JOURNALISTIC DISTORTION: RIGHT-WING
BIAS OR JUST SLOPPY REPORTING?

I ran across a headline on the Houston Chronicle's site on Sunday that raised my eyebrows. From Reuters:

9/11 panel links Iraqi officer to al-Qaida

Republican commissioner John Lehman told NBC's "Meet the Press" program that the new intelligence, if proven true, buttresses claims by the Bush administration of ties between Iraq and the militant network believed responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America.

Lehman said the information, contained in "captured documents," was obtained after the commission report was written that stated there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al-Qaida.

"Some of these documents indicate that (there was) at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al-Qaida," Lehman said.

"That still has to be confirmed, but the vice president (Dick Cheney) was right when he said that he may have things that we don't yet have," said Lehman, a former Navy secretary.

The article concludes with this brief characterization of a response from the Democratic commissioner who appeared on "Meet the Press" with Lehman:

Democratic commission member Richard Ben-Veniste told the NBC program he hoped Cheney would provide "on a current basis" information "with respect to the individual that John Lehman has talked about."

Ben-Veniste also claimed there was no political motivation behind the commission's conclusions.

"This was not an effort to discredit or modify someone else's statements," he said.

Click here for the rest.

Obviously, given my last two posts, this troubled me a bit, so I started surfing around trying to find out what I could about this seemingly big story. My first stop was, of course, over at Eschaton. Atrios had nothing to say about this; it was almost as though it hadn't even happened. I checked a couple of other sites and still found nothing (maybe I should have checked Drudge, but I really kind of hate him for the role that he played in enabling the press' feeding frenzy during the Monica Lewinsky thing, so I rarely go there). I widened my search: the New York Times, the Google news page, the Washington Post, a few others, I came up with nothing. So I let it rest for a while and went back to Eschaton. Sure enough, a few people made reference to the story in his comments section: I learned that the Reuters article had completely misrepresented Ben-Veniste's actual statement as heard on "Meet the Press." I headed over to the MSNBC site hoping for a video clip, or some quotes or something. What I found, to my delight, was a rush transcript of the entire show. Here is what Ben-Veniste actually said:

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Lehman said that it's quite possible that Vice President Cheney does know things that the commission doesn't know. You agree with that?

MR. BEN-VENISTE: Yes, I hope he does on a current basis. With respect to the individual that John Lehman has talked about, who is supposedly a member of the Fedayeen, the storm troopers of Saddam Hussein's former army, we don't know whether that's the same individual as an individual who had some contact with al-Qaeda operatives. There were a lot of Iraqis, expatriates, opponents of Saddam Hussein, who joined up with al-Qaeda. But in terms of collaborative relationship in operations targeting the United States, we have come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that we have seen to support that. If there is additional information, we're happy to look at it, and we think we should get it.

Click here for the whole transcript.

Two points here.

First, even though both Democrats and Republicans on the commission are saying that none of their statements are politically motivated, it is clear that they're coming to slightly different conclusions that seemingly fall along party lines. That is, if you read the whole "Meet the Press" interview, it appears that Lehman is really grasping at straws to help out the Bush administration--he mentions traces of Iraqi chemicals found in Sudan, along with this reference to a guy who may or may not have been part of al-Qaeda; in fact, he kind of seems to be coming from the "aluminum tubes" and "yellowcake from Niger" school of argumentation. Of course, that's just my opinion, but it is quite clear that, on the 9/11 Commission, Republicans are trying to help out their own, and Democrats likewise. However, it is very interesting to note that Lehman does not seem to object to Ben-Veniste's assertion that "in terms of collaborative relationship in operations targeting the United States, we have come to the conclusion that there is no evidence that we have seen to support that."

Second, how the hell did this Reuters story get it so wildly wrong? As regular Real Art readers know, I'm pretty much of the opinion that the the mainstream news media are biased in a conservative direction--actually my view is much more nuanced than that, but, by and large, I think that the media are conservative. So, it's very tempting to simply conclude that this is some sort of right-wing reporter working under a right-wing editor; on the other hand, I don't really know what this guy's political views are, or why his editor decided to post the story, or why the Chronicle chose to run it. This article, though, is clearly biased toward the right. So what's the deal?

Here's my bet: sloppy journalism. I speculate that this Reuters reporter, Peter Kaplan, thought he had some sort of scoop. Of course, it's no real scoop when the interview was conducted by another news organization, but I bet Kaplan thought he had noticed something that nobody else had and convinced his boss to go with it. Editors at the Chronicle were probably like "wow, check this out," and also ran it without really checking it out.

I'm really starting to think that most reporters are kind of stupid, but that's no excuse for such inept journalistic laziness that I, a hayseed idiot down in Texas (okay, okay, I've actually been to college and all, but I'm no Washington insider, either), was able to discredit the story in under thirty minutes. Journalism is serious, serious business. When this kind of crap is so easily allowed, everybody has the potential to be screwed.

Just ask the Iraqis.

For more on news media bias, click here.

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