Nothing to see here...

And your response illustrates how some are quick to state obvious untruths, even when evidence to the contrary is readily at hand.

Apology accepted.

How do you know he is lying based on one newspaper report? Sounds to me like a classic he said, she said.

Did you read the newspaper report? "He said, she said" my a**.

Why did the press swallow Massey's stories?


Media outlets throughout the world have reported Jimmy Massey's claims of war crimes, frequently without ever seeking to verify them.

For instance, no one ever called any of the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's battalion to ask him or her about his claims.

The Associated Press, which serves more than 8,500 newspaper, radio and television stations worldwide, wrote three stories about Massey, including an interview with him in October about his new book.

But none of the AP reporters ever called Ravi Nessman, an Associated Press reporter who was embedded with Massey's unit. Nessman wrote more than 30 stories about the unit from the beginning of the war until April 15, after Baghdad had fallen.

Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the AP, said he didn't know why the reporters didn't talk to Nessman, nor could he explain why the AP ran stories without seeking a response from the Marine Corps. The organization also refused to allow Nessman to be interviewed for this story.

Some media did seek out comment from the Marine Corps and were told that an investigation of Massey's accusations had found them baseless. Still, those news outlets printed Massey's claims without any evidence other than the word of Massey, who had been released from service because of depression and post traumatic stress disorder.

"Why would we have run this?"

That Massey wasn't telling the truth should have become obvious the more he told his stories, said Phillip Dixon, former managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and currently chairman of the Howard University Department of Journalism.

Dixon examined dozens of newspaper articles in which Massey told of the atrocities that Marines allegedly committed in Iraq.

"He couldn't keep his story straight," said Dixon, who has also been an editor at The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. "First it was a 4-year-old girl with a bullet hole in her head, then it was a 6-year-old girl."

Editors at some papers look back at the Massey articles and are surprised that they ran them without examining whether the claims were true or without ever asking the Marine Corps about them.

"I'm looking at the story and going, 'Why, why would we have run this without getting another side of the story?'" said Lois Wilson, managing editor of the Star Gazette in Elmira, N.Y.

David Holwerk, editorial page editor for The Sacramento Bee, said he thought the newspaper handled its story, a question and answer interview with Massey, poorly.

"I feel fairly confident that we did not subject this to the rigorous scrutiny that we should have or to which we would subject it today," he said.

Rex Smith, editor of the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, said he thought the newspaper's story about Massey could have "benefited from some additional reporting." But he didn't necessarily see anything particularly at odds with standard journalism practices.

The paper printed a story in which Massey reportedly told an audience how he and other Marines killed peaceful demonstrators. There was no response from the Marine Corps or any other evidence to back Massey's claims.

Smith said that, unfortunately, that is the nature of the newspaper business.

"You could take any day's newspaper and probably pick out a half dozen or more stories that ought to be subjected to a more rigorous truth test," he said.

"Yes, it would have been much better if we had the other side. But all I'm saying is that this is unfortunately something that happens every day in our newspapers and with practically every story on television."

"The truth suffers"

Michael Parks sees it differently. He is the director of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and formerly the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Parks also reviewed stories written about Massey.

"A reporter's obligation is to check the allegation, to seek comment from the organization that's accused," said Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "They can't let allegations lie on the table, unchecked or unchallenged. When they don't do that, it's a clear disservice to the reader."

In many cases, journalists covered Massey as he was speaking at public gatherings. Some reporters said that because he was making public statements, they didn't feel an obligation to check his claims. Some editors worried they could be accused of covering up his claims if they didn't report on his speech.

Dixon and Parks disagree.

"We're not stenographers, we're journalists," Dixon said. "What separates journalism from other forms of writing is that we practice the craft of verification. By not doing that, that's saying they're abdicating any responsibility from exercising news judgment."

Parks said the journalist's responsibilities when covering someone who makes allegations while speaking in a public forum can be different from those when seeking an interview with an accuser.

"Still, if the person making the allegation has spoken at a public forum, and the audience has heard it, the obligation of the reporter remains to get the other side."

Dixon said: "As a journalist, you want to put accurate information before the public so they can make opinions and decisions based on accurate information. When something like this happens, harm is done, the truth suffers. "

Well, no wonder I never heard of this guy. Three wire service stories? There have been more wire service stories about Jenna Bush's fake ID.

Grasp teapot, insert tempest.

