All Blog Posts from Public Eye

We’ve got people consuming less media. We’ve got people consuming more diverse media.

Remember when media wasn’t diverse or consumed or any of that? When it was just, um, books? (You know, back when we use to trudge uphill seven miles through the snow to get to school. Both ways.)

Well, sorry, but there’s some bad news about those, too. According to a study that came out today from the Associated Press and IPSOS, roughly one in four Americans didn’t read a book last year:

One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and seniors were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices.

The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn't read any, the usual number read was seven.

So this is a ‘bad news’ story, right? Something about apathy and attention span and all that? Not according to Dr. Michael Gross, Associate Vice President at Ipsos and a glass-half-full sort of fellow.

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I suggested in this space on Friday that a new technological innovation could increase the ‘watchability’ of presidential debates – Pop Up Politics. The concept, admittedly ripped from VH-1’s “Pop Up Video,” would supply a little bubble next to a candidate when their rhetoric stretched or mischaracterized their previous stances on an issue or vote. (The other innovation I suggested – cutting off the debate right in the middle, with an old Journey song blasting – doesn’t seem to go over so well.)

The way I figured it, Pop Up Politics would be a very useful gimmick to provide real-time fact checking – even if it was seemed susceptible to bias claims from one side or the other.
So it was very good to see no less than the Associated Press coming forward to stress the need for a similar concept: “Accountability Journalism” in Campaign 2008. (Not quite “Pop Up,” but hey, it’s the staid AP.)

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Questions about the war in Iraq continue to divide America. What’s going on, exactly? Is there good news that we aren't getting? Why can’t we make even an educated guess about the effectiveness of the “surge?”

The bad news continues to come unabated -- last week’s headlines blared about May being the deadliest month in years – and the fog of war endures, despite our efforts to make sense of what's happening on the ground. At last night’s Republican presidential debate, Rudy Giuliani made this point about the surge:

And I'd just like to ask, I'd just like to ask one question I didn't get to ask before, when you said, if General Petraeus comes back in September and reports that things aren't going well, what are we going to do?

But suppose General Petraeus comes back in September and reports that things are going pretty well. Are we going to report that with the same amount of attention that we would report the negative news?

Giuliani’s media criticism occurred on the same day that the Associated Press held a panel discussion about Iraq in which AP Iraq Bureau Chief Steven R. Hurst said this:

It’s hard to give a very positive report of what’s going on in Baghdad right now for a number of reasons. I think, first and foremost, the United States puts a great deal of hope that the so-called troop surge would start having an effect. Immediately after it was announced, there was a significant drop in violence, in February and March, but that lasted a very short time. Now, we’ve seen a number of people being killed there, which is sadly the Baghdad story right now.

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Well, it seems to be over. Jamil Hussein, an Iraqi police officer who Iraqi and US officials have said does not exist, is apparently a real person. Hussein was one of the primary sources behind an Associated Press story about a particularly troubling instance of sectarian violence in Baghdad: Suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army grabbing six Sunnis as they left worship services and burning them alive. He had also been identified as a source in a number of other AP stories. Conservative bloggers, who have questioned the AP's reporting from Iraq and its reliance on Hussein, have repeatedly called on the wire service to produce the captain. Many have suggested that the AP was trying to mislead the public about what was really happening in Iraq. The AP re-reported the story that started the debate, with additional sources, but it did not produce Hussein. Now we have this story from the AP:

The Interior Ministry acknowledged Thursday that an Iraqi police officer whose existence had been denied by the Iraqis and the U.S. military is in fact an active member of the force, and said he now faces arrest for speaking to the media.

Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, who had previously denied there was any such police employee as Capt. Jamil Hussein, said in an interview that Hussein is an officer assigned to the Khadra police station, as had been reported by The Associated Press.

…

Khalaf offered no explanation Thursday for why the ministry had initially denied Hussein's existence, other than to state that its first search of records failed to turn up his full name. He also declined to say how long the ministry had known of its error and why it had made no attempt in the past six weeks to correct the public record.

About that possible arrest of Hussein: The AP reports that "Hussein appears to have fallen afoul of a new Iraqi push, encouraged by some U.S. advisers, to more closely monitor the flow of information about the country's violence, and strictly enforce regulations that bar all but authorized spokesmen from talking to media."

Some conservative bloggers have greeted the story as evidence that the time has come to give up their fight with the AP on this matter, while others are sticking to their criticisms.

