A stringer is a freelance journalist or photographer paid by the piece. A controversial and commonplace use of stringers today is in hot spots around the world; stringers go where Western journalists fear (or are unable) to tread. This means that many stringers are nationals of third-world countries where bloody conflicts are endemic and where “insurgents” are active and violent players.
The vast majority of these stringers are probably professionals who are as objective as the Westerners who hire them (although in some cases, that’s not saying much). But I think it’s no accident that two of most controversial stories surfacing recently about truth in journalism involve stringers; the temptation for insurgents to infiltrate the Western media and control its propaganda must be very great indeed.
The first of these cases is of course the Mohammed al Durah affair (for background, see links on my right sidebar under “Paris and France2 trial”). Although French/Israeli journalist Charles Enderlin is the figure we’ve heard most about in connection with it, the original al Durah evidence rests almost solely on one foundation—the word of Palestinian stringer-photographer Talal about what he was seeing and the contents of his videotape, as relayed to and relied on by his boss and co-worker, Charles Enderlin, who was nowhere near the scene but trusted Talal (for more on the subject, see this and this).
The second such incident is the case of Bilal Hussein, an AP stringer-photographer in Iraq who has been arrested and charged with being a terrorist operative there. Enderlin relied on the veracity of Talal, and has defended him to this day. And the AP is defending Hussein.
This is hardly surprising. In fact, it is to be expected. News agencies and journalists who employ stringers must consider them trustworthy before they hire them. Then, over time, they get to know them well, and probably to rely on and trust them even more. In the case of Enderlin and Talal, for example, they had been working together for about twelve years at the time of the al Durah incident, more than enough time for Enderlin to know him well and to feel very secure in relying on Talal’s veracity.
If in fact these two stringers—Talal and Hussein—were essentially con artists and propagandists, this would be a tough thing for the agencies hiring them to know in advance. How does one vet a stringer? Credentials and a sixth sense, as one does with any hire. But con artists (and terrorist confederates working for Western papers, somewhat like spies) are notoriously difficult to spot. They are good at what they do, which is to earn the trust of others and dispel any suspicions.
So when accusations surface in these cases, the employers and colleagues almost always say (or think) some version of the following:, “But I know him. I’ve known him for years. I’ve met his wife, eaten dinner at his house…” Although journalists are supposed to be skeptics, there’s a lack of understanding of the modus operandi of the con or the spy within the camp. In addition, there’s also the hubris of thinking that one knows, one can tell, one is wise, one is perceptive enough to spot the double agent con—and journalists (especially famous ones such as Enderlin) are certainly no slackers in the hubris department.
If stringers are to continue to be used so often in those strife-torn areas of the world rife insurgencies and terrorism, it behooves their bosses to vet them most carefully, and to continue to cross-check their work as long as they are employed.
I can just hear the cries of “racism” now. But this has nothing to do with racism; I would say the same if these conditions held true in any country or culture on the globe. Nor is the phenomenon limited to stringers, or native journalists in war-torn countries, as the Stephen Glass story demonstrates only too well. Cons and fabricators tend to be very likable, as was Glass, who ingratiated himself with virtually the entire New Republic staff, and was hotly defended by them past the point where his lies should have been glaringly obvious to anyone with eyes not clouded by affection and trust.
There’s no question that the temptation for terrorist sympathizers to infiltrate the ranks of journalistic stringers is very great, and that they can be very skillful once there. Press agencies and newspapers that make use of them need to be far more alert and aware of the associated risks than they have thus far shown themselves to be, and to protect themselves—and the public—accordingly.
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely
November 21st, 2007 at 12:02 pm
I suppose the first time you get a reasonable complaint, you could start checking.
Problem is, that’s when the journos circle the wagons against the great unwashed.
November 21st, 2007 at 3:50 pm
Here’s a weird and fantastic notion: why don’t news organizations hire professional photojournalists and send them to war zones to get pictures?
If it’s a matter of expense, they could hire young photographers right out of college and pay them miserably.
November 21st, 2007 at 5:48 pm
In Iraq, the major msm organizations had established an early pattern of hiring their former Saddamite appointed watchers as stringers.
These were known, up front, to be enemy and/or enemy sympathizers. Much of this was motivated by an inate hatred of the US military and the belief that the only way to get real truth was to get it directly from those who were fighting against the US military.
In every measurable way, the organizations that played this game were, in no way, legitimate journalism operations. These were, in fact, dedicated efforts at producing enemy propaganda to be broadcast openly to all western citizens in an overt effort to assist the enemy in achieving victory.
