapping, FBI agent Charlie Rasner observed: "These things happen more frequently towards the border instead of this far North, but we have seen more recently, there's no doubt about it."

Rasner said he's "not sure why the numbers are on the rise." But a commander with the Austin Police Department, Julie O'Brien, said the kidnappers in Austin had one motive: "The goal was to bleed the family of every penny they could get, and then either set the victims free or kill them."

That, of course, is the way its done in Mexico and other dysfunctional parts of Latin America.

So, were the kidnappers and their victims here illegally or born here to parents who'd immigrated illegally? It's hard to know. Local media tend to feel immigration status is irrelevant in many stories about Austin -- an open-borders sanctuary city.

In the state's death chamber, meanwhile, Mexico-born Jose Ernesto Medellin, 33, was recently put to death by lethal injection. He'd arrived in America as a toddler. But when he was 18, he and five fellow gang members raped, beat, and strangled to death Elizabeth Pena, 16, and Jennifer Ertman, 14. Later, Medellin boasted to his buddies about the rapes and killings.

Mexico, as it usually does in such cases, mobilized its resources to stop the execution. Its diplomats and lawyer complained that Texas law enforcement authorities had failed to inform Medellin of his right to seek help from the Mexican Consulate. Outraged over their countryman's mistreatment, Mexican officials took the case to the The International Court of Justice in The Hague, and to the U.S. Supreme Court.

But ultimately, Texas got its way. Moments before being put to death, Medellin said: "I'm sorry my actions caused you pain. I hope this brings you the closure that you seek. Never harbor hate."

For the World Court, this is not a happy day. It had ordered Texas not to executive any of five Mexican-born men on death row, including Medellin, while their cases were being reviewed. But a spokesman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, observed that the court -- a branch of the United Nations -- "has no standing in Texas."

The "Mexicanization" of Texas has upset ordinary Texans of "Anglo" background as well as native Texans of Mexican heritage.

One lesson can be drawn from all this. There would be no need for a border fence if Mexico spent as much time defending the rights of its convicted killers as it did in preventing (rather than encouraging) an ongoing exodus of high school dropouts and others in its lowest social classes from immigrating illegally to America.

This was originally published at The American Thinker. Go there to see reader comments and an update for this post.

The NYT's selective
squeamishness












By DAVID PAULIN

At an upmarket newspaper like the Time York Times, no self-respecting editor would ever consider publishing grisly close-up photos showing victims of horrific car wrecks and violent crimes. Yet that's exactly what it ought to being doing -- at least if you follow the logic put forth by Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt in his Sunday column, "The Painful Images of War." It touches upon the case of former embedded photojournalist Zoriah Miller, the subject of a recent American Thinker article, "The Case of Expelled Embed." In his column, Hoyt reflectively notes,

TWO hundred twenty-one American soldiers and Marines have been killed in Iraq this year, but until eight days ago, The Times had not published a photo of one of their bodies.

The picture The Times did publish on July 26, of a room full of death after a suicide bombing in June, with a marine in the foreground, his face covered and his uniform riddled with tiny shrapnel holes, accompanied a front-page article about how few such images there are.

The photos to which Hoyt refers were originally published by Miller in his blog, which is full of anti-war and anti-Western rhetoric, as the American Thinker noted - but that Hoyt failed to mention. His column had other problems, too, and that was curious.

Hoyt has, in the past, proven himself to be intellectually honest and insightful when taking the Times to task for some of its notable journalistic misdeeds and foolishness. But, curiously, he seems unable to make up his mind on whether the Times acted prudently when publishing Miller's grisly up-close photos of dead U.S. Marines in a story last month, "4,000 U.S. Deaths, and Just a Handful of Public Images."

What to do when you can't make up your mind? Hoyt left the intellectual heavy lifting to Executive Editor Bill Keller, whom he quotes as saying:

"Death and carnage are not the whole story of war -- there is also heroism and frustration, success and setback, camaraderie and, on occasion, atrocity -- but death and carnage are part of the story, and to launder them out of our account of the war would be a disservice.''

Before arriving at this conclusion, Hoyt cited some examples of some controversial Iraq battlefield photos that are, indeed, tough calls in respect to whether they should have been published or not. But his apparent reluctance to criticize the Times for publishing Miller's photos -- photos that had only been published only in the photojournalist's blog -- underscores that the Times has an obvious double standard, one that Hoyt is unable to grasp or admit.

One one hand, the Times would never publish grisly up-close photos of traffic accidents and crime scenes -- even though both claim tens of thousands of victims annually. Presumably, the Times withholds such images because, quite simply, it's a matter of good taste not to publish them. Not to mention a matter of respect for the feelings of the victims' families. And yet in an obvious double standard, both Hoyt and Killer weigh in with Zoriah Miller in respect to publishing grisly photos of dead U.S. soldiers -- all to supposedly illustrate all the aspects of the Iraq war that (it's hardly coincidental) the Times just happens to oppose.

The journalistic inconsistency of this argument reminds me of how the Times covered the slayings of two mobsters in Manhattan. In 1985, gunman for mobster John Gotti murdered the head of the Gambino crime family, Paul Castellano, and a fellow mobster. They two were gunned down outside Sparks Steak House as they were going in for dinner.

