12/29/2019 Lies, Newsweek and Control of the Media Narrative: First-Hand Account | Tareq Haddad

Tareq Haddad
Lies, Newsweek and Control of the Media
Narrative: First-Hand Account

Posted on December 14, 2019December 27, 2019 by Tareq Haddad

A mafia runs editors. Freedom of the press is dead. Journalists and ordinary people must stand up.

Introduction
Syria
Newsweek Suppression: A Timeline of Events
Editors at Fault
Is Rep. Ilhan Omar a Spy?
External Control of the Media Narrative

Introduction

Until several days ago, I was a journalist at Newsweek. I decided to hand my resignation in because, in
essence, I was given a simple choice. On one hand, I could continue to be employed by the company,
stay in their chic London offices and earn a steady salary—only if I adhered to what could or could not
be reported and suppressed vital facts. Alternatively, I could leave the company and tell the truth.

In the end, that decision was rather simple, all be it I understand the cost to me will be undesirable. I will
be unemployed, struggle to finance myself and will likely not find another position in the industry I care
about so passionately. If I am a little lucky, I will be smeared as a conspiracy theorist, maybe an Assad
apologist or even a Russian asset—the latest farcical slur of the day.

Although I am a British citizen, the irony is that I’m half Arab and half Russian. (Bellingcat: I’m happy to
answer any requests.)

It is a terribly sad state of affairs when perfectly loyal people who want nothing but the best for their
countries are labelled with such preposterous accusations. Take Iraq war veteran and Hawaii congress-
woman Tulsi Gabbard for example, who was the target of such mud slinging for opposing U.S. involve-
ment in Syria and for simply standing up to the Democratic Party’s most corrupt politician, Hillary Clin-
ton. These smears are immature for a democracy—but I, in fact, welcome such attacks.

When the facts presented are utterly ignored and the messengers themselves are crucified in this way, it
signals to right-minded people who the true perpetrators of lies are and where the truth in fact lies.

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That truth is what matters most to me. It is what first drove me to journalism while I was working in Jer-
sey’s offshore finance industry after completing my degree from Binghamton University’s School of
Management in upstate New York. I was so outraged when I grew to realize that this small idyllic island
I love and had grown up on since the age of nine, a British Crown dependency fifteen miles off the coast
of France, was in fact a hub for global tax evasion. This realization came to me while the British people
were being told that austerity had to continue—public funding for schools, hospitals, policing and all
matter of things were to be slashed—all while the government “recovered” after bailing out the banks
following the 2008 crash. That austerity lie was one I could no longer stomach as soon as I came to un-
derstand that my fairly uninspiring administrative role was in fact a part of this global network of firms
to help multinational companies, businessmen, politicians and members of various royal families in
avoiding paying trillions in tax—all under a perfectly legal infrastructure that the government was fully
aware of, but kept quiet about.

Jersey
Directions

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Map data ©2019 Google

In my naivety, as I left that industry and began my journalism training, I wrote a piece (https://tareqhad-
dad.com/2015/02/21/hsbc-files-tax-avoidance/) that detailed some of this corruption in hopes of chan-
ging the public awareness around these issues and in hopes that they no longer continued—albeit I did
so in a manner of writing and sophistication I would be embarrassed of presently—but to my disap-
pointment at the time, the piece was hardly noticed and the system remains little changed to now. Non-
etheless, since that moment, I have not once regretted speaking truthfully, most especially for my own
mental wellbeing: I would not have been able to regard myself with a grain of self-respect had I contin-
ued to engage in something I knew was a lie. It is the very same force that compels me to write now.

There is also another, deeper force that compels me to write. In my years since that moment when I de-
cided to become a journalist and a writer, although I suspect I have known it intrinsically long before, I
have come to learn that truth is also the most fundamental pillar of this modern society we so often take
for granted—a realisation that did not come to us easily and one that we should be extremely careful to

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neglect. That is why when journalistic institutions fail to remember this central pillar, we should all be
outraged because our mutual destruction follows. It may sound like hyperbole, but I assure you it’s not.
When our record of where we come from is flawed, or our truth to put it more simply, the new lies stack
on top of the old until our connection to reality becomes so disjointed that our understanding of the
world ultimately implodes. The failure of current journalism, among other factors, is undoubtedly
linked to the current regression of the Western world. In consequence, we have become the biggest per-
petrators of the crimes our democracies were created to prevent.

Of course, for those who pay attention, this failure of mainstream journalism I speak of is nothing new. It
has been ongoing for decades and was all too obvious following the Iraq war fiasco. The U.S. and U.K.
governments, headed by people who cared for little other than their own personal gain, told the people
of their respective countries a slew of fabrications and the media establishment, other than a handful of
exceptions, simply went along for the ride.

This was something that consumed my interest when I was training to be a journalist. How could hun-
dreds of reputable, well-meaning journalists get it so wrong? I read numerous books on the issue—from
Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent and Philip Knightley’s The First Casualty to work by Chris
Hedges, the Pulitzer-prize-winning former foreign correspondent for the New York Times who was
booted out for opposing that war (who I disagree with on some things, for the record)—but still, I be-
lieved that honest journalism could be done. Nothing I read however, came close to the dishonesty and
deception I experienced while at Newsweek. Previously, I believed that not enough journalists ques-
tioned the government narrative sufficiently. I believed they failed to examine the facts with close
enough attention and had not connected the dots as a handful of others had done.

No. The problem is far worse than that.

Syria

In the aftermath of the Iraq war and during my time studying this failure of the media since, I was of
course extremely aware of the high likelihood that the U.S. government narrative on Syria was a decep-
tion. For starters, there were the statements made by the retired four-star general, General Wesley Clark,
to Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman in 2007, four years prior to the beginning of the Syria conflict. The
following is worth watching to in full.

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General Wesley Clark Wars Were Planned Seven Co…

Co…

Nonetheless, once I joined IBTimes UK in 2016, after training with the Press Association and working at
the Hull Daily Mail (both of whom I am eternally indebted to for giving me an excellent foundation for
starting my career) I solidly understood that journalism was not the profession of making unverifiable
claims. I, or any journalist for that matter, could not out-right say that the nature of the Syrian conflict
was based on a lie, no matter how strongly we suspected it. To do so, we would need unshakeable evid-
ence that pointed to this.

Through the years, good journalists did document evidence. Roula Khalaf, who will soon take over from
Lionel Barber as the editor of the Financial Times, wrote one such piece alongside Abigail Fielding-Smith
in 2013. It documented how Qatar provided arms and funded the opposition of Bashar al-Assad’s le-
gitimate government (https://www.ft.com/content/f2d9bbc8-bdbc-11e2-890a-00144feab7de) to the tune
of somewhere between $1 and $3 billion from the outset of the conflict, rubbishing claims that it was a
“people’s revolution” that turned violent. Footage captured by Syrian photographer Issa Touma—made
into a short film titled 9 Days From My Window in Aleppo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THd-
Mj0-LmRw)—similarly showed how Qatar-funded jihadists from the Al-Tawhid Brigade were present
in the streets of Syria’s capital from the very outset of the war.