November 21st, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Recall the story of Pham Xuan An, who worked for Reuters and then Time magazine in Saigon, all the while gathering intelligence for North Vietnam. It’s happened before, it will happen again, despite the indignant and disingenuous protestations of the Associated (Anti-American) Press.
November 21st, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Neo-con,
You make a huge, and incorrect to my mind, assumption in your article. And, though I dearly respect that you have the notion for my own reasons, I believe the notion to be wrong. The idea I believe is not true is the belief that news agencies wish to vet these stringers. My belief is that so long as their extended servants provide material which supports (truly or through deceptions) the views of the media involved, the matter of the stringers legitimacy is not an issue for these media, from the stringer’s direct handlers up to the directors and owners of the news sources. Truth is no more important in modern media than it seems to be in (some, many?) courts of law. It is all perception, tone, and direction.
November 21st, 2007 at 8:08 pm
Followup to Doom: The media have already made up their mind as to what The Truth Is and are dedicated to finding examples of The Truth in the evidence that they collect, much like a high school teacher might point to something and say “You see, that shows how X Y Z …” The researcher, on the other hand, must look at the evidence to see if it really does support that point, or something else. When the media start being researchers again and stop trying to be teachers of established doctrine they will have a chance at being the guardians of the Fourth Estate. Until then, they are propagandists to whoever was able to indoctrinate them first.
November 21st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Happy Thanksgiving, Neo!
November 22nd, 2007 at 1:47 am
Our experience here in Israel (I am an American who has worked as a spokesperson for Jewish settlers):
Much of the media is not interested in facts that dispute their “narrative”. Sure, the Israeli army could do better to get its message out. But most of the Israel-based media corps do not even show up for the IDF briefings.
This springs from 2 sources:
1. Inherent ideological/PC bias.
2. The very real threat of violence by Muslim/Arab “activists” if the party line is contravened.
The Palis are ruthless in selectively restricting access and assigning journalists handlers (without whom they can not move freely or safely.
They’ve kidnapped journalists when it suits them. Guess which ones get kidnapped?
So we get an Orwellian situation in which reportage about “Israel’s brutal apartheid regime’” makes it into print precisely because Israel is not as brutal as the Palis in its handling of journalists.
And so journalistic realipolitik dovetails with the Stockholm syndrome of left-wing self-hatred, in a mutually reinforcing cycle.
November 22nd, 2007 at 9:37 am
I think the legacy news media which depends on such local stringers hasn’t quite grasped how shaky their credibility is, in reporting from certain locations. I think it’s been at least three or four years since I realized that any news reporting coming out of the Palestianian zone was irredeemably tainted. The same for reports from Lebanon during the fighting there… and of course, Iraq. My supposition is that if they’re local, they have an agenda and I’ll assume a bias.
This does not bode well for the legacy media, when a larger portion of the news consuming audience begins to share this distrust. I wish I could say the major news orgs were doing something about their shredded credibility, but all I see is the same old “circling the wagons - how dare you question our qualifications and our abilities to report the news!” apache-dance.
November 22nd, 2007 at 10:16 am
This is a very controversial issue and I tend to agree with what Doom says. As a professional journalist who has travelled and worked in war zones all I can say is that very often one tends to trust stringers who help you to collect stories that support the views of the media you work for. Usually a correspondent’s assignemnet is not ‘go there and tell us what is going on’. Usually it is, ‘go there and give us as much evidence as you can that our editorial policy on the issue is correct’. That’s why good news from Iraq and Afghanistan are usually ignored as the verdict (the war is a disaster) has already been issued by most media and cannot be appealed. That’s why most media in my country (Italy) haven’t sent their correspondents to Iraq since gen Petraeus strategy started to provide some good results.
November 22nd, 2007 at 11:50 am
That’s why good news from Iraq and Afghanistan are usually ignored as the verdict (the war is a disaster) has already been issued by most media and cannot be appealed.
It would simply be a waste of the reporter’s time and the stringer’s time, not to mention the company’s money. It is not as if editors will accept things that contradict the newspaper and make them look bad. So why even go out and look for stuff to prove your editors wrong?
That won’t pay the bills. And it just might get you killed like Vince Foster. Far safer, and profitable, and toe the line and get by. For the great majority of people, reporting is just a job. It is not a crusade. There are no higher principles to be loyal to. And if there were, their career as reporters would solve that soon enough.
