Journalism Glance
The headlines, splashed across The Drudge Report, ABC News and other major news sites last night, were scary indeed: AL QAEDA TAPE TO CALL FOR USE OF WMD
According to the reports, the tape urged jihadists to use “biological, chemical and nuclear weapons to attack the West,” and a quote from an official source followed, adding further credibility:
“There have been several reports that al Qaeda will release a new message calling for the use of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) against civilians,” FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told ABC News in an e-mail.
If confirmed, this would represent an overt threat, and an unusually intense one. However, the headline turned less dire upon closer inspection. A few hours after the story broke, Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert who closely tracks Al Qaeda, posted a blog item dismissing the threat as a prank:
TVNL Comment: This is an ongoing, calculated farce - that will not end.
More than 250 breaches of freedom of journalism happened in the Occupied Territories by Israeli forces during 2007. And the Palestinian territories under Israel’s occupation ranked last year at number 158 in the annual World Press Freedom out of 169 countries. How does this match with your claim of Israel’s free press?
In other words, the infamous GOP snake-oil salesman Hearne has been cleansed of his baggage by the New York Times themselves. So, apparently, he remains in good stead as a source when it comes to the Times, NPR, etc. Credibility, apparently, is not a necessary quality for sources quoted by such organizations. Nor, apparently, is transparency.
