

The Schmidle Muddle of the Osama Bin Laden Take Down - danso
http://www.registan.net/index.php/2011/08/04/the-schmidle-muddle-of-the-osama-bin-laden-take-down/comment-page-1/

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anigbrowl
_Schmidle has demurred from tackling this serious issue of credibility,
integrity and veracity directly._

A flat lie. I saw him interviewed last Monday on PBS's _Newshour_ program and
the interviewer asked him how he developed the story and whether he had talked
to the SEALs on the mission in person. Schmidle replied to the latter question
with a categorical and unambiguous denial; he could not have been more
straightforward. This article is a hit piece that attempts to deceive its
readers for traffic, but which has no basis in fact.

See for yourself: [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-
dec11/binladen_...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/july-
dec11/binladen_08-01.html) at 05:05-05:30

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Gaussian
I read the story and I enjoyed it. But I immediately wondered where he was
getting some of his very detailed nuggets. There's no doubt that this was
written to give most readers the impression that SEALs were, in some form,
primary sources. So now we know, definitely, they weren't.

The real question: how in the heck did the New Yorker vet this thing, from a
fact-checking standpoint? The New Yorker has what's likely the most venerable
fact-checking process in the magazine business. Most magazines have dismantled
much of their dedicated fact-checking staffs to cut costs. The New Yorker,
however, has soldiered on (as far as I know). So how were these details
squared? How is it possible to ensure veracity of details, such as those
fingering the events inside the helicopter, without a primary source?

I tend to believe much of the spirit of the story. But this is not a ripping
book account of the raid (where more liberties are expected to be taken), this
is the New Yorker. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds...

~~~
grandalf
The New Yorker has been the publisher of the best investigative journalism
about the wars, and so it does seem like quite a change that it would publish
a sloppy article that implied a firsthand account when none existed.

~~~
danso
I wouldn't say it was "sloppy". The sourcing is more or less precise. And all
of their most gripping stories put the reader "there"...For example, this
phenomenal piece about a Texas execution of a likely innocent man:

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_grann)

But in that case, most of the main players had died, and so the reader already
knows that he's getting details that come from letters and interviews...but we
know that because we know who the main players are in the first place...In the
New Yorker piece, all sources have been muddied up, deliberately, so that even
if you know that no SEALs were talking, it still seems like this is a
comprehensive report. But for all we know, this could be the Navy's public
information officer. Or Pres. Obama himself. Neither of which would be
considered the best sources for an end-all what-really-happened in-depth
article.

~~~
xxpor
They may have had access to helmet cam footage or similar.

~~~
dvdhsu
The New Yorker piece specifically states that there were no helmet cameras,
"contrary to a widely cited report by the CBS."

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joejohnson
In the discussion of the New Yorker article
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2830998>), a few commenters (including
myself) objected to the (original) article on the basis that it heavily relied
on one source. All of these comments were downvoted to hell, and a unfriendly
argument about conspiracy theories ensued.

Why is it instantly deemed a conspiracy theory when people are questioning of
matters such as this? Healthy skepticism is good in most discussions, and I
would hope that the HN crowd would be open to having a good debate about these
topics.

~~~
showerst
Warning: HN Meta commentary follows

I'm one of the original downvotes, and I also (rather rudely) replied to one
of your comments.

I think the reason for the squelching of most of the discussion was because
the tone of the questioning comments _was_ pretty conspiratorial. Comments
like "Bollocks. Pics or it didn't happen", comments that treat "the
government" like one coherent person, accusing people who believe the story of
acting in a way that's "unscientific" and undirected "look deeper" sentiment
tend to get shot down pretty quickly. (Note that these weren't all made by the
same person, but they all got downvoted in the same thread.)

The posts that started with "Why did they report that XYZ?", instead of "Why
should we believe that this happened at all" generated pretty good discussion.
The distinction is somewhat subtle, but it's important for community
management.

~~~
flipbrad
I was the poster of 'pics or it didn't happen'. I am not a conspiracy
theorist, raging internet commenter, etc. I was actually fairly upset by the
reaction to my post. I found the replies, and the downvoting, for the most
part failed to take my point (though it wasn't spelled out) for what it was:
'pics or it didn't happen' is meant to be the reaction of both an assiduous
journalist, and an intelligent reader when faced with a story given like this.
I am not more informed as to the facts of the story than the author was - I
can't offer counterpoints. What I can do, and what I didn't see displayed by a
community I broadly have high respect for, is spot telltales of very bad
journalism when I see it. Any scientific article posted here that doesn't link
to the original paper, that doesn't question or review what it is discussing,
generally attracts similar points. Why, on a story about the US seizing and
executing Osama (in quite an unexpected manner!), does anybody effectively
doing the same get turned upon so severely? You'll notice that the 'bollocks'
post starts with an explanation of something in the story gives cause for
concern as to consistency which neither author nor readers seem concerned
with. Is the distinction even subtler than the one you highlighted, or is it
in fact less real, or applicable to this situation, than you think it is?

------
hammerzeit
It's totally appropriate to raise questions about a story as detailed and
important as this one, but this article seems more tendentious than the
evidence suggests.

The claims against his character that the journalist makes at the beginning do
not seem substantial enough to cast him as a liar.

Even more so, the parts of the story that do not add up, in the author's eyes,
seem problematic but not totally unresolvable. For example, I don't think it's
too farfetched to think that they may inventory the contents of the SEALs'
pockets before departing on a mission.

The author of this piece also seems to imply that there is no good reason for
the journalist not to reveal his sources, which is of course totally wrong,
especially for something like this.