At the time, I was a journalist in southwestern Connecticut, and I remember commenting with fellow journalists about the giddy coverage of the slayings in the New York papers. One of the tabloids (the Daily News or New York Post) had a banner headline: "RUBOUT!" And the other had a variation of that: "BIG RUBOUT!" Both had photos of the dead mobsters lying on the sidewalk outside the restaurant. They weren't, as I recall, quite as graphic as this, but you get the idea.

The Times, on the other hand, had something similar to this -- a subdued photo of one of the mobsters, draped in a sheet, being wheeled into an ambulance.

Did the Times photographer arrive late at the scene? It's hardly likely. The Times editors picked the photo they did out of a matter of good taste. Publishing grisly photos of dead mobsters is just not the kind of thing Ivy League editors (the types who often tend to work at the Times) would do -- and it's not the kind of thing sophisticated Times readers wanted to see over their breakfast, either. Yet when it comes to dead soldiers in Iraq, the Times has a different standard: Publishing such photos is the right thing to do.

While weighing in with Zoriah Miller, Hoyt quotes Gail Buckland, an author and professor of photo history at Cooper Union in New York, to support his points. According to Hoyt, Buckland

...tells students that because of the lack of a comprehensive photographic record of the war in Iraq, they are ''more impoverished today than Americans were in the 19th century,'' when battlefield photographs by Timothy O'Sullivan and others documented the Civil War. ''The greatest dishonor you can do is to forget,'' she told me. ''Photographs are monuments.''

Yet that's not quite correct. Mathew Brady's great Civil War photos were not reproduced during the war in American's newspapers, days after a battle. He displayed them in his studio.

Hoyt, in his column, overlooks certain aspects of Zoriah Miller's expulsion, as well. He failed to note that Marine Gen. John F. Kelly had asked the freelance photojournalist to remove the photos from his blog -- and that Miller had refused. And nor did Hoyt note that Gen. Kelly was outraged over Miller's detailed written account of the aftermath of a suicide bombing. That account, he stated, had provided the enemy with a valuable after-action report; the bombing was blamed on Al-Qaida.

That the Times shows more respect for two dead mobsters than it does for dead Marines says much about the paper's agenda-driven worldview.

This was originally published by The American Thinker, where readers comments may be found regarding this post.

U.S. Military detains Reuters “Haditha” reporter for security concerns


By DAVID PAULIN

Western media outlets have reported on the Iraq war by relying heavily on Iraqis -- young men quickly trained to be photojournalists and reporters. Yet their motives and loyalties have not always been beyond repute. Yesterday, this was evident once again as Reuters reported on the arrest of one of its own last Saturday.

U.S. military forces detained Reuters photographer Ali al-Mashhadani due to “security concerns." He was handcuffed and led away by U.S. military forces in Baghdad's Green Zone, while he visited a government facility to obtain a U.S. military press card, Reuters reported. Twice before, U.S. military forces had detained al-Mashhadani, also due to security concerns; he was reporting at the time from Sunni-dominated Anbar Provence. Besides Reuters, al-Mashhadani has worked for BBC and Washington-based National Public Radio.

Two years ago, al-Mashhadani's journalism career got a boost when he fanned the flames of the now-debunked “Haditha massacre.” In his report for Reuters on March 21, 2006, he described a “rampage by U.S. soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction.”

In Thursday's story, Reuters rushed to al-Mashhadani's defense It echoed the line used by the Associated Press when one of its photographers was detained for security concerns. Reuters declared that military authorities should “immediately release” al-Mashhadani -- or “publicly produce evidence to justify his detention.” However, U.S. military authorities are unlikely to release such evidence. After all, it was probably obtained through intelligence gathering that included informants and other methods; both would be compromised if Reuters had its way.

During the Vietnam War, reporting like al-Mashhadani's presented a distorted imagine of the war, helping to turn Americans against it. This has yet to happen in Iraq to the extent it did in Vietnam. Now, the blogosphere is serving as a counter-weight to the mainstream's often problematic reporting. The blog Sweetness & Light, for instance, has been onto al-Mashhadani for some time.

Like other Iraqi stringers and freelancers whom bloggers have sharply criticized, al-Mashhadani has a curious talent -- he moves unimpeded among Iraq's insurgents and Al-Qaida terrorists. This brought him to the attention of military authorities in August, 2005. During a search of his home in Ramadi, Anbar Provence's capital, troops found photos of insurgent activity in his camera. He was released after some five months. Not long after that, he shocked the world with his report of the Haditha massacre, a coincidence of timing noted by Sweetness & Light. A few months later, military forces detained him a second time for two weeks.

The AP has had problems with some of its Iraqi employees, too. AP photographer Bilal Hussein was held by U.S. military forces for two years. Last February, he was released as part of a U.S.-backed amnesty law aimed at national reconciliation. A former Fallujah shopkeeper who sold cell phones, Hussein was hired by the AP because he knew the area. One of his photos was part of a package of 20 AP photos that won a Pulitzer Prize; it showed four insurgents firing a mortar and small arms during an offensive by U.S.-led forces in November, 2004.

