Bloggers Get No Respect: Dirty Bomb Edition

We’re really sick of journalists who follow up on information they read on unattributable, who then fail to credit us for breaking the story first.

Bloggers respect other bloggers, but it seems like journalists in the old media are embarrassed to admit when they were scooped by someone in pajamas doodling around on their home computer. For example….

A few days before the inauguration last month, a friend sent me a briefing prepared by the Washington Regional Threat Assessment Center that gave some security background on preparations for the big day.

Most of it was boring and seemingly pointless crap about random unrelated crimes and other news. Seriously, what does a report about whooping cough in Pennsylvania have to do with security for the inauguration? An assault with intent to rob in DC?  Doesn’t that happen every day?

It had me thinking of writing a post about how the WRTAC, the DC government’s intelligence fusion center–run by the DC Metro Police Department–was primarily serving the cause of bureaucracy by creating more reports no one would read.

But after wading through a lot of bullshit, I found a gem of an FBI Intelligence Information Report (IIR) about how police in Maine had discovered radiological materials, dirty bomb components, and literature with instructions on how to build one in the home of an Obama-hating white supremacist. His wife had shot and killed the son of a bitch in December after suffering years of abuse, which led to exposure of the cache.

Prudence and I were kind of surprised that no one from the mainstream media followed up on the report immediately, until Dana Wilde of the Bangor Daily News contacted us yesterday:

“We read on your website your story about James Cummings of Belfast, Maine, who was killed by his wife in December, and who your story says had materials for a dirty bomb in his basement according to an FBI report. Here at the Bangor Daily News, we’re trying to verify the FBI report. Can you let us know where we can find the FBI original?”

I sent her what I had, which sparked a series of questions from her about who she could call to verify the WRTAC report, what the WRTAC was, if it was a federal agency, etc.  She apparently wasn’t familiar with the awesome power of The Google.

Despite my busy day, I assisted her as best I could. So it kind of surprised, and definitely offended, me that the Bangor Daily News follow-up on my post minimized acknowledgment that unattributable.com broke the story. The very last line of the story asserts:

The FBI field intelligence report was apparently first reported on by unattributable.com, an online magazine which covers and blogs on current events.

Not “apparently,” you lazy reporter, it was most certainly first discovered and reported on by unattributable.com.

Wikileaks had apparently uploaded the same WRTAC report in which I found the FBI IIR, but they didn’t even realize what they had until the Bangor Daily News contacted them to inquire about the unattributable.com story.

But whatever, I guess Wikileaks markets itself as a reliable source of leaked documents, whereas we brand ourselves inveterate gossips, so you might say we suffer from self-inflicted credibility problems.

The Bangor Daily News cited Wikileaks in the top of their story, which led the website to issue a press release announcing a document that has been sitting unnoticed on their homepage for a few weeks, thus perpetuating the original slight.

I tell you I’m fucking sick of it. I’m fucking sick of reporters reading something on our site, following up on it, and then pretending like we don’t exist. (You know who you are!)

I know we call ourselves gossips. Part of the reason is to insulate ourselves from lawsuit.  We don’t have a big media organization backing us to underwrite our expenses if someone decided to follow through on their threats to sue us for libel.  Libel suits require context, and if our self-advertised context is as mouthy blabbering bitches, then any legal action would be hard-pressed to prove malicious intent for something we post.

Further, I will freely admit we don’t (or rarely) make phonecalls or do interviews to verify information that comes into our hands.  Our professional endeavors take precedence.  We don’t make any money from unattributable.com; we just do this for fun.

What we do, however, is get the ball rolling for those who have full-time jobs reporting on things that interest us.  We give other journalists the basis to call up government officials and say, “There’s been a report that….”

So it would be nice if you guys could show us a little appreciation in return.

If anyone is thinking of “breaking” the story about the possible Israeli spy in the White House press corps, you’ll get to see the bad side of the Dogoods.

I apologize for the rant, but this wasn’t the way I wanted to start my day.  It’s beautiful outside, so maybe I’ll go for a hike.  Don’t really feel like writing right now.