It's Sunday, So Jack Kelly's At It Again

Ok, here's what you do. First read Jack Kelly's column (and then come back here, or course).

Go ahead - I'll wait.

Ok, now that that's done, let's take a look at the article he's complaining about. It's here. First off, it's obvious that our friend Jack is over-reacting juuuust a lil'bit here. The article is 30 paragraphs long and there are only about 11 paragraphs on his friend Bill Roggio. Jack Kelly calls it slime and a "drive-by shooting." You can decide for yourself whether it is. Here's the text:

BAGHDAD -- Retired soldier Bill Roggio was a computer technician living in New Jersey less than two months ago when a Marine officer half a world away made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

Frustrated by the coverage they were receiving from the news media, the Marines invited Roggio, 35, who writes a popular Web log about the military called "The Fourth Rail" (http://www.billroggio.com), to come cover the war from the front lines.

He raised more than $30,000 from his online readers to pay for airfare, technical equipment and body armor. A few weeks later, he was posting dispatches from a remote outpost in western Anbar province, a hotbed of Iraq's insurgency.

"I was disenchanted with the reporting on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terror and felt there was much to the conflict that was missed," Roggio, who is currently stationed with Marines along the Syrian border, wrote in an e-mail response to written questions. "What is often seen as an attempt at balanced reporting results in underreporting of the military's success and strategy and an overemphasis on the strategically minor success of the jihadists or insurgents."

Roggio's arrival in Iraq comes amid what military commanders and analysts say is an increasingly aggressive battle for control over information about the conflict. Scrutiny of what the Pentagon calls information operations heightened late last month, when news reports revealed that the U.S. military was paying Iraqi journalists and news organizations to publish favorable stories written by soldiers, sometimes without disclosing the military's role in producing them.

There's more towards the end of the piece. In a section describing how Capt. Jeffrey S. Pool, public affairs officer for the 2nd Marine Division, is utilizing his media resources:

Pool said he spends a growing portion of his time working to dispel what he calls erroneous tips from insurgents to reporters, including regular reports of Marines taken captive or helicopters downed.

"We now take all of these rumors seriously," he said. "We also use different [media] to get our messages out."

He said he recently began distributing his news releases to military bloggers and organizations such as veterans associations. The Marines also took a more direct approach by inviting Roggio to cover their operations.

"A thorough review of his work was taken into account before authorizing the embed," said Pool. "Overall, it has worked out really well."

And then finally:

After military officials in Baghdad said Roggio could not be issued media credentials unless he was affiliated with an organization, the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research organization in Washington, offered him an affiliation, according to an entry on Roggio's blog. He and two other bloggers launched a new Web site a month ago (http://threatswatch.com), where he has posted many stories about his time with the Marines. Most provide detailed accounts of patrols or other outings on which he accompanied U.S. forces.

When news organizations began reporting about the insurgent activity in Ramadi on Dec. 1, Roggio posted "The Ramadi Debacle: The Media Bites on Al Qaeda Propaganda."

"The reported 'mini-Tet offensive' in Ramadi has turned out to be less than accurate," he wrote, citing information provided by Pool. "In fact, it has been anything but."

On Dec. 15, when Iraqis voted in nationwide elections, Roggio reported from Barwana, a Western town where turnout was far heavier than in Iraq's constitutional referendum held Oct. 15.

"Barwana, once part of Zarqawi self declared 'Islamic Republic of Iraq,' " he wrote, "is now the scene of al-Qaeda's greatest nightmare: Muslims exercising their constitutional right to chose their destiny."

And that's it. Where is the slime? Jack says of the piece that that there were "so many errors it should be an embarrassment" to the Post and then goes onto discuss what the Post got wrong. He fleshes out how the Marines became aware of Roggio (hmm, that's more like an ommission on the Post's part - but there's nothing in the piece that contradicts it) and so on. The Post gets wrong Roggio's present whereabouts but according to Roggio's blogs, he returned to the US on the 20th of December. The piece was published on the 26th. My guess is that whent he piece was written Roggio was in Iraq. How big of an error is that?

Jack also says the Post "misidentified from whom he (Roggio) had obtained press credentials," but it looks like we have a he said/he said situation here.

Here's what Roggio himself wrote on October 31 at billroggio.com:

In the three days since I announced my plans to travel to Iraq and embed with RCT-2 in Anbar province, the response has been phenomenal. I have received media credentials, thanks to Dr. Michael Ledeen and the American Enterprise Institute.

But by December 27 at threatswatch.org, he wrote:

I was not credentialed by the American Enterprise Institute. This would be impossible as the needed press credentials must be provided by a media organization. A friend suggested I approach the American Enterprise Magazine, which is a periodical published by the American Enterprise Institute. We were unable to work out an agreement, so I searched for an alternative.

Another friend suggested I contact The Weekly Standard. Richard Starr was happy to help and provided the necessary credentials to embed. Also, Rod Breakenridge of the Canadian talk radio show The World Tonight kindly provided documentation for credentials as well. The two letters allowed me to successfully embed, and there were no questions about my credentials in Baghdad or elsewhere.

It looks, to me, like an error based on some sloppy writing of Mr Roggio. Perhaps the Post should have checked deeper into the press credentials, but once they happened onto his own blog saying that he's received the credentials thanks to the American Enterprise Institute, why should they have thought they'd need to dig further? In any case Kelly doesn't tell us what Roggio said in October - only that the Post misrepresented. Nice fact-checking, Jack.

In any case admits that:

The errors about Mr. Roggio's whereabouts and his media affiliation are minor.

Ok. Thanks for clearing that up. The next thing Jack Kelly complains about is the Washington Post's use of the term "retired" to describe Roggio. Jack writes (as does Roggio before him) that in order for Roggio to be "retired" from the military, he would have had to have spent 20 years there. As he was only in the service for about six (four in the Army Signal Corps and two in the National Guard) he can't be described as "retired." Whew, talk about hair-splitting!

Here's the thing. In this section (remember this is what Jack says the Post got wrong) he writes:

Col. Davis suggested to my friend Bill that he should come out to see the situation for himself. So Bill took a leave of absence from his job; raised $30,000 from readers of his blog (I contributed a small amount) for travel expenses, hazard insurance and to buy body armor; and obtained press credentials from The Weekly Standard, a conservative magazine.

But wait, didn't the Post mention the $30,000 raised by Roggio's readers for the trip and body armor? How can that be something the Post got wrong? Of course Jack doesn't tell us that the Post mentioned it. So perhaps we are left to imply that they didn't? I'm just asking.

And I have no idea where Jack came up with this:

Mr. Finer and Mr. Struck implied through selective quotation that the embed process for Bill Roggio was different from that for "mainstream" journalists, and was contingent upon Bill writing favorable things. This was not so, says Mr. Roggio, who says he made this clear to Mr. Finer in their e-mail interview.

Where can this "implication" be found? Can someone show me? I'd love to see it.

Oh, the irony of Jack Kelly's limpid prose. He actually starts a paragraph with this:

Journalists don't like bloggers because they fact-check journalists.

While I am not sure I can call Jack Kelly a "journalist," I can make a safe guess that he can't like me very much.

Jack's "reporting" relies heavily on Roggio's own on-line complaint about the Washington Post article. Check it out here.

I gotta wonder: How much actual work did Jack Kelly actually put into writing this actual piece? Couldn't have spent much time actual fact-checking.

Meet the new Jack.
Same as the old Jack.

Happy New Year, Everybody!

IMPEACH