For the rest of the article, visit The American Thinker.

The Case of the U.S. Marines and Photojournalist Zoriah Miller

By DAVID PAULIN

In the latest instance of the military's uneasy relationship in Iraq with the news media, U.S. Marine commanders expelled an embedded photojournalist for doing something they considered unforgivable -- snapping grisly photos of dead Marines, and posting them on his website.

The case of photojournalist Zoriah Miller, a 32-year-old American, has roiled U.S. Marines in Western Iraq for more than a month. Yet the mainstream media has largely ignored the controversy – until that is, a lengthy article in yesterday's New York Times, “4,000 U.S. Deaths and Just a Handful of Public Images.” While it strove to be circumspect about the issues at play, the Times failed to answer an important question: Who is Zoriah Miller?

The answer explains much about why America's military leaders are not interested in returning to the anything-goes days of media coverage that existed during the Vietnam War. And it explains why Marine commanders in Iraq do not relish the idea of Miller ever again accompanying American troops anywhere in the world.

Miller, a freelancer who uses his first name professionally, had been in Iraq nearly one year when he was expelled. He ran afoul of Marine commanders because of two photos of three dead Marines he published on his website. Initially, Marine commanders ordered Miller to remove the photos. He invited their full wrath with his response.

He refused to obey them.

Immediately, outraged commanders revoked the veteran photojournalist's media credentials. They ordered him aboard the next flight to Baghdad's Green Zone, saying he no longer was welcome in Marine-controlled Western Iraq. In a letter to Miller expelling him, Marine Gen. John F. Kelly -- commander of multi-national forces in Western Iraq – wrote: "By your actions, I have lost confidence in your trustworthiness and your ability to follow the rules vital for protecting U.S. forces assigned to the Iraqi Theater of Operations."

He added, “I have reason to believe that you present a threat all all Multi National Forces-West personnel and installations." A copy of Gen. Kelly's lengthy and detailed July 3 letter, citing specific embed rules Miller allegedly violated, was provided to the American Thinker after a query was made for this story. The general said the photojournalist's detailed blog commentary and graphic photos, about the aftermath of a suicide bombing, had provided the enemy with a valuable after-action report of the attack; it was blamed on Al-Qaida. In his letter, Gen. Kelly said Miller's photo essay offered the terror group valuable intelligence about the effectiveness of their attack and the Marines' response time.

Miller said two armed guards accompanied him as he awaited his flight. The guards were apparently for his own protection. Presumably, some Marines were in ugly moods on learning the photojournalist had posted photos to his website of dead Marines, two veteran officers and an enlisted man.

On his website, Miller has written at length about the arbitrary treatment he says he suffered, and he's defended his conduct. Specifically, he's accused Marine commanders of censorship and ignoring established rules for embedded reporters, rules concerning what photojournalist may or may not publish. He's also portrayed himself as an idealist -- one with an anti-war message. Recently, Miller returned from Baghdad to his native Colorado, having failed to get his embed credentials reinstated while in Baghdad, where he apparently visited the U.S. Embassy. He claims to have gotten a sympathetic hearing from unnamed officials about his efforts to reinstate his credentials.

As to those two photos of three dead Marines, they're still displayed at his website: Zoriah.com. And now thanks to the Times' story, they're displayed on the paper's website. Editors, presumably, believed that publishing them was necessary to tell the story of Zoriah Miller vs. the U.S. Marines -- and to highlight Miller's claims of alleged military censorship. Yet curiously, the Times has never been the sort of paper to publish similar grisly photos of people who died in violent car wrecks or of gunshot wounds. It's a matter of good taste for the Times; and yet this same consideration is not extended to soldiers killed in Iraq.

What exactly did Miller publish? His two close-up photos show Marines whose bodies seem mutilated beyond recognition. One shows a Marine lying face up, his face disfigured. Miller, noting he was sensitive to the Marines' families, said on his blog that the soldiers were are too disfigured for even their families to recognize. And in line with embed rules, he noted, he digitally removed the Marines' name tags from the photos. He suggested the photos were “dignified” and “artistic.”

Some of Miller's Iraq photos are indeed powerful and interesting. But his photos of three dead Marines resemble the tasteless photos found at some ghoulish Internet sites. Now, the Times has stooped to the same level for the sake of its high-minded journalism.

Miller says he's baffled by the angry reaction his photos provoked among Marines. "You're a war photographer, but once you take a picture of what war is like then you get into trouble," he complained at Camp Fallujah, shortly after losing his media credentials. He was quoted in a July 6 article in the Ventura County Star, “Blogger kicked out of Iraq province for war photos,” written by an embedded reporter for the California daily paper, Scott Hadly.

Miller's photos of the dead Marines were part of a graphic photo essay and written account he posted describing the aftermath of a suicide bombing on June 26 in the city of Garma, near Fallujah. The bomber blew himself up at a city council meeting that included shieks and local leaders. At least 20 people died and more than 100 were injured. The Marines killed in the blast were on hand to transfer control of Anbar Provence to Iraqi military forces. The province had been hotbed for the insurgency until the Marines enforced their will on the region.

