Bad news

by Ted on January 18, 2005

Jeff Jarvis has found a worthy target for his spleen- an appalling New York Times article by Sarah Boxer that repeatedly insinuates that the bloggers behind Iraq the Model are fakes, plants, or CIA operatives. Iraq the Model is a blog written by three Iraqi brothers; it’s especially popular among supporters of the war because of its generally pro-American, pro-invasion viewpoint.

The CIA really did covertly finance intellectual and cultural events and publications during the Cold War. On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog. On the face of it, it’s not impossible that there could be something behind any generic pro-American Iraqi bloggers. Sarah Boxer could have looked into it, checked out the things that could be checked, talked to the people who had met the bloggers in question, and written about what she found.

That’s not what she did. Here’s the first paragraph:

When I telephoned a man named Ali Fadhil in Baghdad last week, I wondered who might answer. A C.I.A. operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by the Defense Department to support the war? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until he picked up the phone, he was just a ghost on the Internet.

Sexy! I kind of wish someone would profile me, so I could see what secrets I might have. I might be on the Democratic payroll. I might be writing to attract young women to my gingerbread house. Boxer might have no business printing insinuations without some pretty good evidence to back them up. What she has are the wankings from some other bloggers.

A man posting as Gandhi reported that his “polite antiwar comments were always met with barrages of crude abuse” from Iraq the Model’s readers. His conclusion? The blog “is a refuge for people who do not want to know the truth about Iraq, and the brothers take care to provide them with a comfortable information cocoon.” He added, “I hope some serious attention will be brought to bear on these Fadhil brothers and reveal them as frauds.”

What kind of frauds? One reader suggested that the brothers were real Iraqis but were being coached on what to write. Another, in support of that theory, noted the brothers’ suspiciously fluent English. A third person observed that coaching wasn’t necessary. All the C.I.A. would need to do to influence American opinion was find one pro-war blog and get a paper like USA Today to write about it.

If I tried to tell my Mom that some people in a blog comment thread were mean to me and the writers are weird and… she’d be asleep before I finished the sentence. And my Mom loves me. This should not have been printed.

{ 35 comments }

1

Andrew Boucher 01.18.05 at 8:47 pm

This should not have been printed, indeed. I would add: Sarah Boxer should be fired.

2

Walt Pohl 01.18.05 at 9:09 pm

I would hope at least your mom would saying something like, “That’s terrible, dear. My poor baby.” before she nodded off.

3

Jeremy Osner 01.18.05 at 9:25 pm

Weird. Does anyone think River is an American plant because of her “suspiciously fluent English”?

4

Kieran Healy 01.18.05 at 9:32 pm

I myself am but a ghost on the internet. Especially when there’s laundry to be done.

5

Observer 01.18.05 at 9:43 pm

Agree that the reporting in that article was poor, and it shouldn’t have been published.

However, I recall a Reuters article the week the Iraq invasion began. It talked about the Pentagon’s media strategy, and mentioned that they had a group of people dedicated to posting pro-Pentagon views on web sites.

The article was removed less than a week later, and I’ve never again seen it in print. But it makes sense that the Pentagon would hire people to spread useful information over the net via blogs, comments, chatrooms, etc. In fact, it would be shocking if they did NOT have staff assigned to this, given the amount of money they spend on PR.

6

P O'Neill 01.18.05 at 9:53 pm

Another piece of evidence that the NYT doesn’t get the internets. In particular the treatment of clearly pseudonymous comments as comparable to quotes from actual people.

7

Sebastian Holsclaw 01.18.05 at 10:14 pm

“In fact, it would be shocking if they did NOT have staff assigned to this, given the amount of money they spend on PR.”

Even if they did, is it fair to suggest that these particular bloggers are such without even a shred of evidence?

8

Bill 01.18.05 at 10:42 pm

Excuse me, but I guess I just don’t get it. What makes this article so terrible? It’s a soft, human interest story about 3 brothers who write a blog. It reports on the vitriolic comments they have recieved. It doesn’t pretend to claim that those comments are accurate. You guys are letting you paranoia run wild.

9

Bill 01.18.05 at 10:48 pm

Excuse me, but are you guys getting a bit carried away here? This article is simply a soft, human interest story about 3 bothers who write a blog. It reports on some of the vitriolic and probably baseless comments they recieved, but nowhere suggests that any of those comments is credible. By the end, she reports that the bother is real and is sincere. What’s all the sturm and drang about?

10

Bill 01.18.05 at 10:52 pm

Sorry about the double post. Thought the first didn’t make it.

11

Giles 01.18.05 at 11:06 pm

“This article is simply a soft, human interest story about 3 bothers who write a blog. ”

Bill, what planet are you from. Every time some Iraqi gets the chop on video they claim they’re spies. So Sarah’s suggestion that they may be spies is tantamout to a white card to the terrorists.