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Getting Inside The 2008 Vacuum: How do you suck up media attention for your presidential bid even though much of the media knows you don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning? According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer's Openers blog, Rep. Dennis Kucinich is hoping that getting out early with the official announcement is going to do the trick. Movements of Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have been tracked with eagle-eye clarity on the front pages of the papers and on the evening newscasts (all three had stories last night on Obama's recent visit to New Hampshire.) But the only Democrat to officially announce has been Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. Now you can add Kucinich to that list.

Outside The Mainstream, Behind Enemy Lines: The general storyline on Iraq for some time has been that it's "a grim, chaotic mess," writes Dante Chinni in the Christian Science Monitor today. But as always, the blogosphere offers an alternative. In this case, it's Bill Roggio's blog, where Roggio writes that the US is "winning the war on the battlefield, albeit with difficulties in some areas," but "losing the information war."

Roggio served in the US Army and is currently embedded (as a blogger) with Marines in Iraq. The blog "offers something not often seen in the media - stories about soldiers on the job in dangerous places." That includes stories about what soldiers and marines think about the press – some have told Roggio they feel that the media have "abandoned them."

AP Cameraman Shot Dead: Bad news from the Associated Press out of Iraq this morning – Aswan Ahmed Lutfallah, an AP cameraman, was shot and killed by insurgents in Mosul. He is the third AP employee to be killed in the war. Said AP President and CEO Tom Curley: "The murder of yet another journalist underscores the particular dangers of this conflict and the sacrifices of those committed to reporting the story."

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It has been fascinating to follow the brouhaha over an Associated Press report stating that suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia had burned six Sunnis alive as they were leaving worship services in Baghdad. Bloggers questioned the veracity of the story and its primary source, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, and CENTCOM released a press release saying that the story could not be corroborated and that Hussein is not a real Baghdad police officer. Then the AP hit back, releasing a statement from International Editor John Daniszewski arguing that the "attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question." The AP then re-reported the story and put out a follow-up story, with new, albeit anonymous, eyewitness reports of the attack.

And that wasn't the end of it. The AP suggested that the government and bloggers were pushing their criticism even though they didn't have the goods to back it up. (The Pentagon has a new press strategy reminiscent of one that might be found in a presidential campaign.) A spokesman for the Iraqi interior minister maintained that the alleged incident was a "rumor," and that the ministry "found nothing" after investigating to make it believe otherwise. AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll stated that "[w]e are satisfied with our reporting on this incident. If Iraqi and U.S. military spokesmen choose to disregard AP's on-the-ground reporting, that is certainly their choice to make, but it is a puzzling one given the facts." The Iraqi Interior Ministry said it was forming a unit to monitor news coverage and take "legal action" against journalists responsible for stories the ministry deemed incorrect. And the blogs raged on.

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Yesterday, we detailed criticism by a number of right-wing bloggers of the Associated Press's reporting from Iraq. The criticism focused on a story about Shiites burning six Sunni worshippers alive in Baghdad. CENTCOM issued a press release disputing the legitimacy of the source of the story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, and asking for a retraction or correction if the organization did not have "a credible source" behind it's reporting.

Now the AP is hitting back. As we noted in an update yesterday, AP International Editor John Daniszewski released a statement arguing that the "attempt to question the existence of the known police officer who spoke to the AP is frankly ludicrous and hints at a certain level of desperation to dispute or suppress the facts of the incident in question." He also promised a "more detailed report about the entire incident soon, with greater detail provided by multiple eye witnesses."

That report came last night. Here's a portion:

Seeking further information about Friday's attack, an AP reporter contacted Hussein for a third time about the incident to confirm there was no error. The captain has been a regular source of police information for two years and had been visited by the AP reporter in his office at the police station on several occasions. The captain, who gave his full name as Jamil Gholaiem Hussein, said six people were indeed set on fire.

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A number of right-leaning bloggers are criticizing the Associated Press for a pair of stories from Iraq. The first story, a version of which ran on CBSNews.com, stated that suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia "grabbed six Sunnis as they left Friday worship services, doused them with kerosene and burned them alive near Iraqi soldiers who did not intervene." The source for the story was police Capt. Jamil Hussein. CENTCOM has issued a press release disputing the legitimacy of the source and the story, and asking for a retraction or correction if the organization does not have "a credible source."

From the press release: "We at Multi-National Corps - Iraq made it known through MNC-I Press Release Number 20061125-09 and our conversations with your reporters that neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story. A couple of hours ago, we learned something else very important. We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee." Hussein has been cited in other stories about atrocities as well; this blog, Flopping Aces, has more.