Before publishing the photos, Miller, in his defense, said he waited until the families of the Marines had been notified of their deaths. Indeed, it was out of consideration for them, he said, that he even provided ample warnings on his website about photos being displayed there of dead Marines. Yet despite his concern, he apparently had no such reservations when granting the Times permission to publish the photos.

Miller's photo essay includes a number of graphic color shots of the dead and dying. One bizarre close-up shows a human hand on the ground above a small pool of blood. The dead included Garma's mayor and a tribal chief.

As to those dead Marines, Miller didn't mention their names, and neither did the Times. They were from the Hawaii-based 3^rd Marine Division: Battalion commander Lt. Col. Max A. Galeai, 42, of Pago Pago, American Samona; Marine Capt. Philip J. Dykeman, 38, of Brockport, N.Y.; and Cpl. Marcus W. Preudhomme, 23, an administrative assistant from North Miami Beach, Fla.

The Marines died outright in the powerful blast. Miller, moments later, arrived at the gruesome scene with a group of Marines he'd been accompanying; they were from the same division as the dead Marines. One of them vomited, Miller related. Quickly, the Marines set about restoring order: securing the area, helping the wounded, and even collecting body parts. Miller went to work too: He feverishly snapped off photos. Luckily for Miller, he'd reportedly opted to go out with the Marine patrol rather than accepting an invitation to the event.

Regarding his expulsion, Miller contends he followed the military's rules for embedded media members to the letter. Photojournalists, he says, are in fact allowed to photograph and publish photos of dead servicemen under certain circumstances. In his defense, he cited specific sections of the embed rules to support his case.

Why publish grisly close-ups of dead Marines? "I just feel this war has become so sanitized that it was important to show,” Miller told the Ventura County Star. He repeated those comments in the Times' story and during recent interviews with Editor & Publisher, a magazine covering the newspaper industry.

Miller, however, had other motivations, too – though they were not mentioned by the Times and Editor & Publisher which are sympathetic to his cause. Publishing the photos, Miller explained, was justified to show “the reality of the Iraq War.” And he offered some political reasons, too: At his website, he urges visitors who are “offended by the graphic images” to “please do something to stop the political situations and foreign policy that facilitate these atrocities.” What does Miller mean by political situations and foreign policies? He did not explain. But it's clear he has a political agenda, based on other statements at his website, which the Times did not bother to cite.

Miller, for instance, talks much about himself at two Q&A interviews he gave that are posted on his website. In one he says: “I just want to change the world...and I am pretty sure I can do it.”

For the rest of the article, go to The American Thinker.

The AP's New Man on the “Race and Ethnicity” Beat

By DAVID PAULIN

The Associated Press just announced an important change in a high-profile news beat that's overseen by its national desk -- a beat called “race and ethnicity.”

AP's editors, sensing a racially charged presidential election at hand, picked a writer from 449 candidates they'd been considering for their new “race and ethnicity” writer. And last week, they named the lucky writer, a long-time AP staffer named Jesse Washington. Previously, the 39-year-old journalist was the “entertainment editor” at America's most influential news outlet, the source from which most Americans get their news from outside the areas covered by their local newspapers and TV and radio stations.

Earlier in his career, Washington was an editor at two prominent hip-hop magazines. And recently, he published his first novel: “Black Will Shoot,” which is about America's hip-hop culture. Its cover jacket calls it a “compelling look at the most impactful (sic) and influential cultural movement of the past thirty years.”

For AP's editors, the race and ethnicity beat is obviously important. An opening on the beat occurred due to the resignation of AP writer Erin Texeira. Interestingly, the AP gave no reason for her resignation. Among the headlines of some of her memorable stories: “Duke Rape Scandal Reopens Old Wounds For Black Women”; "Slavery Reparations Gaining Momentum" and "Black Men Fight Negative Stereotypes Daily."

So what does the AP's “race and ethnicity” beat mean for the type of news coverage Americans can expect?

In the good old days of American journalism, reporting beats had pretty mundane names: police, city government, national politics, etc. But in the post-modern journalism world, beats like “race and ethnicity” have become popular. And in a sense, they often feed the perception – the false perception -- that America's race relations are in the dire state that's usually portrayed in the mainstream media's stories.

How come? First, consider the very first bias that invariably creeps into a news story: It's that reporters and editors even choose to write a story about something; and in the case of a news beat, they have to produce stories on a particular issue on a regular basis. By itself, the decision to create a news beat says a lot; for it defines a particular subject as being an issue -- one worthy of news space and air time. And a news beat also places a certain onus on reporters and editors. Those covering “race and ethnicity” beats, for instance, are expected to flesh out the basic elements of a story. And the very best stories, of course, invariably revolve around conflict and controversy.

But what if no obvious conflict or controversy exists? Well, for clever reporters entertaining a certain worldview, it's usually easy to come up with something. A beautiful sunset over an orderly middle-class suburb in Chicago or Los Angeles is not necessarily what it seems: It's merely the calm before a Perfect Storm of racial grievances. Basically, that's what's often going on at places like the AP and New York Times in respect to its ongoing and obsessive coverage of “race and ethnicity” in America.