I’m not claiming there isnt any propaganda being spread around and that there arent bogus sites. Bbut the fact that these guys have actually come over and been seen (and that one of them sorta threatened to defect) tells me that of all of them, I suspect that they are the real deal.

NB Yes Jeremy, I think that Riverbend is a plant – the name sound to me like the sort of hippish like an antiwar pacifist might dream up.

12

nick 01.18.05 at 11:19 pm

The person leaving comments with the ‘gandhi’ monicker has a real axe to grind against the ITM bloggers. He’s the last person who ought to be cited on the subject.

What seems to be emerging is that the three ITM brothers are/were idealistic, optimistic Iraqi professionals who only realised the extent to which they’d been appropriated by certain extreme right-wingers in the US when they actually arrived for their promotional/fundraising tour.

Then again, Salam Pax was treated as a hero by some on the right when he started blogging, and was quickly dropped (and disparaged) when he pointed out that being bombed and invaded wasn’t the best of things.

13

Jackmormon 01.18.05 at 11:22 pm

I posted a version of this comment that (I think) didn’t make it, so I’ll try again.

This stupid story seems to me to be just another example of the traditional media trying to come up with ways of covering blog affairs after ignoring them for a long time. It’s not surprising that mainstream journalists are still bad at it; print and internet media operate in different ways. It would be really stupid to try to cover the various blogwars extensively, for example.

Maybe blogs themselves could offer some kind of practical guide to blogs for print journalists. In that spirit here’s my first couple of suggestions:

1: Anonymous or pseudonymous commenters (myself included) don’t really count. And in fact, individual commenters don’t really count.

2: Bloggers don’t generally have access to covert intelligence. The sites with better contacts tend to be run by professionals whom a journalist might know from print sources. On the other hand, bloggers do like speculating and attacking attacking each other.

Other suggestions?

14

roger 01.18.05 at 11:25 pm

Well, it is nice that Jeff Jarvis is into the integrity of the nyt. So I am sure he was appalled when David Brooks quoted a poll showing 88 percent approval for military action against the insurgents among Baghdadis. The reason is that the poll was run by Al Sabah newspaper, which was set up by the CPA and advised by a Pentagon hired compan business, the Harris Corp. A stink was made about it last May, and here is the AP story:
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=10790. Last May being a long time ago, the question of the integrity of the paper has gone into deep hibernation, and it can now be happily quoted by any pro-war journalist, blogger, or pundit who comes along without any pesky explanations. Thus, the meme of this overwhelming approval for military force went out from Brooks column and infected a considerable portion of the pro-war Net. Who are, oddly enough, prone to such infections.

I look forward to Jarvis’ uncovering of this nefarious plot against fair and free coverage of the war.

15

dsquared 01.18.05 at 11:26 pm

John Band went through all of these stages a few weeks ago. On the one hand, financing agents of influence is exactly the sort of thng the CIA does, so it’s not an outlandish accusation. On the other hand, calling someone a CIA agent in Iraq is the sort of thing that can get a person killed, so you don’t do it unless you have definite proof. End of, AFAICT.

16

Luc 01.18.05 at 11:41 pm

Maybe the subject of these Iraqi bloggers is too serious for it, but I found the article quite amusing. It describes the actual events surrounding that blog fairly good. Not in the normal factual newspaper style, but as a story in which the reporter participates. But then it was in the Arts section.

To do a bit of name calling, what do you expect of a blog called BuzzMachine? That it creates a buzz. Apparently Jeff convinced Ted to spread that buzz.

As Jeff states he is in the bizz himself, so he’s good.

Ms. Boxer, don’t you think you could be putting the life of that person at risk with that kind of speculation?

Of course, Zarqawi (to use another buzzed up figure) reads the Arts section of the NYT.
But try typing the name of the duped blog author in Google (which I’m fairly sure Jeffy did) and you’ll get all kinds of references, including press releases saying that he’s going to participate in the upcoming elections. He’s a dead man walking. Deadly famous as they say.

Maybe JeffyBuzz want her fired because he desperate for her job? Or is he paid by the CIA? He’s clumsy enough, paranoid enough, and if he’s good at imitating he could work for both! Be the next Judith Miller, that would be neat.

But then Jeff admits it:
I went batshit
And he never got out of it. Thank the good Juan Cole for that.

17

Luc 01.18.05 at 11:57 pm

On the other hand, calling someone a CIA agent in Iraq is the sort of thing that can get a person killed, so you don’t do it unless you have definite proof. End of, AFAICT.