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9 Days - From My Window in Aleppo

“Fighters re-enter my street,” Touma says as he films covertly out of his window. “They look different.
They are heavily armed men with beards. I had only heard about them before. This is Liwa al-Tawhid.
National television calls them terrorists. The international press calls them freedom fighters. I don’t care
what they call it—I refuse to chose a side. But it’s a lie that the revolution started peacefully everywhere.
At least in my street, Al Said Ali Street, it started with guns. It didn’t start peacefully at all.”

Veterans of the trade Seymour Hersh and Robert Fisk also poked holes in the U.S. government narrative,
but their treatment by other journalists has been one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the
press.

Hersh—who exposed the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War (https://www.pulitzer.org/article/i-
sent-them-good-boy-and-they-made-him-murderer), the clandestine bombing of Cambodia
(https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/08/archives/senators-are-told-us-bombed-cambodia-secretly-after-
invasion-in.html), the torture at Abu Ghraib prison
(https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib), in addition to telling the
world the real story of how Osama Bin Laden died (https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n10/seymour-m-
hersh/the-killing-of-osama-bin-laden)—was shunned from the industry for reporting a simple fact (ht-
tps://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin): Bashar al-Assad’s government is not the
only actor with access to chemical weapons in Syria. After a sarin attack in the Damascus suburb of
Ghouta in 2013, he was further smeared for reporting (https://www.lrb.co.uk/v36/n08/seymour-m-her-
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sh/the-red-line-and-the-rat-line) that Barack Obama withheld important military intelligence: samples

examined in Britain’s Porton Down did not match the chemical signatures of sarin held in the Syrian
government’s arsenals.

Fisk, writing days before the Syrian conflict escalated, in a piece

(https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-for-10-years-weve-lied-to-
ourselves-to-avoid-asking-the-one-real-question-2348438.html) that asked Americans to consider what
they were really doing in the Middle East as the ten-year anniversary of 9/11 approached, also raised
important questions, but he too was largely ignored.

I also did my best to document evidence that poked holes in the narrative as best I could. In 2016, I wrote
how Egyptian authorities arrested five people for allegedly filming staged propaganda
(https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/egypt-arrests-five-over-faked-syria-propaganda-images-1597428)that pur-
ported to be from Syria (https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/egypt-arrests-five-over-faked-syria-propaganda-
images-1597428). Though I’m not aware of any evidence to suggest that the two are connected and I
make no such claims, these arrests came to light after The Bureau of Investigative Journalism and The
Sunday Times revealed (https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/thatcher-pr-guru-lord-bell-ran-540m-pentagon-
false-propaganda-campaign-iraq-1584495) that a British PR firm, Bell Pottinger, was working with the
CIA, the Pentagon and the National Security Council and received $540 million to create false propa-
ganda in Iraq a month prior.

The following year, after the alleged chemical weapons attack in Khan Sheikhoun, I documented the in-
triguing story of Shajul Islam, (https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/british-doctor-who-documented-chemical-
attack-previously-held-terror-offences-1615849) the British doctor who purported to have treated the
alleged victims and appeared on several television networks including NBC (https://www.nbcnews.-
com/video/gas-attacks-are-a-chilling-reality-for-syrian-doctor-shajul-islam-914829379655) to sell the
case for retaliation. He gushed with heroism, but it was not reported he was previously charged with ter-
ror offences in the U.K. and was in fact considered a “committed jihadist” by MI6. He was imprisoned in
2013 in connection with the kidnapping of two Western photo-journalists in northern Syria and was
struck off Britain’s General Medical Council in 2016. Why he was released without sentencing and was
allowed to travel back to Syria remains a mystery to me.

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I also refused to recycle the same sloppy language used, inadvertently or not, by a number of other pub-
lications. Al Qaeda and their affiliates had always been referred to as terrorists as far as I was aware—
why the sudden change to “rebels” or “moderate rebels” for the purposes of Syria? Thankfully, the news
editor I worked with most frequently at the time, Fiona Keating, trusted my reporting and had no prob-
lems with me using the more appropriate terms “anti-Assad fighters” or “insurgents”—though one
could arguably say even that was not accurate enough.

When buses carrying civilian refugees hoping to escape the fighting in Idlib province were attacked with
car bombs in April of 2017, killing over 100, most of them women and children, I was disappointed with
the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/16/sixty-eight-children-dead-suicide-
bombing-syria) and the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-39609288) for continu-
ing with their use of this infantile word, but this was not the language I felt to be appropriate in my re-
port (https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/dozens-buses-carrying-syrian-evacuees-killed-blasts-1617136).

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At roughly the same time, in light of the Khan Sheikhoun attack, confronted with an ever-growing list of
irregularities and obvious falsifications—such as increasing evidence that the White Helmets were not
what they purported of being, or the ridiculousness that the Western world’s de facto authority on Syria
had become 7-year-old Bana al-Abed—I wrote an opinion piece
(https://tareqhaddad.com/2017/04/07/before-we-go-to-war-with-syria-inconvenient-truths-must-be-
confronted/) that came short of calling the narrative around the Syrian conflict a lie, but simply pleaded
that independent investigations of the alleged chemical weapons attack were allowed to take place be-
fore we rushed head first into war. I still believed honesty would prevail.

That piece was ultimately declined by IBTimes—though I covertly published it in CounterPunch

(https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/04/07/before-we-go-to-war-with-syria-inconvenient-truths-must-
be-confronted/) later—but the rejection email I received from the editor-in-chief at the time makes for
interesting reading.

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I was sad to hear that asking for an independent investigation into a chemical weapons attack was an
“incendiary theory,” but I was forced to move on.

By that summer, I was let go alongside a number of other journalists from the publication after the
Buzzfeed-style model of click-bait-aggregation journalism was heavily punished by a new Google al-
gorithm and had largely failed: page views plummeted and editors couldn’t seem to understand it was
because we weren’t doing any real journalism. Having felt frustrated with the industry, I decided to not
pursue another position in reporting and decided to move to mainland Europe in hopes of pursuing my
other passion—literature—with aspirations of being able to write more freely.

Fast forward to 2019, I decided to return to journalism as I was feeling the pressure to have “a grown-up
job” and could not count on my ability to be a novelist as a means of long-term career stability. So when I
joined Newsweek in September, I was extremely thankful for the opportunity and had no intention of
being controversial—the number of jobs in the industry appeared to be shrinking and, besides, the Syri-
an conflict appeared to be dying down. As soon as I arrived, Newsweek editor-in-chief Nancy Cooper
emphasised original reporting and I was even even more pleased. I wanted to come in, get my head
down and start building my reputation as a journalist again.

Then on October 6, President Donald Trump and the military machine behind him threw my quiet hopes
of staying well clear of Syria into disarray. He announced the decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the
country and green-lit the Turkish invasion that followed in a matter of days. Given my understanding of
the situation, I was asked by Newsweek editors to report on this (https://www.newsweek.com/donald-
trump-accused-betraying-kurds-giving-isis-new-life-syria-1463538).

