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TRIPLE PLAY
Hasn’t been a great year for Media Watch. First the state-funded leftist puppy show questioned Arthur Chrenkoff’s journalistic credibility, only for him to turn up days later in the New York Times ...
Then Media Watch accused Phil Gould of plagiarism when even basic awareness of journalistic processes would have indicated otherwise, leading to an embarrassing retraction ...
And now Media Watch’s attack on Mark Steyn is apparently busted by revelations of Mohammed Atta’s pre-2000 arrival in the US. A second retraction within two weeks could be aired on Monday night.
(Via J.F. Beck, whose instincts are less faulty. Check out his entire site)
UPDATE. David Nason in The Australian:
New intelligence reports suggesting that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta arrived in the US in late 1999 or early 2000 - six months earlier than previously thought - are likely to spark a reassessment of public servant Johnelle Bryant’s incredible story of a face-to-face meeting with the terrorist.
In an extraordinary 2002 interview later branded a hoax by some media—including the ABC’s Media Watch—Ms Bryant claimed to have met Atta in late April or early May of 2000 when she worked as a loan officer with the US Department of Agriculture’s farm services agency in Florida ...
Ms Bryant could not be reached for comment this week but Bob Epling, president of Community Bank of Florida, which let office space to the agency Ms Bryant worked for, said he had no doubt Atta visited the premises.
He said Ms Bryant had referred Atta to the “agriculture-friendly” CBF. “Atta was 15 steps away from walking into our loan department and making an application,” Mr Epling said yesterday. “He chose not to.”
Over to you, Tim Lambert.
UPDATE II. John Podhoretz asks if the Able Danger reports are credible:
According to this report in the New York Times, “They said the commission had concluded that the July 2004 testimony…‘was not sufficiently reliable’ to warrant further investigation, in part because the officer could not supply documentary evidence to prove it.”
That sounds like something to take seriously. A single source with no proof should have been taken with a grain of salt, to put it mildly.
The problem is that Rep. Curt Weldon, who exposed this whole matter, claims the 9/11 staff learned about the Able Danger identification of Atta a year earlier than that, during a meeting in Afghanistan. The 9/11 Commission folks deny this happened.
That denial would be significant except that the 9/11 Commission folks at first denied they’d ever received ANY information about Able Danger and then backed down two days later. So it’s not clear why we should accept this denial about the Afghanistan meeting on faith.
Also, Kean and Hamilton say Able Danger “did not turn out to be historically significant,” which is a bizarre thing to say. If this operation managed to surface the name, identity and Al Qaeda role of Mohammed Atta, it was by definition “historically significant.” Dismissing Able Danger in this way makes Kean and Hamilton sound disingenuous at best. Why wouldn’t they want to get to the bottom of this?
UPDATE III. Jack Kelly:
When the story broke, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat from Indiana, co-chairman of the 9/11 Commission, at first denied the commission had ever been informed of what Able Danger had found, and took a swipe at Mr. Weldon’s credibility:
“The Sept. 11th Commission did not learn of any U.S. government knowledge prior to 9/11 of the surveillance of Mohammed Atta or his cell,” Mr. Hamilton said. “Had we learned of it obviously it would have been a major focus of our investigation.”
Mr. Hamilton changed his tune after the New York Times reported Thursday, and the Associated Press confirmed, that commission staff had been briefed on Able Danger in October, 2003, and again in July, 2004.
UPDATE IV. John Podhoretz:
Some of us on the Right who have been making a big stink about this may have been had.
The 9/11 Commission has put out a very detailed memo defending itself that basically says Rep. Curt Weldon and the unnamed Navy officers who have made a big stink about Able Danger are stretching it bigtime.
Interesting. Able Danger aside, Steyn is correct to point out that it’s absurd to suggest Atta was “never in the United States until June 3, 2000, simply because that’s what the INS says.”
UPDATE V. Some curious assumptions over at Lambert’s, among them that Atta wouldn’t have identified himself to Johnelle Bryant as a member of Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization because “the US was already at war with Al Qaeda”; that bin Laden was “already widely known” throughout the US prior to 9/11; that Atta “would probably have expected most Americans to have heard of [bin Laden]”; and, of course, stated with absolute certainty, that “Atta wasn’t in the country until June.” How can he possibly be sure?
UPDATE VI. The Bergen Record’s Mike Kelly presents claims of Atta’s time in New Jersey, and more:
What is interesting about this information now is that a CIA team, working separately from the Able Danger Team, had set its sights on al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi. The two were already on a CIA terror watch list and still had managed to obtain U.S. visas.
The CIA feared al-Mihdar and al-Hazmi might try to slip into the United States. But the CIA lost track of them after they left a terror meeting in Malaysia in early 2000 for Bangkok. Worse, the CIA waited until the summer of 2001 to tell the FBI that two suspected terrorists had visas to enter the United States - and might be here …
Imagine what might have happened if Able Danger was cooperating with the CIA and the FBI.
On the phone last week, the former Able Team member I interviewed told a depressing story of that cooperation that never took place.