And so then, the “news beats” created by editors say much about what those editors think is important, reflects the potential conflicts they believe are festering all around them. According to his memo on Washington's promotion, published at trade magazine Editor & Publisher, AP's manging editor of U.S. news, Mike Oreskes wrote:

Few subjects permeate every corner of American life more fully than issues of race and ethnicity. So, few assignments have more potential to expand our understanding of America than writing about race and ethnicity.

That is why we have conducted an extensive search for a new national writer to cover this important and complex territory.

That search, ably led by John Affleck, brought in 449 applicants. There were many strong candidates.

It turned out the top choice—and a very exciting one—was right here at home. I am very pleased to announce that our new national writer on race and ethnicity will be Jesse Washington, currently the AP’s Entertainment Editor.

Does race in fact “permeate every corner of American life” as Oreskes claims? There is good reason to believe that it does not, at least not in the way Oreskes and his AP colleagues think it does. And certainly not in the way Barack and Michelle Obama may say or imply. And definitely not the way that's described by Obama's former hate-filled minister and spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright, who recently resigned as pastor of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ.

Put aside these issues for a moment, however, to consider some things about the AP's new “race and ethnicity" writer. No doubt, Jesse Washington was thanking his lucky stars upon hearing of his promotion. In recent months, after all, thousands of editors and reporters have lost their jobs as the newspaper industry has suffered its worst-ever downsizing bloodbath. Even top people at the New York Times and Washington Post are being shown the door.

Yet Washington, rather than considering himself a lucky insider, considers himself an outsider, at least if Oreskes' memo is anything to go by. The memo not only calls attention to Washington's considerable achievements, it portrays him as something of a scrappy contender – and even a victim. According to Oreskes' memo:

Jesse brings to this new assignment more than just a resume of achievements. He has lived the subject of race and ethnicity every day of his 39 years.

Son of an interracial marriage, Jesse is, as he puts it, “a kid from the projects who went to Yale and married a doctor. I’m a person who fits in everywhere and nowhere.” He and his wife live in suburban Philadelphia with their four children.

Given the AP's evident preoccupation with race and ethnicity, it's interesting that Oreskes' memo makes no mention of Washington's own racial or ethnic background; but a photo of him posted with the AP's online news release reveals what is all but obvious: He's black.

But perhaps the failure of Oreskes' memo to mention Washington's race is consistent with some of the AP's news coverage. Recent AP articles about gang violence in the nation's inner cities, Chicago in particular, made absolutely no mention of the racial or ethnic background of the young thugs rampaging through city streets with high-powered weapons. It took a little Googling to learn that Chicago's gangbangers are part of the city's dysfunctional black culture.

Washington himself has been guilty of such oversights during the early part of his AP career in the mid-1990s. Writing in October, 1993, about Detroit's annual “Devil's Night” – an arson spree occurring on Halloween -- Washington made no mention of the ethnic or racial backgrounds of the young thugs torching vacant buildings during a night of mayhem that “added insult to the city's already injured reputation.” (“Detroit Hopes to Stifle Devil's Night Fires Again,” AP, Oct. 1992.) Then again, maybe the story Washington submitted did mention such things, only to have them deleted by a politically correct AP editor.

According to a check of Factiva, the news archive, Washington wrote a variety of stories while assigned to the AP's national desk in the 1990s, the kinds of stories one might expect on the national beat – crime, political scandals, etc. But he returned repeatedly to stories about race. And invariably, the stories on race that really "moved” on the wires (got picked up by lots of newspapers across the country), involved those that highlighted an earlier period of racism in America's history.

Washington wrote one such story in mid-July of 1991: “White schoolmarm challenged New England's anti-black stance.” Reporting from Canterbury, Conn., he began:

When a strong-willed white schoolteacher in 1833 opened New England's first academy for black girls, she was tormented by her neighbors, made an outlaw by the state Legislature and even jailed.

Today, the clapboard house where Prudence Crandall operated her boarding school is a museum, a monument to one woman's courage and a reminder of a troubling episode in Connecticut history.

Americans, of course, ought to reconsider their history and look back on their past. But in the post-modern journalism world, the approach to news coverage that does that inevitably has a cynical tone -- the equivalent of repeatedly tearing a scab off an old wound. And invariably, progress in the nation's race relations is never noted; it never stresses what America has accomplished, thanks to Americans of all colors working together. Instead, news stories are invariably about what white Americans have done to black Americans; no matter if most white Americans today display little if any racial animus, an issue that Linda Chavez recently highlighted in a perceptive and lengthy piece in the magazine Commentary. She wrote:

To put the truth plainly: far from there being a racial stand-off in the United States, relations between blacks and whites have never been better. According to virtually every survey of racial attitudes taken over the last several decades, only about 10 percent of whites report generally unfavorable views of blacks. In a 2007 Pew Research Center poll, the relevant figure stood at 8 percent—lower, interestingly enough, than the percentage of blacks reporting similarly negative views of their fellow blacks.