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Within days of the Turkish invasion into Syria beginning, Turkey was accused of using the incendiary
chemical white phosphorus in an attack on Ras al-Ayn and, again, having pitched the story, I was asked
to report on the (https://www.newsweek.com/turkey-accused-war-crimes-suspected-white-phospho-
rous-chemical-weapons-use-against-kurds-syria-1466248)allegations (https://www.newsweek.com/tur-
key-accused-war-crimes-suspected-white-phosphorous-chemical-weapons-use-against-kurds-syria-
1466248). This spurred a follow-up investigation (https://www.newsweek.com/why-united-nations-
not-investigating-alleged-white-phosphorus-attacks-1468042) on why the use of the substance—a self-
igniting chemical that burns at upwards of 4,800 degrees Fahrenheit, causing devastating damage to its
victims—was rarely considered a war crime under the relevant weapons conventions and I was com-
mended by Nancy for doing excellent journalism.

It was while investigating this story that I started to come across growing evidence that the U.N.-backed
body for investigating chemical weapons use, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
(OPCW), issued a doctored report about an alleged chemical attack in Douma in April of 2018, much to
the anger of OPCW investigators who visited the scene. Once Peter Hitchens of the Mail on Sunday pub-
lished his story (https://slack-redir.net/link?
url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticle-7718627%2FSexed-dossier-furore-
alleged-poison-gas-attack-Assad.html) containing a leaked letter that was circulated internally from one
of the disgruntled OPCW scientists, I believed there was more than enough evidence to publish the story
in Newsweek. That case was made even stronger when the letter was confirmed by Reuters
(https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-syria-crisis-chemicalweapons/chemical-weapons-body-defends-syr-
ia-attack-conclusions-after-leaks-idUKKBN1XZ1QH) and had been corroborated by former OPCW dir-
ector-general Dr. Jose Bustani (https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/OPCW-Statement-
final/page-2/#pagination).

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Although I am no stranger to having story ideas rejected, or having to censor my language to not rock
the ship, this was a truth that had to be told. I was not prepared to back down on this.

Let me be clear: there is evidence that a United Nations body—whose jurisdiction was established after
the world agreed to never repeat the horrors of World War I and World War II, such as (https://www.his-
tory.com/this-day-in-history/germans-introduce-poison-
gas#:~:targetText=Germans%20introduce%20poison%20gas,it%20devastated%20the%20Allied%20lin
e.) German forces firing more than 150 tons of chlorine gas at French colonial troops in Ypres—is being
weaponized to sell the case for war.

After OPCW experts found trace levels of chlorine when they visited Douma—i.e. no different than the
levels of chlorine normally present in the atmosphere—or raised concerns that the canisters may have
been tampered with or placed, both of which were reflected in their original reports (https://wikileak-
s.org/opcw-douma/), they made protestations because this information was withheld from the final re-
port that was released to the world’s media. Instead, the final wording (https://www.opcw.org/sites/de-
fault/files/documents/2019/03/s-1731-2019%28e%29.pdf) said chlorine was “likely” used and the war
machine continued.

This is not a “conspiracy theory” as Newsweek sadly said in a statement to Fox News (https://www.-
foxnews.com/media/newsweek-reporter-tareq-haddad-quits)—interestingly the only mainstream pub-
lication to cover my resignation. Real OPCW scientists have met with real journalists and explained the
timeline of events. They provided internal documents that proved these allegations—documents that
were then confirmed by Reuters. This is all I wanted to report.

Meanwhile, OPCW scientists were prevented from investigating Turkey’s alleged use of white phos-
phorus. This flagrant politicization of a neutral body is opening the world up to repeating the same hor-
rors we experienced in those two devastating wars.

This is unacceptable and I resigned when I was forbidden from reporting on this.

Newsweek Suppression: A Timeline of Events

I first became aware of the Mail on Sunday report on Monday, November 25, and this is when I raised it
with Alfred Joyner, Newsweek’s global executive producer, who had been my main point of contact for
pitching stories.

Following a conversation with Alfred, he asked me to write the pitch in a note to him and Newsweek’s
foreign affairs editor, Dimi Reider, on the company’s internal messaging system. The following is a copy
and paste of that pitch, alongside the conversation that followed in the next few days.

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Page 1 of 8

Tareq Haddad
Hi
2:33 PM
both,
Following a conversation with Alfred regarding the story,
sending you
explainer both
note withansome of the documents to look into as they
contain some
pretty bombshell revelations. In essence: The UN chemical
weapons
(the OPCW) watchdog
doctored reports to say that Syria was responsible
for the Douma
chemical weapons attack. When I covered this (and the
Khan
attack)Sheikhoun
at the time for IBTimes, that was my strong suspicion
because
were a lotthere
of discrepancies, but it could not be said explicitly
because there
insufficient was aside from facts not quite
evidence
adding up.
I had mostly forgotten about it, but while I was looking into
the Turkey white
phosphorus story a few weeks ago, I came across this
blog post thatthe transcript of a conversation with a
documented
Guardian
correspondent Middle
onEast
the BBC World Service. On the show, he said
that an OPCW
whistleblower he had spoken to said when his fact-finding
team
didn't went, they
find evidence that chlorine was present any more so
than in normal
conditions - i.e. it was not
used.
https://timhayward.wordpress.com/2019/10/27/major-revelation-
from-opcw-whi
stleblower-jonathan-steele-speaking-
to-the-bbc/
I didn't raise it at the time because I didn't feel the evidence was
strong
but enough, Wikileaks put out a call for leakers to come
afterwards,
forward
there were because
reportedly many people at the OPCW who were
not happy
what has been with going on. On Saturday, Wikileaks published the
first
with link
(andbelow
the next 3 links are internal documents that
come from the
organisation):
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-
douma/
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/OPCW-
Analytical-Points-final/
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/OPCW-
Statement-final/
https://wikileaks.org/opcw-douma/document/20190227-
Engineering-assessmen
t-of-two-cylinders-observed-at-the-
Douma-incident/
The Mail on Sunday published a piece saying the same thing
this
alsoSunday
includesand
evidence and conversations with
people involved:

Page 2 of 8

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7718627/Sexed-dossier-
furore-alleged
-poison-gas-attack-
Assad.html
There is also plenty of other information that corroborates

Once I returned to the office on Thursday, November 28, I proceeded to have a conversation with Dimi,
but to my disappointment, he did not address any of my protestations against why the article could not
be published. He made the famous joke about former Soviet politician Leonid Brezhnev irrelevantly, one
he had already made to me a couple of weeks before, and after listening to my reasoning for wanting to
have the story published for several minutes, all he had to say was: “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid it’s a no.”

The following morning, feeling incredibly frustrated, I wrote an email to Nancy and Newsweek’s digital
director and London bureau chief, Laura Davis, to express my concerns.

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Several stressful days passed where I did not hear from either Laura or Nancy, but in the meantime, as I
tried to continue as best as I could with my every day reporting role, I noticed how an entertainment ed-
itor by the name of Tufayel Ahmed began to pick up most of the following stories I wrote.

