Fake News, Real News

A media watchdog group, the Washington-based Project for Excellence in Journalism, affiliated with Columbia University, has just released its annual report on the news business, concluding that journalists should "document the reporting process more openly so that audiences can decide for themselves whether to trust it." Well, here's a case in point.

United Press International dispatched a story last week about a former U.S. Marine who participated in capturing ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and said that the public version of his capture was fabricated. UPI stated:

"Ex-Sgt. Nadim Abou Rabeh, of Lebanese descent, was quoted in the Saudi daily al-Medina as saying Saddam was actually captured Friday, Dec. 12, 2003, and not the day after, as announced by the U.S. Army 'I was among the 20-man unit, including eight of Arab descent, who searched for Saddam for three days in the area of Dour near Tikrit, and we found him in a modest home in a small village and not in a hole as announced,' Abou Rabeh said. 'We captured him after fierce resistance during which a Marine of Sudanese origin was killed... Later on, a military production team fabricated the film of Saddam's capture in a hole, which was in fact a deserted well,' Abou Rabeh said."

This story definitely had the ring of falsehood. Could it possibly have been a fabrication about a fabrication? I contacted Pam Hess, the UPI Pentagon correspondent.

"My editor and I have been doing our damnedest to kill the story," she told me. "It is actually a clean pick-up from the Saudi press but obviously flawed. It came from our Lebanon desk, which translated and ran the story-standard procedures for a wire. However, this was obviously a huge story if true, and very controversial, and should have been run through me first, which it was not.

"So, the story came from UPI-but I don't recommend picking it up. Obviously fabricated. The Marines don't have records of the original source who made the claims. I have recently heard from some guy who says the fact that the dates (the fruit) were yellow in the background suggest that Saddam was captured and filmed earlier than December-but I'm not sure that rises to the level of reportable."

The story had already been reported by various local media and Internet listservs. Harry Shearer read it on his syndicated radio program, Le Show. When I informed him of its fictional nature, he thanked me for the heads-up and added, "Interesting that they'll run it on their wire before checking it."

Especially since it's "obviously fabricated."

The most significant aspect of this hoax is that, in the wake of an increasing incredibility of real news, there is an increasing credibility of fake news.