How many times does he have to get these stories wrong before ABC News cans their hapless and constantly wrong “investigative correspondent” Brian Ross? We suspect he’ll be allowed to keep screwing up, again and again and again, so long as his screw-ups result in lots of media attention. Little wonder Ross is one of the only broadcast network news stooges invited on Bill O’Reilly’s show, again and again and again.
Gawker’s John Cook takes apart Ross’ big “scoop” yesterday, which swept both the wingnut and non-wingnut media alike — cooking up the alleged Fort Hood shooter Army Major Nidal Malik “Hasan’s Contacts with al Qaeda”.
Those “contacts with al Qaeda”? Um, not so much, as Cook details. Turns out that Hasan’s “attempt to reach out to al Qaeda” were, in actuality, three emails sent to the imam of the mosque that Hasan attended in Virginia in 2001, back when two of the 9/11 hijackers, reportedly, also attended the same mosque. The cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, has since moved to Yemen where he has reportedly spoken out in favor of al-Qaeda.
The emails sent to him by Hasan? Whatever they were about, Ross doesn’t know, and the FBI, who reportedly did know, apparently didn’t find they warranted any action be taken.
Oh, and the “people” connected to al-Qaeda who Hasan allegedly “attempt[ed] to reach out to”? Ross now admits there was just one — singular, not plural — and it was al-Awlaki.
Here’s our favorite passage from Cook’s excellent evisceration of Ross’ yet-again irresponsible coverage, proving (by ABC News’ own standards) that Ross himself may well be an al-Qaeda terrorist!…
We asked Ross if he had tried to contact Al-Awlaki in reporting the story:
“Yes.”
So you reached out to al Qaeda, then?
“To al Qaeda? No. I reached out to him. Oh. I see what you’re saying.”
The sub-header to Ross’ story, by the way — which the sub-header to this article is meant to mirror — is “Army Major in Fort Hood Massacre Used ‘Electronic Means’ to Connect with Terrorists”.
Ross, it must be noted, is also the one who similarly stirred up the wingnuts and non-wingnuts alike with his completely incorrect report that the 2001 anthrax attacks — terrorist attacks on American soil, after 9/11, which killed four people, despite widespread, deluded, misinformed wingnut amnesia — were tied to Iraq. Ross reported at the time, during the build-up to a war in Iraq based wholly on similar lies, that the strain of anthrax used in those attacks, according to “four well-placed and separate sources,” contained a “potent additive…known to have been used by only one country in producing biochemical weapons – Iraq.”
He was wrong.
His unnamed sources for that report, likely the same unnamed sources he used for his cooked up “Hasan’s Contacts with al Qaeda” report, were wrong then and he’s never either bothered to retract the story, or named the “unnamed sources” who misled him, to our knowledge. Glen Greenwald appropriately took both Ross and ABC News apart last year for that incredibly irresponsible and inaccurate report, as the media, in the summer of 2008, was similarly misreporting the facts behind the suicide of the FBI’s dubiously alleged anthrax killer, U.S. scientist Bruce E. Ivins.
As Cook notes, in describing a litany of stories which Ross has also gotten wrong:
Please go read John Cook’s full report and help spread the word about it before conventional wisdom fully sets in, despite the fact that it likely already has, thanks once again to ABC News and their atrocious, continuing — though profitable — embarrassment, Brian Ross.
Does Brian Ross get anything right?
He’s a tool
He’s an annoyance not a terrorist.
He’s simply stirring the pot. Personally, I don’t like confusion, and Brian Ross sure loves to serve confusion with fake authority up.
Why does the fucker have press pass again?
DEAR FCC.
HOW IS THIS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST?
The unresolved story of ABC News’ false Saddam-anthrax reports
1. Sources who are granted confidentiality give up their rights when they lie or mislead the reporter. Were you lied to or misled by your sources when you reported several times in 2001 that anthrax found in domestic attacks came from Iraq or showed signs of Iraqi involvement?
2. It now appears that the attacks were of domestic origin and the anthrax came from within U.S. government facilities. This leads us to ask you: who were the “four well-placed and separate sources” who falsely told ABC News that tests conducted at Fort Detrick showed bentonite in the anthrax sent to Sen. Tom Daschle, causing ABC News to connect the attacks to Iraq in multiple reports over a five day period in October, 2001?
3. A substantially false story that helps make the case for war by raising fears about enemies abroad attacking the United States is released into public debate because of faulty reporting by ABC News. How that happened and who was responsible is itself a major story of public interest. What is ABC News doing to re-report these events, to figure out what went wrong and to correct the record for the American people who were misled?
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/04/09/abc_anthrax/index.html
Three Questions For ABC News About Its Anthrax Reporting
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jay-rosen/three-key-questions-for-a_b_116671.html
I wonder if Ross is one of those “CIA” plants in the media. How can someone who’s been so wrong, so many times for so long still retain this position of public trust?
THE MEDIA DOES THIS ON PURPOSE TO CONSTANTLY CONFUSE AND SPIN AND LIE
THIS IS THE PRIORITY MISSION: CONTINUE TO EXPOSE EVERY SINGLE LIE THE NWO OWNED MSM TELLS
(which this site does well)
Did the Bush administration’s propensity to lie, exaggerate, terrorize, fail to control the GOP-led Congress, and those who otherwise frightened the people of this nation lead to this epidemic? I cannot remember what it was like when the Republicans did not enjoy the furvor and upwelling of hate they create. I can only surmise it is one way they try to manipulate us into thinking that when they are in charge, someone is making lots of noise (read bullshit) to scare the make believe boogieman away. All it does is piss me off.
Don’t forget Brian Ross is also the one who squelched the story of Dick Cheney’s number being on the call list of the DC Madam after the now-deceased madam trusted Ross and ABC with exclusive access to portions of her call lists.
Shortly after the public lost this important information, Ross’ stature at ABC grew significantly.
You can hear the Madam implicate Cheney here http://zodiac-records.com/Palfrey-touts-Cheney.mp3
To me the thing that gets lost in the shuffle about all this talk about how Hasan was electronically surveilled (presumably without warrants) is that despite these specific invasions of privacy, and the general disregard for civil liberties authorities have shown they STILL were not able to stop this guy from going postal.
So if surrendering our rights STILL doesn’t stop us from getting attacked, why do we need to give them up in the first place?
It would be nice if someone in the media could point that out.
Perhaps if we didn’t practice neo-colonialism and genocide in muslim countries we wouldn’t have such a problem with these “extremists”.
Ross is Mossad. Or paid by Mossad. Or blackmailed by Mossad.