Because of the nation’s rapidly changing demography, the whole issue of race and ethnicity in America has become much more complicated and variegated. One thing remains clear, though: in surveys assessing racial attitudes among all groups, non-whites display consistently less favorable attitudes toward each other and toward whites than whites display toward blacks and other minority groups. One such survey, taken in the mid-1990’s, found blacks and Hispanics significantly more likely than whites to regard Asians as hostile to non-Asians and as “crafty in business,” while both Asians and Hispanics were likelier than whites to think that blacks “like living on welfare” and “can’t get ahead on their own.” Nor have inter-minority stereotypes changed much since then. A 2007 poll found that a plurality of blacks would rather do business with whites than with either Hispanics or Asians.

Chavez is chairwoman of the Center for Equal Opportunity, the only conservative think tank devoted to race and ethnicity in America. Her conclusions about race in America are far different from what was found in the racist sermons of Jeremiah Wright, the Obama family's former minister.

For the rest of this article, visit The American Thinker.

DOWNSIZING BLOODBATH

What the newspaper industry's unprecedented wave of layoffs says about American journalism -- and what it means for newspaper readers and bloggers



By DAVID PAULIN

The downsizing bloodbath in America's newspaper industry is different from earlier waves of layoffs over the years. This time top editors and reporters are being let go at the most prestigious newspapers. What does all this say about American journalism? And what will it mean for newspaper readers and bloggers?

First, consider the financially troubled New York Times. Layoffs are being threatened there -- something once unimaginable at the liberal Gray Lady. Many veteran reporters in recent months have accepted buyouts. They're people in their 50s and early 60s: well-known reporters such as John Noble Wilford, Linda Greenhouse, Jane Gross, and Lawrence K. Altman, to name a few. In professions such as medicine and law, such people would be at the top of their game.

But that's not the case in newspaper journalism, and that's ironic.

Many MSM news executives claim to want well educated and able people in the newsroom – but not, it appears, any who are too able or well-educated. That was underscored by an article in the American Journalism Review in January, 1995, “Fellowship Folly.” James V. Risser, a two-time Pulitzer winner, complained of mid-career journalists who took prestigious fellowships – only to find that their post-graduate educational experience was “too often” not appreciated -- or not even utilized. He wrote: “News executives say that they want to staff their organizations with more intelligent and sophisticated journalists, equipped to better cover a complex world. But when it comes to taking steps to help bring that about, some of them balk.”

It was an interesting comment in light of the criticism that MSM executives and journalists often level at bloggers – that they are not qualified to be reporting on and interpreting news events. Some even complain of a reckless anti-intellectualism in the blogesphere (especially among conservative bloggers). Yet it can be found as well within the nation's newsrooms, as “Fellowship Folly” pointed out. Of course, that's no surprise to bloggers who have made their reputations snorting out errors and misdeeds in the MSM.

The unprecedented buyouts at Times and Washington Post underscore the severity of the current wave of layoffs and downsizing affecting newspapers across the country. For the past 20-plus years, the newspaper industry has undergone periodic downsizing, amid declining readership and advertising revenues.

And in the past few years, newspapers have been losing readers and credibility to a new competitor – bloggers.

Many MSM executives deny that bloggers are a competitive threat. But there can be little doubt that those executives are running scared. That was underscored by the Associated Press' recent edict that bloggers would have to pay the AP to quote from its articles.

In addition, the AP recently took a petty swipe at bloggers with a story, “Journalists Teach Bloggers a Thing or Two.” It focused on bloggers who were portrayed as well-intentioned amateurs prone to run afoul of libel laws – and thus in need of a formal journalism education.

That's hardly true for the best blogs and online magazines around, however. Their writers, editors, and publishers are among the best and brightest around. And they certainly could hold their own -- and then some -- against the very best of the MSM. Two examples on the conservative front are the American Thinker and FrontPage Magazine. On the liberal side there's the Huffington Post, which recently announced that it would be expanding into local news coverage.

Fewer staffers; more freelancers

What will the MSM's newsroom shake-out mean for newspaper readers? Increasingly, they won't be reading stories written by full-time staff reporters. Freelance and “contract” reporters will write them. Over the years, major newspapers and wires services have increasingly relied on such folks – and the MSM's coverage of Iraq has offered the most visible example of that.

In Iraq, most of the news-gathering has been done by “local hires” -- hastily trained Iraqis working for major newspapers such as the Times, and for wire services such as the AP and Reuters. Some have proven courageous and able journalists and news gatherers. But the loyalties of others have frequently been called into question; it's what you'd expect in a country that has all but been in a civil war.

In Iraq and elsewhere, such freelance and “contract” labor is problematic in two ways. First, it means that inexperienced people are writing and gathering the information that gets into newspapers in America and overseas. Indeed, many if not most of them would not even be qualified for a regular newspaper or wire service job in America; would not, ironically, even get through the front door with a job application at the organizations that readily hire them overseas.

