Peoria Pundit

It’s Journalism 101: Don’t convict someone in the press. Just because someone is accused of a crime doesn’t mean that person MUST be guilty. That lesson seems to be lost on a few media critics who are demanding that ABC reveal the identities of several confidential sources that linked the 2001 anthrax attacks to Iraq. The information they gave was wrong, they say, citing the recent contention that Army scientist Bruce Ivins is now believed by federal investigators and prosecutors to be the responsible party.

Here’s the problem, these jokers have been wrong before, and they apparently were under a lot of pressure to close the case:

The last thing the FBI needed was another embarrassment. Overreaching damaged the FBI’s reputation in the high-profile investigations: the Centennial Olympic Park bombing probe that falsely accused Richard Jewell; the theft of nuclear secrets and botched prosecution of scientist Wen Ho Lee; and, in this same anthrax probe, the smearing of an innocent man — Ivins’ colleague Steven Hatfill.

In the current case, Ivins complained privately that FBI agents had offered his son, Andy, $2.5 million, plus “the sports car of his choice” late last year if he would turn over evidence implicating his father in the anthrax attacks, according to a former U.S. scientist who described himself as a friend of Ivins.

Ivins also said the FBI confronted Ivins’ daughter, Amanda, with photographs of victims of the anthrax attacks and told her, “This is what your father did,” according to the scientist, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because their conversation was confidential.

Ivins just might be innocent. Or, he might be guilty. In either case, the Feds can essentially close the case without a conviction because their prime suspect just killed himself.

Which brings us to a side issue that affects the media. Some critics of the mainstream media are after ABC to reveal to the world the names of those sources who told the network that the Anthrax used in the attacks contained a substance linking it to Iraq. That substance is now traced — investigators say — to Ivins.

Critics accuse ABC’s sources of deliberately misleading ABC and thus the public. They want the names revealed because liars should not enjoy the the protection of confidentiality agreements. That some of these critics assume the allegedly bad information was a lie, and not simply an error, reveals an ideological agenda.

And with the recent revelations about the depths to which the investigators went to harass family members into cooperating does nothing to make me feel better about the quality of the investigation.

They can deny it all they want. There’s an agenda behind the drive to get ABC to reveal their sources. It’s that same agenda that make it OK in the minds in some left-learning journalists (and other liberals) to look the other way while prosecutors locked up reporters until they said what the Feds wanted them to say in the Valerie Plame investigation.

It sickens me to see journalists in ideological lockstep with those who want to make the United States an unsafe place in which to practice Freedom of Speech. The pound of flesh some of us want to excise a ound of flesh from George Bush (who is no saint in the civil liberties arena) isn’t worth erosion of press and other liberties we have apparently forgotten to cherish.

This is a very thought-provoking article in Slate by Glenn Greenwald:

During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax — tests conducted at Ft. Detrick — revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since — as ABC variously claimed — bentonite “is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s biological weapons program” and “only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons.”

ABC News’ claim — which they said came at first from “three well-placed but separate sources,” followed by “four well-placed and separate sources” — was completely false from the beginning. There never was any bentonite detected in the anthrax (a fact ABC News acknowledged for the first time in 2007 only as a result of my badgering them about this issue). It’s critical to note that it isn’t the case that preliminary tests really did detect bentonite and then subsequent tests found there was none. No tests ever found or even suggested the presence of bentonite. The claim was just concocted from the start. It just never happened.

That means that ABC News’ “four well-placed and separate sources” fed them information that was completely false — false information that created a very significant link in the public mind between the anthrax attacks and Saddam Hussein. And look where — according to Brian Ross’ report on October 28, 2001 — these tests were conducted:

And despite continued White House denials, four well-placed and separate sources have told ABC News that initial tests on the anthrax by the US Army at Fort Detrick, Maryland, have detected trace amounts of the chemical additives bentonite and silica.

Two days earlier, Ross went on ABC News’ World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and, as the lead story, breathlessly reported:

The discovery of bentonite came in an urgent series of tests conducted at Fort Detrick, Maryland, and elsewhere.

Clearly, Ross’ allegedly four separate sources had to have some specific knowledge of the tests conducted and, if they were really “well-placed,” one would presume that meant they had some connection to the laboratory where the tests were conducted — Ft. Detrick. That means that the same Government lab where the anthrax attacks themselves came from was the same place where the false reports originated that blamed those attacks on Iraq.

It’s extremely possible — one could say highly likely — that the same people responsible for perpetrating the attacks were the ones who fed the false reports to the public, through ABC News, that Saddam was behind them. What we know for certain — as a result of the letters accompanying the anthrax — is that whoever perpetrated the attacks wanted the public to believe they were sent by foreign Muslims. Feeding claims to ABC News designed to link Saddam to those attacks would, for obvious reasons, promote the goal of the anthrax attacker(s).

One of Greenwald’s points is that ABC knows who these high-ranking officials are who was feeing it information that, based on what they are saying now, must have been false. I don’t expect ABC to reveal their sources. But I do expect them to come clean about having been, apparently, mislead, and that it cannot consider these sources credible now.

One also has to consider the possibility that the Feds have completely screwed up again and are blaming the wrong guy.

UPDATE: Greenwald continues to argue for ABC to reveal their sources on the story that the anthrax scare was linked to Iraq:

The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum argued yesterday that despite the need for journalists to use confidential sources, “the profession — and the rest of us — [are] better off if sources know that they run the risk of being unmasked if their mendacity is egregious enough to become newsworthy in its own right.” Drum added: “I’d say that part of [Ross'] re-reporting ought to include a full explanation of exactly who was peddling the bentonite lie in the first place, and why they were doing it.” Nonetheless, Drum said: “In practice, most journalists refuse to identify their sources under any circumstances at all, even when it’s clear that those sources deliberately lied to them.”

Here’s the problem with this approach: Who decides “when it’s clear that those sources deliberately lied to them.”

Obviously Greenwald has decided, on the issue of the leaks about bentonite. Does Greenwald KNOW that those earlier sources lied? All he knows is that there are news stories now claiming a person who was about to be charged committed suicide. No one has been convicted of anything, and probably won’t unless they come up with an accomplice. I seem to recall another individual was put forth as a suspect, but later cleared.

Greenwald also argues that there is precedent for outing sources who lie:

There are examples where even large media outlets have followed that principle. Back in 1987, Oliver North was justifying his having lied to Congress about the Iran-contra program by complaining that Congress couldn’t be trusted with National Security secrets. When asked at a Senate hearing for an example, North cited what he claimed were Congressional leaks to Newsweek about key details of a U.S. military operation to intercept an Egyptian plane carrying the men believed to be the hijackers of the Achille Lauro cruise ship.

But North was lying. It was North himself — not Congress — who had leaked details of that operation to Newsweek. And Newsweek, knowing that North was blatantly lying to the public by blaming Congress for leaks for which North himself was actually responsible, outed North as its source.

The problem with holding North up as an example, is that the two cases are dissimilar in many ways. North lied to Congress, not to the media. One assumes that when someone leaks secret information to the media that they will lie about having done so. It’s inherent in the agreement that the media won’t reveal their source’s identity that the source him/herself will mislead others.

And there’s a whiff of ideological pleading going on here, I think. Those opposed to the U.S. invasion of Iraq were happy to see Judith Miller and other journalists tossed in the clink until they revealed their sources. The justification then and now is that a greater good was being served, that of ferreting out those in the administration who lied.

I recall an incident called Watergate, in which reporters often replying on confidential sources brought down another corrupt administration. And guess what? Sometimes those sources were wrong.

I don’t recall that there were many liberals at the time demanding these sources be outed.