The Skewering of Brian Ross

Salon.com skewers Brian Ross after his most recent overblown alleged attempted terror attack story:

Soulds like Ross is the Joe Schadd of national news reporting: he breaks quite a few stories but misses way too much. Pete Williams seems much more reliable on these type things and also breaks his fair share of news.

http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/09/01/abc_brian_ross_terrorism_reporting

 

Not sure why you have that link there....
Did you perhaps mean to post this link (which was an interesting read) ? http://www.salon.com/news/terrorism/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2010/09/01/abc_brian_ross_terrorism_reporting

 

Brian Ross is the Tom Ridge of TV reporters. All that's missing is an ABC News report urging people to buy duct tape.

 

Yeah, my bad. Thanks. You can guess what happened.

 

Wait, I thought I read from Blitz, Yankee and others that these guys were terrorists and we needed to throw the book at them?

 

In all fairness, TigerVols, the guys should have been tortured until they confessed.

 

I'm not going to say whether they were or were not making a "dry run," but even if they were, the question I would ask, is what's the purpose of a dry run?

If they make the dry run they either:
A) Get caught, arrested and give up valuable intel.
B) Achieve success, find out the strategy works and allow 150 infidels off the plane with no boom-boom.

If they make a real effort to blow up the plane, they either:
1) Succeed, see that Technique X is a viable strategy and take out some infidels or,
2) Get caught and suffer the same consequences as A.

In the first scenario, the plane has no chance of blowing up. In the second, there's at least a chance of a successful terrorist attack. The first scenario seems to have no real strategic value.

 

The best way to fight terrorism is to blame ourselves.

 

I do kind of agree that the "dry run" theory is stupid.

Why not just go with a "wet run". You only have to be successful once if you do it right. With the "dry run" option, you have to go 2 for 2. I'm not sure what the upside is.

As far as the reporting on the story goes, or our reaction to it, I'm not sure there's anything to defend.

Homeland Security (Barack Obama's Homeland Security) had the guys arrested, not Brian Ross or me.

Somebody though this was suspicious enough to have them picked up and someone told CNN that it looked like a dry run.

Should they have sat on that? Would you have sat on it? Honestly?

 

If this was a one-off, YF, I would agree with you about Ross. But there's a pattern here that suggests when security personnel wish to toot their own horn, they know Ross is the instrument to play. In short, it's old "prisoner of your sources" dilemma. Scaring the crap out of people by being first but wrong on terrorism stories seems more than a mite irresponsible to me.

 

Brian Ross is just angling for a Fox News gig ... in 2002.

 

I have seen some really bad stuff in papers when people run with sources from the cops before they ever arrest anyone -- Richard Jewell in Atlanta is just one example.

Cops aren't always right. Things aren't always as they seem.

If you rush to get shit out there, it can blow up in your face. And reporters like Ross should get hammered for it.

It's not enough just to have sources and print what they tell you.

You need to be able to filter that information using your judgment, experience, other sources, etc.

That's what being a reporter is about. Otherwise, you're just a megaphone.