In my experience of working with editors in the past, if an issue ever arose with a story, we would have a
perfectly civil conversation, I would make the relevant adjustments where necessary and the article
would be published without further problems. That was not my experience with Tufayel.

At first, when he sent me long, overly critical and often hostile criticisms on articles I wrote, I considered
asking him to step into a meeting room in order to ask him whether I had inadvertently done something
to offend him. Having come from a newspaper background where mistakes in articles required embar-

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rassing apologies printed in the paper the next day, and having held the belief that editors were your
best friend and should always be kept on side, I always prided myself in filing copy that was free of any
errors and throughout my career, I was frequently commended for doing exactly this.

In my time at the Hull Daily Mail for example, regarded as one of the U.K.’s best regional newspapers, I
do not recall a single correction being printed on any of the articles I wrote. That was the case despite
covering murder trials, rape cases and numerous other sensitive stories.

On the eve of the Brexit referendum, despite still being a trainee reporter, I had built such a reputation
for my accurate journalism and my attention-to-detail skills that I was even entrusted to single-handedly
edit and publish copy from two politics reporters to the publication’s website, while managing the live
blog, all social media channels and filing my own stories on national developments as the results came
in. The following morning, following a short nap, the editor was so impressed with my efforts that I was
asked to conduct the interviews with the local leaders of each political party, despite being one of the
most junior reporters on the team.

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Page 1 of 2
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Furthermore, in close to 1,000 published articles for IBTimes UK (https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/report-

ers/tareq-haddad), I can only recall one incident where an article required a correction. An Israel lobby
group—forgive me for being unable to recall which one—objected to my use of the word “settlements”
and requested that it be replaced with “settlement units” instead. This was a reasonable request and the
article was updated to reflect this without further incident.

I do not say these things to be self-congratulatory. I say these things because I was deeply saddened and
disturbed. Because when I finally received a response from Laura about the OPCW story on December 5,
six days after my initial email and after repeated attempts to speak to her in person, only one paragraph
was devoted to the leaked letter and the rest of the email attacked my capability as a journalist.

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It listed all the instances that Tufayel had criticised me on, unfairly mischaracterising my actions, in ad-
dition to listing one genuine mistake I made in the course of everyday reporting—something not to be
unexpected when every day I was expected to write four stories, often about complicated topics, some-
times with no prior experience in them. Nonetheless, even for this story, I had taken immediate action
needed to resolve and had apologised to editors at the time, the characterisation of what took place in
Laura’s email was deeply maligned.

That was the moment I knew beyond doubt what my gut had been telling me before: there was no valid
reason for this OPCW story not to be published. It was simply being suppressed. I was being attacked
for pushing back against this.

As I have nothing to hide, I will publish Laura’s response in full.

You will see my full response in due course, but first, some further comments about Laura’s criticisms
must be addressed.

Editors at Fault

My first “indiscretion” is rather simple to address. I believe—however I must admit I am not certain, as
the information was never published—that the article Laura is referring to this (https://www.news-
week.com/kurds-strike-deal-putin-assad-syria-donald-trump-criticized-1464950). Regardless of which

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piece it was, the following events took place.

In 2018, confirming the earlier reporting by Hersh, former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis announced that
the Pentagon has no evidence to support the allegations that the Syrian government used sarin in
Ghouta, as reported here by the Associated Press
(https://apnews.com/bd533182b7f244a4b771c73a0b601ec5). As Newsweek did not report this fact (more
evidence of suppression?) I linked to an opinion piece on our website
(https://www.newsweek.com/now-mattis-admits-there-was-no-evidence-assad-using-poison-gas-his-
people-801542) that addressed that report. The first line of that piece links back to the AP story. When
questioned by Tufayel why I did this, I explained that I was simply trying to link to references on our
website, explaining to him the source was AP—ironically, I was trying to help Newsweek gather more
clicks. The information which was ultimately removed from my article was not badly sourced.

The second point listed by Laura—the only occasion out of 156 stories written during my two-month
stint at Newsweek where an article required a correction—raises another serious problem at the publica-
tion: editors tell journalists what to report.

This article (https://www.newsweek.com/facebook-news-boss-campbell-brown-website-attacking-

elizabeth-warren-1471054) was assigned to me by Alfred on Newsweek’s internal messaging system, as
is commonplace for editors to do, and I felt obliged to report the story, although I had concerns and it is
not one I personally would have chosen to do. I raised these concerns with Alfred—whose background
is in video editing, not journalism—but instead of ditching the story, a new angle was suggested and a
new headline was provided too. Feeling that I couldn’t challenge his authority any further without being
rude, I proceeded as best as I could, but in the course of doing so, I made two mistakes: One, I neglected
to reach out for comment on two of the five parties involved (thinking Facebook, who I contacted, would
comment on behalf of the remaining). Two, I wrongly reported that some funds were donated by Mark
Zuckerburg as opposed to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

When the Facebook spokesperson returned my request, she simply pointed me in the direction of tweets
made by the remaining individuals and asked if I could update accordingly. The tweets did not criticize
our reporting, but of the original reporting done by Popular Information (https://popular.info/p/face-
books-top-news-executive-has?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjoyODA5ODYwLCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNjY3MDYs-
Il8iOiJyMkVGeSIsImlhdCI6MTU3MzQ4MzIyNSwiZXhwIjoxNTczNDg2ODI1LCJpc3MiOiJwdWIt-
MTY2NCIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.R06lEhiQ0AIhU7byqstEkxNL3ACY6-OAEHqYg-
MLNoUo), the source assigned to me by Alfred to base my reporting on.

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Once their statements came to my knowledge (which reflected the concerns I had about the article in the
first place), I alerted Alfred immediately and did my best to redress. Laura’s criticism also neglected to
mention that Newsweek’s chief sub-editor—whom I will not name as he has been among a handful of
editors to treat me fairly—was the one to look over the article and he had no problems in publishing my
piece.

This practice of editors telling journalists what to write, with what angle and with headlines already as-
signed is completely backwards and is the cause of numerous problems. How can journalists find genu-
ine newsworthy developments if what to write has already been scripted for them?

I spoke to several Newsweek journalists about this very problem prior to my departure and they shared
the same concerns. This was the very same problem that led to Jessica Kwong’s firing
(https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/2/jessica-kwong-newsweek-reporter-fired-over-
bungled/) a week before my resignation.

Kwong, who I do not know, wrote a story titled “How is Trump Spending Thanksgiving? Tweeting,
Golfing and More,” a day before the day in question—only for it to emerge that Trump made a surprise
visit to Afghanistan. No proper journalist would have written that piece by their own volition—it was
only done because editors were on their tireless crusade for clicks.

In the end, she was fired because she did not approach the White House for comment, although all the
information came from the president’s public diary.

“Dear press office,” her email should have read supposedly. “I am writing a piece that is of no useful public in-
formation, but will be criticising the president for what he choses to do in his leisure time on Thanksgiving. Can
you please provide a statement at your earliest convenience.”

For goodness sake, whatever your opinions are of President Trump, what were most of you doing on
Thanksgiving Day?