The second problem regarding freelance and contract labor is that there is less accountability in the news-gathering process. After all, when Wal-Mart uses sub-contractors, it has less control over how they operate. The news business is no exception. A staff reporter is more accountable than a temporary hire -- a person with no long-term relationship to his employer.

Less Foreign News Coverage

What type of news coverage will suffer the most as a result of the cutbacks? No doubt, it will be foreign news; traditionally, it has been the first causality of budget cutbacks. Papers like the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal will, of course, continue to run lots of foreign news stories; but their foreign news may not have the same quality it did in the past due to budget constraints, and there may not be as much of it, either. Most Americans don't read those papers anyway. They read their hometown papers.

And in hometown papers across America, the foreign news that gets into the paper will be provided as always by two left-leaning wire services, the Associated Press and Reuters. Their coverage of the war in Iraq and Israeli's incursion into Lebanon took lots of hits in the blogesphere for its lack of impartiality; it's a problem sometimes traced to “local hires” who deliberately distort the news -- either for ideological reasons or to make a fast buck.

For Americans working abroad as freelancers, you'd think the downsizing trend would mean more work for them. Just the opposite is true. Because of declining advertising revenues, there is a smaller “news hole” for foreign news in America's newspapers.

Accordingly, the foreign news that gets published in most newspapers – those most Americans read -- will usually revolve around breaking news written mainly by the wire services, usually the AP and to a lesser extent Reuters. Of course, freelancers, contract reporters, and news assistants or "fixers" in places like Iran – those working for a variety of MSM outlets -- will have more work than they can handle if a war erupts there. Until then, many will be starving because there's less room for foreign news due to a loss of advertising space. Some will be tempted to cut corners to make ends meet. (More on that later.)

In respect to foreign news, the first type of news that will disappear from most newspapers will be trend stories -- the kinds of pieces that can suggest which way the wind will blow. Wire services tend not to do these pieces; it's not what they're good at. Usually, it's talented freelancers and full-time newspaper staffers (the handful still working as foreign correspondents) who do them. Over the years, news chains and big metro papers have drastically reduced the number of foreign bureaus they operate.

Good for bloggers?

How might the economic turmoil in the mainstream media affect the blogesphere? It may give it a boost.

In the past, news executives in the mainstream media have often criticized bloggers for failing to undertake on-the-spot reporting; all their work, many contend, is derivative from reports in the mainstream media.

Just the opposite is true.

Many able bloggers are undertaking on-the-spot reporting. They include Richard Landes, a history professor at Boston University. At his blog Augean Stables, he has been at the forefront of exposing how staged television footage taken in the Middle East – depicting alleged Israel-on-Palestinian violence – has easily found its way into the mainstream media. (See letters section for comment from Prof. Richard Landes.)

And in Iraq, former Army special forces soldier Michael Yon has written extensively about the war, providing a counterweight to the mainstream media's approach. The AP, from which most Americans get their news, usually defines news by a simple formula: “If it bleeds, it leads.” And if a scandal involving Americans troops can be uncovered, so much the better.

Early in the Iraq war, Steven Vincent – journalist, author, and blogger – brought a level of intelligence and moral clarity to his reporting that was seldom found in the mainstream media. He was murdered on August 2, 2005, in Basra, Iraq.

Elsewhere in the world, Michael J. Tottena has reported regularly from the Middle East and Eastern Europe in his blog, Middle East Journal. He has provided a perspective that the wire services do not provide.

Above all, the smartest bloggers will continue to distinguish themselves when critiquing and analyzing stories from the MSM – looking for the headline behind the headline, undoing the ideological spin that animates a story, whether from the AP, New York Times, or other news organization.

Given the trends taking place in the newspaper industry, expect more muddle than ever in respect to the news that makes it into America's newspapers. Bloggers will be busier than ever.

You also can expect more embarrassing incidents for the mainstream media -- such as one involving Cox News Service in late 2005. I wrote a piece about that incident for Editor & Publisher's online edition that ran on December 3, 2005. Republished below, it gives a blow-by-blow of how screwed up things can get when news organizations depend on some “local hires” to gather the news.


COLUMN - SHOPTALK
Cox's Tale of 'Fixer' Misconduct Abroad Has Familiar Ring
The news service may be shocked, shocked to learn that a local 'fixer' in the Middle East would fabricate and plagiarize quotes. But anybody who knows how foreign reporting has worked in recent years, amid an era of cost cutting and increasing reliance on freelancers, won't be surprised. Former foreign correspondent David Paulin offers suggestions on how the system can be made more honest.

By David Paulin

Cox News Service has joined the list of news outfits owning up to unethical reporting. None of Cox's employees, to be sure, were involved. Here, the protagonists were a "contract" foreign correspondent and his freelance Syrian news assistant, or "fixer," as such folks are known in the trade.

Does the term "freelance" ring any alarm bells here? It should.

For readers who missed Cox's correction or E&P's post-mortem, here's a recap: On Nov. 20, Cox moved a story on the New York Times News Service about an Arab version of the venerable Barbie doll. The only problem, according to Cox, is that the story contained fabricated quotes and plagiarized material from the St. Petersburg Times -- all supplied to Cox's unwitting contract freelancer, Craig Nelson, by well-known fixer George Baghdadi, who also has worked for Time magazine and USA Today, among other news outlets.