I guess my question in all this lies in wondering why the left is so eager to latch on to stories the demonstrate American brutality and supposed war crimes, yet when those stories they latched onto are proven false, they pooh-pooh it away?

if this is indeed the case, why wasn't there more coverage for this fella's stories?

There was plenty of coverage during his 15 minutes. Didn't you read my post on the last page demonstrating some of the who's and when's?

Who's latched onto this fellow, anyway? If "the left" has latched onto him, then "the left" must be awfully small, indeed.

Oh, I read the post all right.
I was also here when he testified.

Three wire service stories? There's more coverage of a transit delay.

The media and the unhinged Marine

Former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was the liberal media's dream come true: An anti-war Iraq veteran who came forward to publicly lambaste the Bush administration and accuse American troops of murdering innocent civilians.

Jimmy Massey was Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and John Kerry all wrapped up into one tidy, soundbite-friendly package -- a poster boy for peace topped off by a military uniform and tattoos to boot. But like a lot of the agitators who pose as well-meaning, good-faith peace activists, Jimmy Massey was something else:

A complete fraud.

Massey, who was discharged from the Marines after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress syndrome, told harrowing, graphic tales of American troops committing "genocide" against Iraqis. In an interview published in the Sacramento Bee last year, Massey claimed he and his fellow Marines used "M-16s [and] 50-cal. machine guns" to shoot at children and peaceful demonstrators. The Washington Post reported (in the loosest sense of the word) on Massey's December 2004 sworn testimony at a Canadian asylum hearing for U.S. Army deserter Jeremy Hinzman:

During one 48-hour period, Massey said under oath, his platoon set up roadblocks and killed "30-plus" civilians . . .

"I don't know if the Iraqi people thought we were celebrating their newfound freedom. But I do know we killed innocent civilians," Massey said. In one case, the driver of a car leaped out with his hands up. "But we kept firing. We killed him," Massey said. In another case, he and other Marines shot and killed four protesters near a checkpoint after a single incoming gunshot from an unknown source, he said. None of the protesters was found with arms.

Just last month, the Associated Press published an article on Massey's new book, "Kill, Kill, Kill," published in France, which recycled these anti-American smears. The sympathetic AP piece included a perfunctory denial of Massey's charges by the Pentagon and no independent corroboration:

"Marines who heard a gunshot fired upon 10 Iraqi demonstrators shouting anti-U.S. slogans and wielding banners saying 'Go Home' near the sprawling Al-Rashid military complex southeast of the city center. All but one of the demonstrators were killed, said Massey, who estimated he himself fired about 12 shots . . . "

Last spring, skeptical bloggers first questioned Massey's hyperbolic, Winter Soldier-esque tales. Justin Katz, a Rhode Island writer and publisher of Dust in the Light (http://www.dustinthelight.com/), wrote in May 2004 after examining Massey's incredulous claims of being ordered to massacre children and use "ICBMs" (sic): "This is how the anti-war forces seek to defeat the U.S. military. Seeping from conspiratorial Web sites and foreign anti-American rags into the mainstream consciousness like leech-filled swamp water rising through the floor boards, the level of conceivability for accusations notches up as time goes on. . . . [T]hose who enable, promote, and lend credibility to this propaganda assault must be faced and stared down this time around the historical cycle."

Miraculously, a lone member of the mainstream media answered the call. Last weekend, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Ron Harris, who was embedded with Massey's unit in Iraq, published a devastating debunking of the crackpot legends of Jimmy Massey. Harris detailed how Massey misled reporters, backtracked from allegations about witnessing a tractor-trailer filled with dead Iraqi civilians he claimed were killed by American artillery, and habitually embellished and altered his uncorroborated accounts of alleged military atrocities in the press and in public speeches.

The response of Harris's colleagues who were duped by Massey? Mostly, a collective shrug. I e-mailed a reporter from The Washington Post asking if he would follow up. No response. A USA Today reporter told me he had no plans to do so. And I spoke with David Holwerk, editorial page editor of the Sacramento Bee, which ran a lengthy freelance interview of Massey by an anti-war activist. "I don't know what we're planning to do," Holwerk said.

Harris noted in a television interview that Massey continues to sell books and DVDs that smear our troops. "t's been profitable for Jimmy Massey to keep telling this lie," he said.

Apparently, despite the newspaper industry's plunging circulation figures and credibility, Massey's media enablers believe the same thing.