(Via Jim Geraghty)
There is another possibility that neither Media Watch nor Mark Steyn mention: a simple mistake of a few weeks.
After Steyn re-told the Johnelle Bryant story, Media Watch noted: “Despite all the detail from these defining encounters Mark Steyn’s article is curiously vague about when they happened.”
Media Watch tried to discredit Steyn’s entire story solely by saying that Atta was not in the US at the time Bryant said the encounter happened—even though Bryant’s remembered timeline could have been off by less than three weeks!
The simplest explanation (and still the most likely) is that Bryant’s memory was off by a few weeks. So what? Anita Hill was off by a few months here or there on her stories about Justice Thomas and a lot of us believed her anyway.
Now it turns out that Atta was in the US BEFORE Media Watch says he was. This does not put him in the US at the time that Bryant remembered having her interview with Atta. But one witness does put him in the US at that time: Bryant herself (an uncorroborated eyewitness).
There is no reason to doubt Bryant’s general story, whether she got the date a few weeks off or not—though with the imperfections of memory, one should recognize that a few of Bryant’s other details may (or may not) have been exactly correct.
But Bryant could be right on the timeline. As Edward Jay Epstein has noted: “Spanish intelligence found evidence that Algerians Khaled Madani and Moussa Laouar provided false passports to Mohamed Atta and his associate Ramzi bin al-Shibh.”
http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/PragueApril2004.htmSince apparently Atta’s first visa to come to the US was issued after he was actually here, he must have been traveling into and out of the US on a false passport, which makes the Iraqi-Prague tie to Atta at least a possibility, as Epstein details above. And it means that Bryant’s timeline is neither confirmed nor refuted.
Why doesn’t Media Watch split its time and staff and give half the time to Tim Blair? Ratings would soar, as would the quality of the journalism. Further, the existing staff would not feel as free to twist their stories to fit their political preconceptions.
Jim Lindgren
volokh.comPosted by James Lindgren on 2005 08 12 at 04:10 PM • permalinkMay I suggest that those of us in Tim’s orbit pay a little visit to Media Watch and use their comments board to put pressure on the producers to include an apology to Mark Steyn.
I don’t believe we would have even been given the concession of a grudging swipe at David Marr last week had it not been for high level of interest on the MW site.
These people are
fearless seekers of truthdreadfully thinskinned, I believe the right type of pressure will force them to acknowledge yet another error.—Nora
Posted by The Thin Man Returns on 2005 08 12 at 06:30 PM • permalinkDamned good idea, Nora.
I have long given up watching MW, it is just became too crappy to bother with. The bias did not bug me (it was blatant, so could compensate for it), but bias + third rate job by fourth rate people made it not worth watching.
Quite literally, I’d rather use the time to wash the dishes.
MarkL
CanberraJust added this to the MW commentary site. WOnder if it will appear?
_____________________________________
I now rarely watch ‘Media Watch’ now. I do not mind the open bias, but what passes for ‘journalism’ on MW is now of such abysmal quality that I’d rather spend my time doing something - anything - else.Is has not been a good year, has it?
First Media Watch questioned Arthur Chrenkoff’s journalistic credibility on the basis of their own failing to read the WSJ website properly. Then of course, Chrenkoff appears within a week in the New York Times. Something the ‘professional jopurnalists’ of MW do not seem to be able to achieve themselves.
Then Media Watch drops another howler. They accused Phil Gould of plagiarism. OK, fine, but even the most basic awareness of fundamental data analysis (let alone journalistic method and the ways of sub-editors!)would have revealed the facts. Following the BASIC common sense rules of their own profession now seems beyond Media Watch!
Then we come to the extraordinary Media Watch attack on Mark Steyn. By the way, Steyn has a far better track record, and is much more influential even in Australia, that Media Watch can hope to be, but let us let that slide. The Media Watch ‘story’ is promptly blown out of the water (or at least cast in to very serious doubt) by apparent revelations of the arrival of the unlovely Mohammed Atta in the USA prior to 2000.
Now, does Media Watch (as ‘professional journalists’) do as the ‘amateur’ bloggers do, and immediately retract their mistake? It would be the second time in two weeks - or do they act as’professional journalists’ are normally wont to do, and try to obfuscate and weasel their way out of it?
I know which way Media Watch’s RECORD says they will go.
Over to you.
____________________________Of course, NOW I see the grammatical error… (mumbled swearing)
MarkL
CanberraMW have only themselves to blame. It’s not as if Mark Steyn was making the Johnelle Bryant story the irreplacable cornerstone of some grand forensic argument. It was more like the catchy opening anecdote that the preacher uses to hook you into the sermon. You might have thought they had more serious issues of media practice to address. But no, they saw the chance to do a ‘gotcha’ on a conservative journalist, and now they’re just a bug spot on Mark’s windscreen (or a bit of roadkill, rapidly disappearing in his rear vision mirror).
Is there a possibility that Media Watch would be making fewer of these embarrassing blunders if they were not pushing an agenda?
Just a thought…
Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 08 12 at 11:27 PM • permalink
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