Lastly, the author totally ignores the fact that she is accusing of complicity
a magazine known for the quality of its fact-checking. I would think it's safe
to say the author's deception would have either have had to be astonishingly
good or the new yorker to be particularly malicious for the accusations here
to be true. One of those may be the case, but she should explicitly say that
she is questioning the ability of the New Yorker's fact-checking team.

I guess at the end of the day, it's still worthy of questioning and
investigating, but to me this article comes off as the argument of someone
with an ax to grind more than an investigation.

~~~
danso
Sure, but her point still stands: the disclosure should've been upfront, and
the gripping quality of the narrative should've been toned down in the name of
precision. The writer is very careful to note his sourcing, and a very careful
reader would see that certain declarative statements are coming from the
specops officer, or of, say, "A former helicopter pilot with extensive
special-operations experience..."

It's not to say that these background sources are wrong. But they're getting
pretty filtered info...the after-action report which consists of the compiled
recollection of the actual operators.

Again, that report may be 100% truth, and it may even contain known unknowns
and concerns of the operators. But can the spec ops officer who talked to the
reporter be trusted to have summarized that summary correctly?

Let's say Obama was the New Yorker's secret source. No one would argue that he
is not an authoritative and extremely important source regarding the OBL
killing. But he is just one source, far removed from the action (remember that
there was no helmet cam or otherwise-indoor video), with a definite vested
interest in having the first detailed examination of the incident looking good
for the WH.

~~~
hammerzeit
I guess a lot of this comes back to the fact that this was published in the
New Yorker. The New Yorker stakes their brand on the quality of their fact-
checking, which to me requires less upfront disclosure. If this story was in
fact fabricated, the reality of the story would be the smaller controversy,
I'd argue. The real controversy would be the immediate destruction of one of
America's most prestigious journalism brands.

To wit, see [http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/freelance-
jour...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/freelance-journalist-
scores-coup-with-account-of-bin-laden-raid/2011/08/02/gIQAEiaeqI_story.html)

"[New Yorker Editor-in-Chief David] Remnick says he’s satisfied with the
accuracy of the account. 'The sources spoke to our fact-checkers,' he said. 'I
know who they are. Those are the rules of the road around here. We have the
time to do this. There isn’t always time' for publications with shorter
deadlines to do the same checking."

~~~
danso
The problem isn't whether or not it was "fabricated"...I strongly trust the NY
not to publish something that _was fabricated by a reporter_.

And that's what factcheckers do...help protect reporters from their own
mistakes and also, protect the magazine from bad reporters.

In terms of secret situations, they do this by checking with the source. What
happens when the source says exactly what the reporter recorded him/her
saying, but the source him/herself is mistaken and there's no other way to
check for that?

For example. The New Yorker's story has this statement:

>“There was never any question of detaining or capturing him—it wasn’t a
split-second decision. No one wanted detainees,” the special-operations
officer told me. (The Administration maintains that had bin Laden immediately
surrendered he could have been taken alive.)

How does one factcheck this? You can call the source who will verify to you
that yes, the reporter has quoted him correctly. Then you can call the
administration who can also say, Yes, we have stated that OBL could've
surrendered.

So what's truth and what's falsehood? The "truth" is that both parties here
stands by their statements. If you want to know the truth about what shooting
orders the operators really had, you would either ask an operator himself, or
his immediate commanding officer. But the fact-checker doesn't have access to
these, so while some anonymous source says that the mission was all about
shoot-to-kill...we don't know if this article really gets us closer to the
truth of that, and no fact-checker can help here.

------
zwieback
When I was reading the article I had the impression I was reading a
screenplay, since the author didn't mention specific interviews I was assuming
all along that there was some embellishment going on.

I'm surprised too that the NY published such a weakly fact-checked account but
a lot of the Christine Fair commentary reads like scoop envy.

~~~
reemrevnivek
I had the impression that I was reading Clive Cussler. I also assumed that
there was some embellishment going on.

Honestly, I was just waiting for a "Based on a true story" disclaimer at the
end.

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smackfu
Interesting... I heard that NPR report that got corrected.

~~~
ryanwhitney
It did, the article mentions "NPR subsequently issued a correction for reasons
noted below" and links to: [http://www.npr.org/2011/08/01/138884570/details-
of-the-bin-l...](http://www.npr.org/2011/08/01/138884570/details-of-the-bin-
laden-raid-recounted-by-the-seals) which has the correction.

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shareme
Before we jump to conclusions..

Active Military/Security Types with that high level of security clearance do
not direct or indirectly talk to the press no matter what country they
serve..it does not happen.

In the US there is several layers of liaisons to the press in the Military
forces.

At no time would there be primary sources for this story..so that means that
New Yorker did not just fail to run fact checking but ran duck and covered
knowing full well there were no primary sources.

Let's stop lying NewYorker as there are times when non primary sources is all
you have to a story..

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eurohacker
in the country where i live in Europe it is quite widely believed that Bin
Laden was not killed in that operation in Pakistan, or at least there is great
suspicion

and that in fact the Bin Laden probably was dead years ago already, waiting to
be exposed when government needs a popularity boost

The main things why its not believed that he was killed then is that no part
of the body was shown to the public ( remember Saddam Husseins teeth and
examination was shown all over the world ) and the burial was suspicious too (
thrown into the ocean within hours ? )

~~~
troels
So, the Bush regime would defer this for Obama to get a popularity boost?
Doesn't make sense.

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9999
Be right back, need to cancel my New Yorker subscription...