Most appallingly, in a team meeting between the New York and London offices following the firing,
where “lessons to be learned” were discussed at length, the editor in question tried to make a joke along
the lines of: “Don’t worry guys! I’ve learned my lesson! I’ll happily edit the story ‘What’s Trump doing
on Christmas Day?” Silence followed. You should have seen the faces of the journalists in the room.

A final note on the contents of Laura’s email, for the rest is addressed in my response.

Yes. I did make adjustments in the content management system and republished some articles. Journal-
ists are permitted to do this if they spot small mistakes—such as in spelling or grammar, for example—
but I did not editorialise as the email claims. And yes. On the white phosphorus story, I did question an
editor’s judgement. It was Nancy’s in fact.

After the article (https://www.newsweek.com/why-united-nations-not-investigating-alleged-white-

phosphorus-attacks-1468042) had been published, she amended the headline so that it was more atten-
tion grabbing, but the grammar she used made it non-sensical and she also didn’t abide by Newsweek’s
own house style in doing so. (She wrote “US” not “U.S.”) I didn’t want an article I spent three weeks
working on to be ruined because of sloppiness. Is there something so wrong with that? For the record: I
am still unhappy with the headline on the piece as it stands.

Now, before I return to my response and to my ultimate resignation, there were several other important
things to note.
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Is Rep. Ilhan Omar a Qatari Spy?

On Saturday, November 30, a day after I sent my initial email to Laura and Nancy, I was working a
weekend shift and there had been a change in the rota: Tufayel was to be the news editor for the day.
There was nothing demonstrably unusual about this, but what did strike me as odd is how I was imme-
diately assigned a story about some relatively unknown congressional candidate who had been kicked
off Twitter for tweeting something in relation to the Democratic Congresswoman of Minnesota, Ilhan
Omar, and allegations that she was a spy.

The nature of the story was not odd in itself, but only seemed strange because of Dimi’s earlier refutation
of my OPCW piece.

“It’s not just about Syria,” he wrote. “This was part of my reluctance to put take up this weird story go-
ing around since yesterday about Ilhan Omar being a Qatari spy. Not a single serious U.S. site picked it
up, which confirms my hunch it’s BS.”

At the time, not knowing about the story, I thought that was fair enough—it seemed like a ridiculous
claim. In fact, when I had seen that line written in Dimi’s refutation, it further enraged me: why was my
provable story about the existence of this leaked letter (verified by Reuters!!!) being smeared by being
placed next to this?

Regardless, when I was assigned the story by Tufayel, I did my best to be professional and I did what I
always did: I pulled up as many resources as I could find on the matter at hand and began to research
and fact-check. That was when I was shocked to discover this report in Al Arabiya (https://eng-
lish.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/11/25/US-rep-Ilhan-Omar-accused-of-being-a-foreign-agent-
legal-deposition.html) about Ilhan.

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The publication acquired a 233-page legal deposition (https://www.docdroid.net/DtiLYBH/bender-affi-

davit.pdf), made to a U.S. district court, by a Kuwaiti-born Canadian businessman by the name of Alan
Bender. He gave evidence against the Qatari emir’s brother, Sheikh Khalid bin Hamad al-Thani, after al-
Thani was accused of ordering his American bodyguard to murder two people and after holding his
hired American paramedic prisoner. In that deposition, Bender claimed to have high connections among
Qatari officials—presumably why he was asked to testify—and it was there that he made the Ilhan spy
allegations.

Now, I have no further evidence to support Alan Bender’s claims—I will be the first to admit I know
very little about Qatari politics—but surely a well-connected businessman’s deposition in a U.S. court of
law did not justify Dimi’s “hunch it’s BS” without providing further evidence. If Alan Bender’s claims
are untrue and he is lying under oath, he has to answer for them. I suddenly realised that this was a test.

Would I get the hint and do my reporting in line with management orders? Or would I continue to re-
port perfectly publishable details that are in the public interest?

Of course, there is the possibility I was assigned the article by mere happenstance, but what took place
after I submitted my draft copy to Tufayel for editing was revealing. The draft I submitted was as
follows.

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Page 1 of 2

A Republican congressional candidate has doubled down and

defended
her permanent
tweetssuspension
that led to
from Twitter.
Danielle Stella, one of five Republican candidates hoping to go toe-to-
toe with
Omar forRep.
Minnesota’s
Ilhan fifth congressional seat in 2020, was banned
Thursday after suggesting
from the platform on the freshman Democrat “should be
hanged,” if unproven
tried for treason and allegations against
her were true.
Stella sent two tweets making the assertions after a Kuwaiti-born
Alan
Canadian
Bender,
businessman,
claimed that Omar was a Qatari asset who used her
positioninformation
funnel of power toto
Iran.
Bender made the allegations in a Florida district court on
subpoenaed to testify
October 23 after he wasagainst the Qatari emir’s brother, Sheikh Khalid
bin Hamadtoal-Thani,
according a deposition acquired by Al Arabiya this week. Al-Thani is
his American
accused bodyguard to murder two people and holding his hired
of ordering
American
prisoner. paramedic
However, the allegations against Omar could not be supported by the
and a spokesperson
available evidence for the Somali-born refugee condemned the
conspiracy
allegations theories
as being for Saudi Arabian
misinformation campaigns.
Following Stella’s tweets, her @2020mncongress account was
suspended
landing page byfor
Twitter.
the account
Her was also made blank and accompanying
text reads:accounts
suspends “Twitter which violate the
Twitter Rules.”
The suspension was further confirmed by a Twitter spokesperson to
“The account
Newsweek was
who permanently suspended for repeated violations of
said:
the Twitter Rules.”
Following the suspension, Stella posted a lengthy Facebook post in
which
her use
she
of defended
words which some alleged
incited violence.
“There are MANY hypocrites rage posting here,” Stella said. “Breathe,
think this through,
logically.

“To clarify, I said, ‘If it is proven [Omar] passed sensitive info to Iran,
she should
treason andbe tried for
hanged.’

Page 2 of 2

“Treason is the only thing mentioned in the constitution for the death
by hanging
penalty, or firing squad. I believe all involved should be
punishable
thoroughly investigated.
“I did not threaten anyone. If you are calling it a threat—you believe
and therefore itisisguilty,
that individual not a threat, it's treason. You and the fake news
#MSM [mainstream
media] are lying by calling it Iynching or

All reasonable journalists, I hope, will not find anything wrong with my reporting here. Despite this, fol-
lowing the submission of my draft, all references to Alan Bender were scrubbed from my piece, and so
too was the link to the Al Arabiya’s story. All that was left of the newsworthy information I provided on
the matter were the words “baseless claims”.

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How was Tufayel so certain that the claims were baseless? Did he have information to the contrary of
what Alan Bender said? Or was there any other journalistic justification for removing information that
was provided in a court of law, although I clearly stated there was no other evidence to currently sup-
port the claims? Was there any good reason at all? I suspect not, other than the fact that it could be
deeply damaging if the allegations emerged to be true, and that management orders had been to sup-
press anything Alan Bender said, as was the same across most media organizations across the U.S.