Cox placed the blame squarely on Baghdadi, but Baghdadi pointed the finger at his news assistant, Hussein Ali, whom he claimed had supplied the offending material. Baghdadi declined to make Ali available for questioning, although he said he had fired Ali, which was the same treatment Cox gave Baghdadi.

The news service may be shocked, shocked to learn of such chicanery in its midst. But anybody who knows how foreign reporting has worked in recent years, amid an era of cost-cutting and increasing reliance on freelancers, won't be surprised.

Consider how the process of foreign news gathering works these days -- a process I learned about firsthand while working as freelance foreign correspondent and, on rare occasions, a fixer in Venezuela in the 1990s.

First, fixers are the weakest chain in the news gathering process. Generally, they're local hires who get their jobs through an informal word-of-mouth process -- not through the organized vetting process news organization use to hire editorial staff. Indeed, it appears this was how Baghdadi got his job with Cox, or, as Cox's Washington bureau chief, Andy Alexander, told E&P: "Because of the reputation of George Baghdadi and the fact that he was used by many Western news organizations for years and years, we felt we were dealing with someone who was trustworthy."

Baghdadi was probably like fixers I have known in another respect. He apparently played a major role in shaping stories, doing just about everything in the news gathering process except for writing the finished piece. Indeed, fixers may decide who to interview, set appointments, lead visiting reporters around by the hand, and provide translation services -- all things Baghdadi apparently did for Nelson, Cox's contract reporter. Fixers also may provide quotes and local color to staff foreign correspondents holed up elsewhere, perhaps across town in hotel rooms or in offices in another country -- also something Baghdadi did for Nelson, although in this case it was fabricated or plagiarized quotes.

Fixers may be local residents or expatriates, and their journalism experience may be extremely limited. Those who are proven journalists and do terrific work are in demand, although proven and busy freelance journalists, to be sure, are often reluctant to work as fixers.

One day in Caracas, I got a phone call out of the blue from a staff reporter from the Washington Post. He'd just gotten into town and was in a panic to find somebody to go to Congress there, cover the proceedings, and send quotes back to him at his hotel room. He had gotten my name through the grapevine. Sight unseen, he seemed ready for me to go to work for him.

I was intrigued. But I rejected the offer: I was busy and, most importantly, I regarded myself as an able reporter, not a fixer who did gopher work for other reporters. I also reacted skeptically to his claim that doing fixing work for the Washington Post could "lead to something" at the paper. It's a line other expatriates in Caracas had heard from staff writers from big-time papers. None of the experienced journalists bought it, knowing as we did something about the hiring preferences of papers like the Washington Post.

Presumably, the Post guy got somebody more gullible or at least eager to please: somebody who needed the work and who, most importantly, could provide translation services.

This little anecdote is fairly typical. Caracas, during my seven years there until 2000, was at the time full of aspiring journalists eager to give their careers a quick start: American and British expatriates along with a few English-speaking Venezuelans. Most were recent college grads with limited journalistic experience. Most badly needed an extra paycheck to supplement whatever work they scrounged up: teaching English, working at the local English-language newspaper, or writing for a few English-language business magazines. Most were eager to work for a big-time foreign correspondent.

However, one can imagine the potential for abuse among freelances living from paycheck to paycheck.

Once in Caracas, my checking account was nearly empty. Yet up at the Dallas Morning News, a business editor was sitting on a story that was supposed to pay my rent. To give the story additional balance, she explained, I needed to provide extra quotes from a new source -- one that I could not immediately locate.

Relating my frustration to a Venezuelan journalist, he responded with wide-eyed surprise: "Why don't you just make up the quotes?"

Concocting quotes was not my style. But no doubt about it: I could have gotten away with it. Nobody would have phoned the paper to complain. My editor, as it turned out, tweaked the story to eliminate the need for additional reporting. I paid my rent.

How many fixers in Iraq and elsewhere, struggling to support families amid chaotic conditions, would be tempted to cut corners to ensure that a check arrives on time?

In an age of layoffs and declining profits, freelance "contract" reporters such as Nelson and freelance fixers such as Baghdadi are here to stay. How can the system be made more honest?

One would be to require that fixers be trained journalists. Besides working as fixers, they should write for the papers which contract them. Editors should vet them as carefully as they do perspective staff reporters, and they should meet the same professional requirements as new staff members. A base salary would deter the temptation to cut corners, such as fabricating quotes, to help maintain a cash flow.

Finally, fixers who provide quotes should be credited in stories as having done so; it's something some papers don't do. In the case of Cox's Barbie doll story, for example, Nelson failed to credit Baghdadi with having provided quotes, which was described as contrary to Cox's sourcing policy.

This reflects a problem inherent in foreign reporting as practiced today. Media giants such as the New York Times and Hearst regularly publish articles by freelancers -- yet fail to note those reporters are in fact freelancers and not on staff. In the case of one Hearst paper for which I have written, I was amused to see under my byline that I was part of the paper's "foreign service."