Brilliant logic. Thus there is a non accusation of CIA membership, and the blogging community is so indignant about that that it needs spreading all over the internet? What is more likely, that Zarqawi has an internet connection or that he reads the Art section in the NYT? Besides the CIA line already circled the blogs a dozen times.

You’ve been had by Jeff. Solid.

18

Jeremy Osner 01.19.05 at 1:20 am

Giles, thanks for the reinforcement of my previously held opinion of you.

19

David Foster 01.19.05 at 2:23 am

If terrorists in Iraq do not have an Internet connection (which is a *big* assumption–Internet cafes, etc) or read the NYT, that doesn’t imply that they are unaware of what is being said in these media. There are certainly people in the US/Europe who sympathize with the terrorists and communicate with them.

20

David Tiley 01.19.05 at 2:58 am

Riverbend went through this too, of course, by people who claimed she was a lefty plant.

There’s an old Annenberg article about general blog cred in Iraq here.

21

Shelby 01.19.05 at 3:22 am

The points made by critics of Boxer’s article are that (1) her evidence is negligible, (2) her methodology is pathetic, and (3) her accusations could get people killed.

I don’t believe the IraqTheModel brothers are CIA plants/operatives/dupes, but even if they were, Boxer doesn’t show the reader anything to justify exposing them. Certainly it seems more egregious than the Plame affair.

22

tib 01.19.05 at 5:22 am

“calling someone a CIA agent in Iraq is the sort of thing that can get a person killed, so you don’t do it unless you have definite proof.”

So it is OK to get CIA agents killed if you have definite proof? Unfortunately most of the logic in this thread is not much better.

Any Iraqi in Iraq attempting to take part in public life seems to be putting their life at risk, and it is a tribute to these men that they are willing to do so. Meeting with President Bush was far riskier, and more likely to be noticed, than anything Ms. Boxer has done.

23

mg 01.19.05 at 5:37 am

A lame article for sure, but I don’t quite follow the logic here.

I’ll grant that the Iraqi insurgents are dumber than Jeff Jarvis et al. in that, at least, that the former didn’t figure out a way to stay out of Iraq and maintain a healthy support for the war there, but surely even they can follow the same logic and figure out, like the rest of us did, that there’s no evidence to support the speculations in NYT?

24

ArC 01.19.05 at 5:58 am

Haven’t read the Jarvis piece, but I did read Boxer’s article. (I did read him the last time Jarvis went batshit about anyone even repeating Martini Republic’s original claims. (In this case, it was Juan Cole)). Anyways, I agree with Bill; the article is not that bad; it mostly summarizes the current teapot tempest.

I really do hope that in a month from now, no reputable media organization is going to report on this second-order blogs about the media about the blogs about the blogs story.

25

Matthew 01.19.05 at 9:08 am

I really hope CT has not been doing these recent posts to appease the vocal pro-war internet crew, and be reassured of their fair and balanced credentials…

26

dsquared 01.19.05 at 10:17 am

So it is OK to get CIA agents killed if you have definite proof?

CIA agents have plans and training to avoid being killed. Dentists don’t. Thus, the expected loss from making the statement “X is a CIA agent” is different, depending on whether X is a CIA agent or a dentist.

27

Joseph Briggs 01.19.05 at 1:47 pm

I really don’t understand all the venom over this article either. Never in the article does she accuse anyone of being a CIA operative. She reports that the Martini Republic accused the Iraq the Model blog of being a CIA propaganda tool.

This is the second blog I’ve seen that mentions this article with such misplaced outrage. If I see any more I’m going to be suspicious of the motives behind these protests.

28

John_Roper 01.19.05 at 2:26 pm

Oh, for fucks sake.

Ted, that is the most pathetic supposed “debunking” of a news story I have seen in a long time. And I like the manufactured outrage, especially in the comments.

“She should have been fired!” For what? For reporting that some people suspect these guys of being astroturf? Since this kind of thing goes on all the time on the right, it’s hardly an unlikely possibility. Or for pointing out that it’s imposssible to know if they were or not? Or was it for noting that one of them – formerly pro-Iraq War – changed his mind? Unlike, say, most people who have learned not to trust Americans over the past few months, especially when they start prattling about freedom?

Let’s see Judith Miller being fired. Let’s see all those who picked up on the Swift Boat Veterans lies and circulated them being fired. Let’s see the lying bastards who started this war in the first place being fired. Because until I see these issues, which are a hundred times more important, getting a tenth of the attention this piffling article has received, all this ridiculous chest beating has no credibility to it whatsoever.

I urge anyone reading this to read the original article and ignore the fatuous denunciations.

29

st 01.19.05 at 4:33 pm

j roper –
I read the article, including the last line. Did you?

30

Luc 01.19.05 at 5:31 pm

The issue here is probably the socio-psycho-politico concept of framing.