Curiously, Nancy later amended the article (https://www.newsweek.com/republican-candidate-

danielle-stella-stands-tweets-rep-ilhan-omar-should-hanged-1474870) again, this time changing the
word “baseless” to “unverified”—softening the language, I imagine, in order to not draw unnecessary
attention to it.

This is shown by the content management system (CMS) logs that capture all changes made.

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External control of the media narrative

While all this was going on, and while I waited for a response from Laura, I started to have strong suspi-
cions that something wasn’t quite right with Dimi, the so-called foreign affairs editor. For starters, he
rarely did any foreign affairs editing. He rarely did any editing at all.

Newsweek has a system where reporters paste the relevant CMS link of draft articles ready to be edited
into a “publishme” channel of the internal messaging system and editors make their way down the list,
picking up stories that reporters had filed. Once they are looked over and published, editors dropped
them in another channel called “published_stories” for all to see.

I made a habit of watching this list closely—it was useful to know what other reporters had filed in order
to be able to link to their stories and also for ensuring articles were not repeated accidentally. In the two
months I spent at Newsweek, I saw Dimi post in the “published_stories” channel only a handful of
times. This is odd as most editors publish several stories a day. Instead, his most active contributions to
the messaging system were with funny tweets or articles in the “general” thread. Sadly, I do not have
physical evidence to support this, but the journalists I worked with will know this to be true.

The only times Dimi appeared to be involved is when a story had the potential to be controversial. He
worked on my white phosphorus investigation, made the decision to not publish anything about the
original Ilhan spy claims and rejected my attempts at publishing the OPCW leaks.

While working on that white phosphorus story, before I was fully aware of his background, he spoke to
me of how he co-founded +972 Magazine (https://www.972mag.com/)—a liberal Israeli publication that
started out by covering the 2008-2009 Gaza War. I glanced at his resume and was honored to be working
with such an accomplished foreign affairs journalist. I had genuinely hoped to build a closer relationship
to him.

That was why I was so bewildered when he flatly refused to publish the OPCW revelations. Surely any
editor worth their salt would see this as big? Of course, I understood that the implications of such a
piece would be substantial and not easy to report—it was the strongest evidence of lies about Syria to
date—but surely most educated people could see this coming? Other evidence was growing by the day.

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But no. As the earlier

messages showed,
there was no desire to
report these revelations,
regardless of how
strong the evidence ap-
peared to be. Dimi was
simply happy to defer
to Bellingcat—a clearly
dubious organization
as others have taken
the time to address,
such as here
(https://twitter.com/dga
ytandzhieva/status/120
0100843627991043) and
here (https://twitter.-
com/philipwatson_/sta
tus/12042423007858319
36?s=21)—instead of
allowing journalists
who are more than ca-
pable of doing their
own research to do
their job.

It was this realization that made me start to question Dimi. When I

looked a little deeper, he was the missing piece.

Dimi worked at the European Council on Foreign Relations from 2013

and 2016—the sister organization to the more prevalent think-tank, the
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Some may be asking why this mat-
ters, but the lobbying group—the largest and most powerful in the Unit-
ed States—is nicknamed “Wall Street’s think-tank” for a reason, as the
book by Laurence H. Shoup (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wall-Streets-
Think-Tank-Geopolitics/dp/1583675515) with the same title explains.

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To understand just how influential the body is, it is worth noting that 10 of George H. W. Bush’s top 11
foreign policymakers were members, as was the former president himself. Bill Clinton, also a member,
hired 15 foreign policymakers with CFR membership from a total of 17. George W. Bush hired 14 CFR
members as top foreign policymakers and Barack Obama had 12, with a further five working in domes-
tic policy positions.

Its European sister act is also highly influential, as this graphic from its website about current members
demonstrates.

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It is also worth noting that the CFR’s current chairman is David Rubenstein, co-founder and executive
chairman of the Carlyle Group—the same Carlyle Group which previously described itself as the “lead-
ing private equity investor in the aerospace and the defense industries
(https://www.wired.com/2010/12/wanna-buy-a-piece-of-a-world-controlling-investment-firm/),” until
it probably decided it was not a good look to boast about its war profiteering, though its investments in
those industries remain.

It is the same Carlyle Group that hosted Osama bin Laden’s brother
(https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2003/06/26/c-for-capitalism) as the guest of honor for the
group’s annual investor meeting in Washington D.C. the same day the Twin Towers fell. George H. W.
Bush, an informal advisor to Carlyle, was also present.

Furthermore, one of the CFR’s most notorious exports was former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger—a
man famously described by Christopher Hitchens as America’s greatest ever war criminal. His long list
of crimes against humanity cannot be summarized quickly.

Christopher Hitchens 2001 Conversation with Allan …

Jeffrey Epstein was also a member from 1995 to 2009 and in a PR push, the CFR recently announced its
decision to donate $350,000 to help fight sexual trafficking victims
(https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jeffrey-epstein-s-350k-donations-council-foreign-relations-
go-fight-n1091626), equivalent in amount to the donations received from him. It may be obvious to state,
but the Epstein story is another that’s not being investigated adequately by the media.
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For those wanting to learn more about the influence of the CFR over the years, there is more in this pa-
per published in the political science journal Reviews in American History (https://www.jstor.org/sta-
ble/2702104?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents).

But what about the think tank’s influence on journalism?

I’m unaware if what I will report here is common knowledge to the rest of the industry, but what I dis-
covered when researching this topic is unacceptable to me.

I learned that aside from a large number of prominent journalists holding membership, I discovered that
the CFR offers fellowships for journalists to come work alongside its many State Department and De-
partment of Defensive representatives. A list of historical fellows (https://www.cfr.org/historical-roster-
cfrs-edward-r-murrow-press-fellows) includes top reporters and editors from The New York Times, The
Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and CNN, among others—not forgetting journalists from
Newsweek.

The most prominent CFR member to join Newsweek’s ranks was Fareed Zakaria. After stints at Yale and
Harvard, at the age of 28, Zakaria became the managing editor of Foreign Affairs—the CFR’s own in-
house publication. From there, he became the editor of Newsweek International in 2000, before moving
on to edit Time Magazine in 2010.

When CIA intelligence analyst Kenneth Pollack wrote a book titled The Threatening Storm: The Case for In-
vading Iraq, Zakaria lauded the work and described Pollack
(https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-for-10-years-weve-lied-to-our-
selves-to-avoid-asking-the-one-real-question-2348438.html) as “One of the world’s leading experts on
Iraq.”

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Zakaria’s Newsweek columns (https://www.newsweek.com/authors/fareed-zakaria) prior to the war

also make for interesting reading. “Let’s get real with Iraq (https://www.newsweek.com/lets-get-real-
about-iraq-155735),” one headline reads as early as 2001. “Time to take on America’s haters
(https://www.newsweek.com/time-take-americas-haters-146263),” another one goes on. Others include
“It’s time to do as daddy did (https://www.newsweek.com/its-time-do-daddy-did-143851),” and “In-
vade Iraq, but bring friends (https://www.newsweek.com/invade-iraq-bring-friends-144009).” I could
go on.