Today, the righty blogs are also criticizing this piece, which includes the following passage:

Separately, police and witnesses said U.S. soldiers shot and killed 11 civilians and wounded five on Sunday night in the Baghdad suburb of Husseiniya. The U.S. military said it had no record of any American military operation in the area.

"We were sitting inside our house when the Americans showed up and started firing at homes. They killed many people and burned some houses," said one of the witnesses, a man with bandages on his head who was being treated at Imam Ali Hospital in the Shiite slum of Sadr City. The police and witnesses spoke with Associated Press Television News on condition of anonymity to protect their own security.

Writes Riehl World View: " The military denies any operation in the area, still the AP feels compelled to print this trash from sources who won't even identify themselves?" CENTCOM claims "Anti-Iraqi Forces opened fire, targeting civilians in the al-Husseiniya area….There was no Coalition involvement."

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This Sunday, the Associated Press went public with a call on the Pentagon to either release or bring charges against AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been detained in Iraq for five months. Yesterday, the Pentagon defended its decision to detain Hussein, “asserting that it has authority to imprison him indefinitely without charges because it believes he had improper ties to insurgents,” wrote the AP yesterday. According to the AP on Sunday:

Military officials said Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, was being held for "imperative reasons of security" under United Nations resolutions. AP executives said the news cooperative's review of Hussein's work did not find anything to indicate inappropriate contact with insurgents, and any evidence against him should be brought to the Iraqi criminal justice system.

Hussein, 35, is a native of Fallujah who began work for the AP in September 2004. He photographed events in Fallujah and Ramadi until he was detained on April 12 of this year.

"We want the rule of law to prevail. He either needs to be charged or released. Indefinite detention is not acceptable," said Tom Curley, AP's president and chief executive officer. "We've come to the conclusion that this is unacceptable under Iraqi law, or Geneva Conventions, or any military procedure."

Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained by the U.S. military worldwide -- 13,000 of them in Iraq. They are held in limbo where few are ever charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.

Pentagon spokesperson Bryan Whitman told the AP on Monday that “Hussein's detainment indicates that he has strong ties with known insurgents and that he was doing things, involved in activities, that were well outside the scope of what you would expect a journalist to be doing."

But AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin said Whitman didn’t address the fact that Bilal has not been provided a trial:

"Mr. Whitman says it would be `up to the central criminal court of Iraq' to charge Bilal with any wrongdoing. But the Iraqi court can't do that until the U.S. military hands over Bilal and whatever evidence they have against him to Iraqi authorities," Tomlin said.

"This is exactly what AP and Bilal are asking for," he said. "If the evidence isn't strong enough to support charges, however, Bilal should be released."

The whole situation brings to mind a similar battle between CBS and the Pentagon over the detention of Abdul Ameer Younis Hussein, and it's well worth reading a full account of his story here.

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Rumors on the Internet seem to be pretty much a permanent part of the whole "new media" landscape. So questions about how mainstream news organizations handle them when they reach a fever pitch have come up before and will come up again. Well, one rumor was prolific enough in the blogosphere (and on everyone’s other favorite repository of unsubstantiated speculation, talk radio) that three news agencies decided to respond to it publicly. And more than a few newspapers published their response. The speculation, which originated on the blog EU Referendum was that photographers from the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Press had staged photos of dead bodies from the Qana airstrikes. The argument was based mainly on varying time stamps of the photographs, which the blog documented in this post.Wrote the AP:

For example, the Web site draws attention to a photo by AP's Lefteris Pitarakis time stamped 7:21 a.m., showing a dead girl in an ambulance. Another picture, stamped 10:25 a.m. and taken by AP's Mohammed Zaatari, shows the same girl being loaded onto the ambulance. In a third, by AP photographer Nasser Nasser and stamped 10:44 a.m., a rescue worker carries the girl with no ambulance nearby.

The site suggests these events were staged for effect, a criticism echoed by talk show host Rush Limbaugh when he directed listeners to the blog on Monday.

As noted in the piece, Reuters “categorically rejects” the suggestion that the photos were staged and an AFP executive was stunned it was even a question. The AP also denied that photos were staged and offered an explanation about the time stamps:

The AP said information from its photo editors showed the events were not staged, and that the time stamps could be misleading for several reasons, including that web sites can use such stamps to show when pictures are posted, not taken.

The EU Referendum has since posted it’s own response to AP’s article, with which it is none too pleased. I’ll leave it to you to ruminate on that whole argument. But it’s certainly notable that the AP commissioned a story on the matter at all – and that the two other news outlets accused responded publicly as well. After all, there are a lot of conspiracy theories out there.

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