I’ll use Jefferson as an example of why newspapers haven’t changed much.
http://www.philipgoldstein.com/newspapers.html
November 22nd, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Just one small question, if there is good news coming out of Iraq, how do you know that, did you hear it on the news, maybe, huh?
November 22nd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
No, I did not hear it “on the news”. I have my own sources of information that report the facts, have real data I can sift or ingest raw, and actually have a functional mind. The news? Are you kidding or still coloring in coloring books. Don’t even look down your silly nose at me, or try to, if you are still with “the news”.
November 23rd, 2007 at 12:57 am
jimfocus: I for one receive much of my news from the cynical, independent Michael Yon types who are embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan and who report the present good, reported the previous bad and many of the ugly events occurring there. They provide the news that the MSM can’t find and to whom some of us provide financial support; support that maintains an unedited measure of truth flowing from the war fronts.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:45 am
The pack of howling wingnuts seem to have missed neoneo’s point, perhaps unwitting, that terrorist sympathizers would need to “infiltrate” the news media.
That’s because the media is by no means sympathetic to radical Islamists. I would not go so far as to say the mediocre media isn’t sympathetic to terrorists, because I stick to a rational, objective definition of that word.
And the American media, as I would and should expect, essentially plays for the American team, terrorist or not.
Instead of ginning up hypotheticals about terrorists “infiltrating” the news media, perhaps neoneo should take a look at the many, powerful PR firms that represent countries like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
These firms stand a far better chance of shaping news than does some stringer assigned to shoot photos or file straight news. That’s why they get paid so much more to do what they do than the stringers do.
We know, for example, that non-Iraqi anti-U.S. fighters in Iraq come mostly from Libya and Saudi Arabia. But did you know that:
Libya has hired Fahmy Hudome International, a two-person shop headed by Randa Fahmy Hudome, former associate deputy secretary of energy in the Bush administration and an aide to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham when he was a senator from Michigan. Her associate Jennifer Hazelton also worked for then-senator Abraham.
And of course the Saudi monarchy, the Mushareff regime have their PR reps cruising the halls of Congress as well.
Then there’s the Licoln Group. Remember them? They were hired to plant fake news in Iraqi newspapers, or, more precisely to pay Iraqi newspaper editors cold cash to insert the fake news themselves.
No hypotheticals here, neoneo. It’s actually happening. And just because it’s been exposed doesn’t mean it will stop.
The U.S. military plans to continue paying Iraqi newspapers to publish articles favorable to the United States after an inquiry found no fault with the controversial practice, Army General George W. Casey, Jr. said[15] March 3, 2006. Casey said that “the internal review had concluded that the U.S. military was not violating U.S. law or Pentagon guidelines with the information operations campaign, in which U.S. troops and a private contractor write pro-American articles and pay to have them planted without attribution in Iraqi media.”
The “good” news from Iraq? How much of it is fake? And does neoneo not know this or not care? Apparently, she’d rather spend time dreaming up “what if” scenarios about “infiltration” by stringers who would never, ever under any circumstances exercise real editorial power.
November 25th, 2007 at 8:49 am
Michael Yon is not independent, though he may well be extremely cynical. He makes no bones whatsoever that he is allied ideologically with the U.S. military. He admits this plainly. Speaking power to truth as Yon does is certainly cynical, no doubt about that.
November 25th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Maybe the MSM isn’t as malicious as some make it appear, but has just lost the real sense of purpose it once had. In effect, the media no longer believes in what they preach about journalistic impartiality and are thus increasingly susceptible to being ‘infiltrated’ as neo put it.
November 26th, 2007 at 2:43 am
James. Where on earth has an objective media ever existed? Not on this planet. It hasn’t happened and it won’t.
There is something sinister in a fundamentalist way about the idea that a single text could truthfully represent the entire spectrum of realities on a single topic.
A key skill of journalists is to exercise bias. Professionals prefer to call it “news judgment” but it is just informed bias.
Liberal democracy has and will survive news media bias. But it can’t withstand a citizenry that demands single-source truth, that is inured to the idea that a single newspaper or single TV station or single book, movie, radio program or blog can be counted on to provide the truth.
I’ve read that many, if not most, Soviets knew Pravda was a pack of lies. They read it anyway, as they were able to filter the information and apply critical thinking.
There were undoubtedly those “good Soviets” who believed Pravda printed the objective truth and should not be allowed to print anything else. To the extent that these people held sway, any hope of rationalism and democracy was diminished.