Interestingly, once the war had started in 2003, Foreign Affairs—where Zakaria writes to this day—was
ranked first by research firm Erdos and Morgan as the most successful in influencing in public opinion.
It achieved the accolade in 2005 (https://foreignpolicy.com/2005/01/06/so-you-want-to-influence-public-
opinion/) and again in 2006 (https://www.cfr.org/news-releases/foreign-affairs-again-ranked-most-in-
fluential-all-media-us-opinion-leader-study). Results for other years are not known.

Scrolling through LinkedIn and Twitter, numerous individuals listed as journalists have taken the same
path Zakaria has taken. They complete State Department-funded “diplomacy” degrees from prestigious
universities—such as Harvard, Yale, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins, or at the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS) in London—before gritting their teeth at publications or think tanks funded by
the CFR or Open Society Foundations. Once their unquestioning obedience is demonstrated, they slowly
filter into mainstream organizations or Foreign Affairs.

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It also emerged that this is the same path that Dimi has taken. +972 Magazine’s biggest funder
(https://www.972mag.com/how-we-are-funded/) is the Rockefeller Brother’s Fund, whose president and
CEO, Stephen Heintz, is a CFR member. In addition to his work with the ECFR, Dimi is also listed
(https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff86001.php) as a research associate at SOAS.

This conflict of interests may be known to other journalists in the trade, but I will repeat: this is unac-
ceptable to me.

The U.S. government, in an ugly alliance with those the profit the most from war, has its tentacles in
every part of the media—imposters, with ties to the U.S. State Department, sit in newsrooms all over the
world. Editors, with no apparent connections to the member’s club, have done nothing to resist. Togeth-
er, they filter out what can or cannot be reported. Inconvenient stories are completely blocked. As a re-
sult, journalism is quickly dying. America is regressing because it lacks the truth.

The Afghanistan Papers, released this week by the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.-
com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/),
showed further evidence of this. Misinformation, a trillion dollars wasted and two thousand Americans
killed—and who knows how many more Afghanis. The newspapers ran countless stories on this utter
failure, however, none will not tell you how they are to blame. The same mistakes are being repeated.
The situation is becoming more grave. Real journalists and ordinary people need to take back
journalism.

This was the letter I sent to Newsweek when I resigned.

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Tags: CFR, Corruption, Council On Foreign Relations, Henry Kissinger, Journalism, Journalism
Ethics, Newsweek, OPCW, OPCW Leaks Categories: All, Capitalism, Foreign Affairs,
Government

144 thoughts on “Lies, Newsweek and Control of the

Media Narrative: First-Hand Account”

PETER BRANCATO says:

December 21, 2019 at 9:50 am
I stated reading with interest, but didn’t get very far when I encountered “all be it” in place of “al-
beit”. I cannot take such a “journalist” seriously.

REPLY
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0USE4MSM says:
December 21, 2019 at 1:55 pm
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12/29/2019 Lies, Newsweek and Control of the Media Narrative: First-Hand Account | Tareq Haddad

Great article. You did well to leave the sinking ship, Tareq. Consider your resignation not as a setback
but as an opportunity to achieve greater things. If you keep up this level of integrity and tenacity in
following the truth, wherever it may lead, you should have a bright journalistic future ahead of you,
even if it’s not in mainstream media.

REPLY
DN says:
December 21, 2019 at 3:43 pm
Amazing read and insight—-People clamor and drone on about “free speech” completely ignoring
that our news media and institutional journalism at whole have been hijacked and is now nothing
more than a mouthpiece and shield for war profiteers and criminals to humankind—-6 Corporations
control 90% of all US media, and they in turn are beholden to the CIA/War Machine I.E Operation
Mockingbird, etc. People like DIMI REIDER, NANCY COOPER, FAREED ZAKARIA and LAURA
DAVIS are sad and pathetic —I feel sorry for them, they WILL be exposed and there is no place for
them in this new and just World to be.

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STRAIGHT LINE LOGIC
OURCONSTITUTION.INFO says:
December 22, 2019 at 6:36 am
“…The same mistakes are being repeated. The situation is becoming more grave. Real journalists and
ordinary people need to take back journalism…” Thank you for following your conscience. Please
add me to your email list. More horror – please see my book (no cost) at ourconstitution.info “Absent
Due Process Audacity of Evil Students Against Extrajudicial Killings: Rise of the Medical-Military In-
dustrial – An Introduction -“. Glad to answer any questions via email. Welcome any lawyer who may
want to help stop this barbarity, Protect Truth, Free Speech, Journalists, Patients, Whistleblowers, Stu-
dents, and all of us. Protest with me in Miami, or wherever you are. See my protest pics at Outreach.

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CHRIS says:
December 22, 2019 at 5:32 pm
Great to have another formerly mainstream journalist speak out about corporate media and self cen-
sorship. But i have to say, the writing is terrible. The typos are one thing, but the structure of almost
every sentence is awkward and laborious. No wonder that newsweek is so painful to read.

REPLY
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GUY MONTAG says:
December 24, 2019 at 6:08 pm
“… the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) … is nicknamed “Wall Street’s think-tank” for a reason …
aside from a large number of prominent journalists holding membership, I discovered that the CFR
offers fellowships for journalists to come work alongside its many State Department and Department
of Defensive representatives … includes top reporters and editors from The New York Times …”
...

“In a 2012 Alternet interview the late Michael Hastings (former Newsweek Iraq War reporter) was
asked, “are there individual reporters whom you want to call out publicly for their sort of following
the Pentagon line and not doing their job?” He replied, “Yeah. I saw a pretty egregious example with
the New York Times Pentagon correspondent [Thom Shanker] who literally just published the Pen-
tagon spokesperson’s anonymous quotes when he was reporting on my stories … he’s got the official
line from the Pentagon.”

It’s worth noting that Shanker is a member of the CFR. In 2009, I didn’t come away from my own ex-
perience with Shanker (Pat Tillman story) with any confidence in our “watchdog” media (see the
2013 Feral Firefighter blog post “More Lies Borne Out by Facts, If Not the Truth” – (pp. 57 – 59) or my
2009 post, “Lies Borne Out by Facts, If not the Truth” — Senator James Webb, Thom Shanker & The
New York Times and their Whitewash of General McChrystal’s Role in the Aftermath of Pat Till-
man’s Death).

The evening after his 2009 Senate confirmation to lead the Afghan War, McChrystal gave Shanker a
private tour of his new Pentagon HQ! A few months later, Shanker took a sabbatical as a “writer in
residence” at the think-tank CNAS (which worked closely with McChrystal on the Afghan War
“surge) and CNAS hosted his 2011 book release party. Isn’t “access” grand!

As Hastings said, “they call it the Pentagon Press Corps, right? And you sort of think, oh, well it
means the people who kind of watch over the Pentagon and perform the media’s watchdog function,
but no, it’s an extension of the Pentagon.”

