Journalism is not rocket science. It is, when done well, an honorable and useful pursuit. Its purveyors, when competent at their craft, are admirable and helpful individuals.
But it is not brain surgery. It takes a notebook, a pen, some moxie, some judgment, some passion and a respect for the truth. Professional journalists hate to hear this because it means that those who did not have the muscles of their writing arms hewn on the venerated desks of Columbia Journalism School can also deliver the news.
And, they do so these days, often reporting on those who report the news. For that reason, blog-readers often learn exactly what an Ivy League journalism education and a career in the country’s overwhelmingly liberal newsrooms can do to a professional journalist’s respect for the truth.
Two weeks ago, The Associated Press broke an iffy story about six Sunni worshippers burned to death on their way out of Friday worship services in Hurriya, Iraq. Straight out of central casting for “emblem for increasing violence, brutality, and sectarianism in Iraq,” the fiery story didn’t meet a news editor worldwide who didn’t spread it wherever he could.
Too bad the sole original source on the story — one Capt. Jamil Hussein of the Iraqi Police Force — is neither an Iraqi policeman nor an approved spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior, according the CENTCOM. In the hours and days after the story hit every street in the world, one Sunni elder and several anonymous witnesses in Hurriya corroborated Hussein’s story.
Two weeks later, however, Jamil Hussein has not made an appearance, nor have his Iraqi Police Force pay stubs. Also strangely absent from this story are Sunni clerics loudly denouncing the Shia savages who reportedly burned their brethren.
This is a simple source problem. The AP relied on only one source, and one source with credibility problems, for an extremely inflammatory story, then scrambled to add corroborations after the story was questioned.
Had I done the same at the Buford Enterprise-Herald (circ. 9,000), I would have been called to the ink-stained carpet in the editor’s windowless office next to the pressroom. The elderly lady who writes the “Cooking on a Budget” column would have shaken her head at me for endangering the reputation of the paper. I would have been expected to answer the concerns of my editors and my readers by producing my sources if need be.
Just because the story is bigger, the impact greater, and the game more dangerous in Iraq does not mean that the journalistic obligation to the truth changes. If anything, it becomes more important to assure far-away readers that reporting on far-away lands is accurate.
But the world’s most elite professional journalists don’t agree. They like to think notebooks and pens, and even truth, are made especially for them, delivered in little velvet-lined boxes alongside their j-school diplomas. Anyone who would dare question their sole proprietorship thereof certainly has ulterior motives. Here are a few responses to criticism of the “burning six” story from the professionals:
AP International Editor John Daniszewski: “The attempt to question the existence of the knownpolice 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.”
If it’s so “ludicrous,” produce the source or his documentation as a police officer. His name’s already been released, and he’s a frequent AP source. This shouldn’t be a hard find for any AP reporter unless, of course, CENTCOM is right about Hussein.
Then there is this from The New York Times’ Tom Zeller: “Whatever the agenda of the bloggers most interested in debunking the article, it somehow seems important to figure out why this incident — in the face of all the killings in Iraq — remains in such dispute.”
It “somehow seems” important to find out what really happened that day? It “somehow seems” important for reporters to separate rumors from reality?
It somehow seems that while scrawling with gold-tipped pens in embossed notebooks within the elite newsrooms and journalism classrooms of the nation, these folks have forgotten that the truth looks the same in Baghdad as it does in Buford, and they are charged with reporting it.
If they do not wish to, there are plenty of the “untrained” out here with notebooks, pens, moxie, passion and honesty enough to follow their every move.
Former newspaper reporter Mary Katharine Ham blogs at townhall.com and is a member of The Examiner’s Blog Board of Contributors.