If you read Jarvis before Boxer, you’re thinking about false accusations, hearsay, CIA, death, danger, bad NYT reporters.

If you read Boxer before Jarvis, you’re thinking about a funny description of the blogging scene, written in a participating style, in the Arts section of the NYT. Especially recognizable if you’ve read the three posts of Juan Cole about the incident.

But it is a nice game, this framing.
Maybe someone with the skills of Jarvis could write something that would force Ted to make an apology towards Boxer?

So if you’re seriously arguing about the CIA you’ve choosen the wrong pill.

CIA agents have plans and training to avoid being killed. Dentists don’t. Thus, the expected loss from making the statement “X is a CIA agent” is different, depending on whether X is a CIA agent or a dentist.

Yes, it is different. if X is a CIA agent you’ll end up in jail. Unless your name is Novak.

31

aretino 01.19.05 at 7:52 pm

calling someone a CIA agent in Iraq is the sort of thing that can get a person killed, so you don’t do it unless you have definite proof

Leaving aside the cheap insinuation that Boxer called anyone a CIA agent, what we have here is a a whole lot of absurd navel-gazing. Do we really believe Iraqi insurgents give a rip what the Times or anyone else in West has to say about these guys and the CIA.

As far as I can see, all the insurgents care about is that these guys don’t speak for them. That makes them an uncontrolled and dangerous element. An insurgency succeeds in large part by simplifying the conflict, eliminating not just pro-government voices, but even (or especially) moderate and independent ones.

Supposing the rebels didn’t know these guys already (hard to believe), any publicity they get — good, bad, or indifferent — would be a death warrant. Boxer could write a hagiography to these guys as brave independent bloggers, and the consequences would be the same. They would still be posthumously credited as CIA agents by the assassins.

32

aretino 01.19.05 at 8:05 pm

shorter aretino:

Being called a CIA agent doesn’t get you assassinated in Iraq; being assassinated in Iraq gets you a called a CIA agent.

33

Ted Barlow 01.19.05 at 8:24 pm

I don’t think that the Iraq the Model guys were put in physical danger by this article. They’ve had their names published before, and one is running for office in Iraq.

I do think that this is an outrageously sloppy article. It repeatedly insinuates that the bloggers are frauds, liars and/or covers. It insinuates that their blog is fundamentally dishonest. I repeat- this is not outside the realm of possibility. But if Boxer wanted to write a story structured around those accusations, she needed better evidence than the speculation of a few anonymous bloggers.

There is not one damn reason to call these guys frauds. I don’t care if it’s done with a lighthearted tone; you don’t print that without evidence that it’s actually true. Imagine that a profile of Riverbend began:

“When I telephoned a woman named (her real name) last week, I wondered who might answer. A Democratic operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by liberals to oppose the U.S. war in Iraq? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until she picked up the phone, she was just a ghost on the Internet.”

Or, imagine a profile of Kos which repeatedly insinuates that he was taking money on the sly from Dean, quotes Hugh Hewitt extensively, and generally acts like it’s an open question that we can never really know.

Even baseless accusations stick. Didn’t we recently learn that with the Swift Boat vets?

34

Barbara O'Brien 01.19.05 at 9:00 pm

Paying closer attention, one learns that Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post had named the brothers, identified them as the authors of Iraq the Model, and told the world about the meeting with President Bush. He did this on December 20 and January 10. Ali Fadhil wrote on January 2 that the WaPo story about meeting President Bush had been picked up in a widely read Arabic newspaper. Further, the Wall Street Journal outed Ali Fadhil last October. And Jeff Jarvis himself named the Fadhil brothers in his blog last August.

The Sarah Boxer article was inane, but in no way did it put the Fadhil brothers in more danger than they were in already. Most of the information in it had already been published in WaPo.

35

Luc 01.21.05 at 2:33 am

Title of Article

Anti-American Iraqi Blog Provokes Intrigue and Vitriol

Virtual content

“When I telephoned a woman named (her real name) last week, I wondered who might answer. A Democratic operative? An American posing as an Iraqi? Someone paid by liberals to oppose the U.S. war in Iraq? Or simply an Iraqi with some mixed feelings about the American presence in Iraq? Until she picked up the phone, she was just a ghost on the Internet.”

Continued with

The Baghdad woman seemed to have gone through a radical transformation when she found out that her sisters, both described as journalists on their Web site, had met President Kerry. Odd. I scrolled down a bit into the past and found that in mid-December a conspiracy theory had emerged about Baghdad Burning on BuzzMachine.

Etc.

But then, Ted, you’re right. If it is generally perceived as confirming the conspiracy instead of describing it, or even making fun of it, yes then it is a rotten article.

I’m probably too much out of touch with American opinion.

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