Horton Hears a Boo: Journalistic Hijinks at Harper’s Exposed
Scott Horton, who seems to be able to read news articles from “neocon” writers which are devilishly difficult to find for anyone else, recently ran afoul of John Hinderaker at Powerline blog. According to Hinderaker, Horton mischaracterized the case of terrorism suspect and Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein by comparing it to the trial of John Peter Zenger, and engaged in what Hinderaker labeled “a vicious but entirely unsubstantiated libel of the U.S. military” in Horton’s blog at Harper’s.
In addition, Hinderaker states that Horton hid his involvement in the case:
Scott Horton was, until January, a partner in the law firm that represents Bilal Hussein – a fact that Horton did not find it necessary to disclose to his readers. There is indeed a story here, and one that relates directly to journalism – the kind of thing in which E & P might be expected to take an interest. But political loyalty trumps journalistic standards at E & P.
AdvertisementTo sum up: Scott Horton claims to have an anonymous “source” inside the Pentagon, who relayed to him the contents of a DOD briefing on the Hussein case. I think this is plainly false. I believe that Horton has a source, but is it a source inside the Pentagon, or inside Hussein’s defense team, headed by Horton’s former law partner? If Horton has a “source” inside the Pentagon, who is it? Is this purported source someone with knowledge of the Hussein case, as Horton claims, or is it just another left-winger regurgitating anti-American talking points?
If Mr. Hinderaker had done a bit more digging, he would have found that Horton’s conflict of interest is even greater than it appears. Not only was Scott Horton a law partner of Hussein’s defense attorney Paul Gardephe, but Horton was also an investigator for Hussein’s defense team through the end of 2006, according to none other than Scott Horton himself.
I was involved with Bilal Hussein’s case through the end of last year and I personally conducted investigations that disproved many of the contentions advanced – and then quickly withdrawn – by U.S. Forces in Iraq. From my own examination of the case and discussions with U.S. representatives, I was convinced that Bilal Hussein was seized and has been held in captivity for the last year for one reason: the Pentagon was embarrassed by the photographs he took of the fighting in Al-Anbar province. They contradicted the message the Pentagon was putting out about the nature and scope of fighting in Al-Anbar and senior figures in the Bush administration were particularly galled that the AP won the Pulitzer Prize for its photographic coverage of the war. The Pentagon wanted to send a message to the entire press community in Iraq: Cross us, and we can just lock you up. And we don’t need reasons. This is justice in the style of the Bush administration.
While Horton states in his December 23 Harper’s entry that he interviewed several Iraqi judges “in the spring of last year,” he neglected to mention that he was actively involved in Hussein’s defense case at the time. Likewise, when Horton claimed on April 24 that “the accusations publicly stated [against Bilal Hussein] by [Pentagon spokeman] Brian Whitman and others have already been largely disproved,” he neglected to mention that he is the person who stated those accusations had been disproved months before.
On November 21, Horton wrote that “a Pentagon source who requested anonymity advised me that the Pentagon has prepared a total of nine charges against Hussein.” Why would a source request anonymity for something that was already on the public record?
AP’s Tom Curley mentioned a review of the nine original charges in the case in Horton’s April 24 post:
Curley said that when Whitman arranged a review of the nine original charges in the case, they eliminated seven, and the other two are simply “nonsense.” He closed: “We have fired others who have worked for us. When Bilal Hussein gets out of jail he will continue to work for The Associated Press.”
Does Horton have real anonymous Pentagon sources, or is he, as Hinderaker suggests, a “conduit for anonymous slanders of the American military,” packaging already known information and putting “his own prejudices into the mouth of an anonymous source” for a former client he thinks is innocent?
We already know Horton has seen fit to omit his own personal involvement in the case from his most recent articles on Bilal Hussein’s trial. As someone acting on behalf of the Associated Press at one point in the investigation surrounding the Hussein case, it would seem Horton owes it to his readers to disclose his involvement in the investigation, or recuse himself from commenting on this case in which he was personally involved.
Bob Owens blogs at Confederate Yankee.
The two main points in this article seem to contradict each other.
