Did CBS and Laura Logan try to pull a fast one? I'd sure like to know. And, no doubt, so would Eason.
Or did the source that hooked CBS News up with video of dead Iraqi soldiers forget to tell them that the "Sunni gunmen" - as Logan put it - who did the whacking were Al-Qaeda jihadists and the footage was bona fide Al Qaeda propaganda, posted to the web a full week before Logan filed her report?
Kinda changes the context of the fighting on Haifa Street, no?
Instead of civilians caught up in sectarian fighting between Sunni gunmen from the hood and Shiite Iraqi soldiers, we have Iraqi and US forces fighting to drive America's - and, I might add, Sunni and Shia Islam's - number one enemy from a major avenue in central Baghdad. An enemy that announced to all that it planned to take the fight to the Iraqi National Guard and police in response to the new Baghdad security plan.
Logan's report is first (runs just over two minutes). Grabs from the Al-Qaeda video follow and are provided by Rusty.
If you want to download it and view, you can do so here (Real Player, 43mb, 8mins).
click for larger view
Update:Michelle wants an explanation from CBS News, too.
Did Lara Logan's piece on the "Battle for Haifa Street," posted to CBSNews.com, include video obtained from Al-Qaeda?
[...]
I asked CBS News Vice President Paul Friedman about the video.
"I can assure you this was not from Al-Qaeda," said Friedman, who declined to identify the source. "Whenever we can identify the source of information or video, we want to do that," he added. "There are some rare cases when we have to protect the source. In this case, we needed to do so, because it’s literally a matter of life and death."
"The fact that same video shows up in more than one place is something that happens every day," said CBS News spokeswoman Sandra Genelius. "We occasionally use video from an Al-Qaeda Web site and we identify it. In this case, we didn't get it from Al-Qaeda, so we didn't identify it as such."
Ok, so an emphatic denial by CBS News that it neither obtained the footage from an al-Qaeda website or operative nor knowingly disseminated AQ propaganda on its website without identifying it as such.
However, there's a second issue that CBS needs to address. Regardless of its denial, the footage is official AQ video. And CBS News cannot claim it is not simply because the footage was not obtained from an AQ field operative or an AQ website or message board.
Which leads me to ask: If CBS News occasionally uses AQ video from jihadist websites - Genelius said "an AQ website" but I won't split hairs - doesn't this suggest at least some familiarity with AQ's product? And what about its methods of collecting that product? Does CBS News have Arabic-fluent researchers or interns or reporters who scour the web in search of AQ product? Or do their sources supply it? Could we have some transparency there, Sandra?
What strikes me as odd is that CBS News would be unaware that AQ was waging an aggressive propaganda campaign simultaneous to its field operations on Haifa Street in response to the Baghdad security plan. For a news organization with a self-admitted record of using jihadist video in its reporting - there is nothing inherently wrong with this if it is identified as such - I find it hard to believe CBS News would have no knowledge of AQ's involvement in the Haifa Street fighting - be it on the ground or in cyberspace. I cannot accept CBS News' dodge of this question by resorting to a closed circle explanation: We didn't obtain the video from AQ or one of its websites but we can't tell who provided it. Yes, I understand that someone's life may be at stake, but how are we, the consumer, to know that CBS is not falling back on a hermetic defense?
How are we to know that CBS' metanarrative of the war in Iraq is not of a kind with AQ's? For by not identifying the footage for what it was - AQ waging holy war against apostates and crusaders with the aim of establishing an Islamic State in Iraq - CBS News handed AQ a propaganda victory by turning a piece of jihadist porn (tame in comparison to most) into the very thing that it wants Americans to believe: The war in Iraq is a religious civil war that does not concern America's national security and it is prudent to withdraw rather than keep throwing blood and treasure into a fight that is not ours.
Who's being duped by whom, I wonder?
Update: Wednesday, Jan. 31, 3:18 ET: Michelle's syndicated column on the subject and the latest response from CBS News Public Eye blogger Brian Montopoli is here.
And, after a thorough technical analysis, Hot Air's Bryan Preston concludes "there is no way" CBS News and/or Logan used footage already edited and released by Al-Qaeda. The footage AQ used in its Some of the Casualties of the Heretics in Haifa Street After Sunday’s Fighting, January 7, 2007 video and the footage Logan used in her Battle for Haifa Street are from the same video source.
For a step by step explanation of Bryan's video investigation and a possible scenario of how CBSNews/LL ended up with AQ's "seconds" see here.
If CBS News' had a legal and binding contract with the American public to provide responsible and honest reporting we would not charge them with malfeasance. It is not guilty of or party to outright sabotage. But it is guilty of misfeasance in that it has performed its journalistic duty inadequately and poorly. Quite poorly.