REPLY
GUY MONTAG says:
December 24, 2019 at 6:11 pm
“The U.S. Government … has its tentacles in every part of the media … Inconvenient stories are com-
pletely blocked. As a result, journalism is quickly dying. America is regressing because it lacks the
truth. The Afghanistan Papers … showed further evidence of this. … The newspapers ran countless
stories on this utter failure, however, none will not tell you how they are to blame.”
...

Sure, the Generals & Politicians lied to us about the Afghan war. But, as Ted Rall recently wrote,
“they could never have spread their murderous BS … without media organizations like the Washing-
ton Post, which served as unquestioning government stenographers.”

The late Michael Hastings was one of the few exceptions to the rule of corporate media stenographic
lapdogs. Here’s a quote from my paen to Hastings (pp. 16 – 32 of my 2013 Feral Firefighter blog post,
“What Burns Faster, Memories or Flames?”):

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“Hastings’ hallmark as reporter was his refusal to cozy up to power. While other embedded reporters
were charmed by [Gen. Stanley] McChrystal’s bad-boy bravado… Hastings was determined to ex-
pose the recklessness of a man leading what Hastings believed to be a reckless war. … He had felt the
horror of war first-hand … He had little patience for flacks and spinmeisters and will be remembered
for his enthusiastic breaches of the conventions of access journalism. — Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone

About a year ago, when asked what to do about the Afghan War, Gen. McChrystal replied, “… just
kind of muddle along and see what we can do. Back in June 2012, the journalist (and Iraq war in-
fantry veteran) Carl Prine wrote a piece, “McChrystal Clear,” for his “Line of Departure” blog:

“A great many things went unsaid both during McChrystal’s address … There was no mention of his
role in the cover up of the “friendly-fire” slaying of Pat Tillman, including issuing a bogus Silver Star
citation for the Ranger. No one asked him about the pattern of detainee abuse in Iraq by units over-
seen by McChrystal’s command…”

“McChrystal fizzled badly in Afghanistan, and everyone seems to want to dub him a 21st century Sir
Gawain… No matter how bad his insubordination is for our democracy, how much the Tillman fami-
ly and our Army suffered during his “leadership” in Iraq and Afghanistan, or what a lamentable ex-
ample he sets for today’s officers, we not only keep coming back for Stan the Man but make him out
to be something of a prophet and a guide for our children. It’s almost as if America is hooked on
some really powerful McChrystal meth.”

Unfortunately, Prine’s blog has disappeared from the Internet (however, I archived a full copy on pp.
104 – 110 of my 2012 Feral Firefighter blog post “Never Shall I Fail My Comrades”).

REPLY
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GUY MONTAG says:
December 24, 2019 at 6:15 pm
“Until several days ago, I was a journalist at Newsweek. I decided to hand my resignation in because
…. I was given a simple choice. On one hand, I could continue to be employed by the company, stay
in their chic London offices and earn a steady salary … Alternatively, I could leave the company and
tell the truth. … this was a truth that had to be told. I was not prepared to back down on this. … I re-
signed when I was forbidden from reporting on this.”

Like Haddad, the late Michael Hastings (a former Newsweek Iraq War reporter) also refused to back
down from telling the truth. Here’s a few quotes from my paen to Hastings (from pp. 16 – 32 of my
2013 Feral Firefighter blog post, “What Burns Faster, Memories or Flames?”):

“After the [2008] primaries I quit my job at Newsweek. … I had loved my time at Newsweek, for the
most part. But after writing this book, I wanted to keep writing in my own voice. … I no longer cared
as much about playing the career game, playing it safe, and climbing the corporate ladder. Life was
too short to write things that I didn’t fully believe in.”
– Michael Hastings “I Lost My Love In Baghdad” (2010)

“In the early morning hours of June 18th, Rolling Stone contributing editor Michael Hastings was
killed in fiery crash in Los Angeles, Ca. In an instant America lost one of its most talented and fear-
less reporters, one who was dedicated to telling the truth, regardless of where it led. .. Mike personi-
fied, in my view, what a journalist ought to be: challenging of authority when the facts don’t square

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with statements, holding officials accountable for their words and deeds, and showing a willingness
to report the truth even when threatened with loss of access; in a word: fearless.”
— Col. Daniel L. Davis, The Daily Beast

“ … Hastings cared zero percent about losing access to, or offending, the powerful and 100 percent
about the truth. Contrast that with David Gregory and his ilk of overpaid, overfed Beltway big-shots.
They live in a bubble where access to the powerful isn’t everything, it’s the only thing. … They are
court couriers, relaying whispered information and placing an abiding trust in the all-powerful whis-
perers. There really needs to be a word in the English language that describes what they do. I know it
is not “journalism.” — Will Bunch, Philly.com

REPLY
GUY MONTAG says:
December 24, 2019 at 6:30 pm
“Patience, Montag. Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge. Re-
member the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord. You
firemen provide a circus now and then at which buildings are set off and crowds gather for the pretty
blaze, but it’s a small sideshow indeed, and hardly necessary to keep things in line. So few want to be
rebels anymore.” — Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451”
...

Thanks, Haddad, for taking a stand. Here’s one more quote, from my Feral Firefighter blog, about
Michael Hastings. I hope that, instead of “being an object lesson in how bucking the rules ends a ca-
reer” that you “continue to have a career … even a good life!” and thrive. Too few “want to be rebels
anymore” and have the courage & integrity to buck the system:

“… to write honestly about the watery atmosphere of ‘The Club’ would mean leaving it, and life in
the aquarium is too good to leave. … It is that exchange of access for information that keeps the pub-
lic in the dark about the more tawdry and legally suspect aspects of Washington culture. … [Mark]
Leibovich concludes the chapter [on unofficial and official Washington’s reaction to “The Runaway
General”] with the announcement of [Michael] Hastings’ “lifetime banishment” from “The Club.”
His excommunication serves as tidy evidence of the access-for-self-censorship system.

Far from being an object lesson in how bucking the rules ends a career, Hastings went on from the
McChrystal dust-up to, you know, continue to have a career—a good one. I think even a good life! …
He rebelled against the system and, until his untimely death in a car accident last month, thrived. …
His success gives lie to the comfortable illusion that they are somehow trapped in the system, that
they are fish.

… if I had to choose how my colleagues might eulogize me, I would take what people said about
Hastings over what they said about [Tim] Russert any day. Tim Russert was … widely known to be a
great guy. … Important people sucked up to him because he had a TV show that other important
people watched. A TV show whose part in the national conversation was that of an echo chamber.
Michael Hastings was a great guy and a great reporter. He did not echo; he did not just speak truth to
power, he shouted. In “This Town”, Leibovich whispers.”

REPLY
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MARCUS says:
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December 25, 2019 at 8:05 pm

Thanks for the insightful article and your integrity. I hope you will try to team up with the increasing
number of independant media outlets – your talent, honesty and courage must no go to waste. I will
follow your articles, all the best of luck.

REPLY
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28. Pingback: My December reads – steel city scribblings

CREATE A FREE WEBSITE OR BLOG AT WORDPRESS.COM.

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