1) Horton wrote in a Harper’s article that he was involved in the investigation, unwittingly revealing the depth of his conflict of interest.
2) Horton has broken the rules of journalism by omitting any mention of his previous work on the investigation, hiding his conflict of interest.
What particularly galls me in this case is most of the MSM is allowing the AP to be the sole source of reporting on the Bilal Hussein case. I pointed out to the WaPo’s public editor, that this is akin to exclusively carrying White House press releases during the Watergate scandal, which they didn’t do.
If an AP photographer back in the thirties just happened to be at the scene of one of John Dillenger’s bank robberies to get pictures his getaway, we might be suspicious. If he did it multiple times throughout Dillinger’s midwest crime spree, we might become more suspicious. And if he were picked up in an apartment with Tommy guns and other bank robbers, what might we think?
Most of us might thinks he was complicit. But not the AP.
Whose payroll is Scott Horton on since he left his law firm?
Sigh. Another doozy from Owens. Looten has it right on the essential silliness of this post, but additionally, as he always does, Owens betrays his fundamental ignorance of the ways journalism works.
Owens writes, “Why would a source request anonymity for something that was already on the public record?” Well, for many, many different reasons. It happens literally ALL the time. And if Owens knew anything about the profession he supposedly watchdogs, he’d know that. Instead, he acts as if it’s some major clue of malfeasance, and ends up looking — as always — the fool.
The concept of Anonymous sources is a direct affront to American ideals of justice.
Why not next allow “Anonymous witnesses” in courtrooms?
LootenPlunder, Alex
There is no such contradiction in the article. Horton is writing as a magazine reporter and blogger who has come to the conclusion that a certain defendant is actually innocent. Apparently, Horton is in reality a recent employee of defense counsel, not a reporter but a mouthpiece for one side.
If this reporter writes “In the spring of last year, I interviewed several of [these judges]” he is engaged in an outlandish lie-by-omission if the full truth is “In the spring of last year, while working as an investigator for defense counsel, I interviewed several of [these judges].”
If Harpers is to be taken seriously on any matter ever again, they are obligated to report this major conflict of interest, and going forward to identify such conflicts clearly each time they are published. (Or better yet, not assign such conflicted people to begin with.)
Harpers does have a biography page for Horton, which speaks of his high-minded contributions (arguably potential conflicts of interest) such as he “led a number of studies of abuse issues associated with the conduct of the war on terror for the New York City Bar Association.” But to my mind this is not disclosure enough if they are leaving out the far more specific and potentially mercenary conflict of interest, as alleged above.
DWPittelli :
*pwns two clueless dolts*
The response as to why a source might wish to remain anonymous while revealing information misses the point I think.
The question is why would a reporter cite an anonymous source for information best described as being taken from the public record?
One answer might be to give the appearance of credibility to other statements from that anonymous source.
Example:
1. Check weather report for a given date and time in a given city.
2. State: “My anonymous source advised me that he observed it was raining at the time X commited the murders”.
3. Point out or imply that the mention of rain in the anonymous statement lends credibility to the claim that X committed the murders.
No, Alex. Looten simply missed the boat (emphasis mine):
There are, indeed, many reasons a source might request anonymity. When writers attribute publicly available information to unnamed parties, however, they are generally trying to promote the fiction that they have access to insider information which their readers do not or trying to repackage old stories as news and other people’s legwork as their own.
You look none too knowledgeable yourself when it comes to Journalism 101: Never use an anonymous source if you don’t have to. When info is already public, you clearly don’t have to, so it’s entirely legitimate to question the author’s reasons for going that superfluous route.
Psst, want to know a (top)secret?
Relax,it’s already been published or will be(if it’ll hurt the Bush admin.)soon enough.
To establish your own “big lie”, always be sure to apply the above parenthesized precept.
(end liberal media instruction:LMI-010508)
Horton is slow smoking toast. Conflict of interest is putting it mildly. Yet this is par for the course in American “journalism” today.
The problem is not that too many journalists (and lawyers) are lying jerks. The problem is that the American public lets them get away with it again, and again, and again . . . .