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This is stunning news. Will the @nytimes retract Caliphate given that one of its main subjects has been arrested for making up the story? https://twitter.com/stewglobal/status/1309581575412232198
Apparently @CBCNews called this guy’s credibility into question more than 2 years ago, when Caliphate was racking up awards. This is a journalistic scandal. I’ve long been saying that stories about the Middle East don’t receive nearly enough scrutiny: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/isis-abu-huzaifa-investigators-1.4669769
Reporting about Arabs, Muslims, and the Middle East, especially sensationalistic stories, is believed because it confirms our biases and yes, orientalist and racist pre-existing ideas and beliefs. There hasn’t been enough written about this since Edward Said’s “Covering Islam.”
It’s a cop out to use “narrative tension” to explain away your main subject getting arrested for a “hoax.” If he made the story up, then the story probably never should have been told by a journalistic institution. But why let truth get in the way of a titillating story?
After the Las Vegas shooting, this same reporter engaged in reckless speculation for days that the shooter Stephen Paddock had converted to Islam. It was stenography based on unverified ISIS chatroom talk. There are no consequences for these mistakes. https://theintercept.com/2020/09/22/stephen-paddock-las-vegas-shooting-far-right/
What’s changed in journalism that now makes it acceptable to release a series despite serious q’s about subject’s credibility, in the name of “narrative tension”.? This American Life retracted Mike Daisey’s Apple in China story for similar inconsistencies https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2012/03/16/148761812/this-american-life-retracts-mike-daiseys-apple-factory-story
Another example of problematic reporting by Rukmini Callimachi. Experts say documents she based a story on last year were likely forged. NYT responded... by having her write a follow up. Definitely feels like there are different standards for Middle East reporting. More here
https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/1189956502523645953
https://twitter.com/hxhassan/status/1189956502523645953
We have become so inured to framing that pathologizes Arabs/Muslims that we don’t even notice it. But also there’s fear to publicly critique fellow reporters esp those at hallowed institutions. Fear that you won’t get hired or win awards or be part of the club. So there’s silence https://twitter.com/AliaMalek/status/1309671600984383491
A podcast downloaded 30 million times that had at its center a subject who was a proven liar had real-life consequences. It apparently ended the debate over repatriation in Canada. https://twitter.com/AmarAmarasingam/status/1309626517786370049
Colleague points out that the Caliphate fiasco is actually worse than the Mike Daisey story because they’re saying they *knew* there were serious holes in the story but built an entire podcast around it anyway. Concerned that cases like this undermine public’s trust in journalism
