Saturday, July 14, 2007

ABC's Leaky Terrorist Coverage

Al Jazeera West is at it again. ABC TV’s doughty “investigative team,” which specializes in Al Qaeda handouts, is reporting the impending Mother of All Terrorist Attacks, as gleaned from an exclusive interview with Taliban military commander Mansour Dadullah.

"You will, God willing, be witness to more attacks," he told a Pakistani journalist, according to ABC.

“Just last month,” the network notes, “Dadullah presided over what was termed a terror training camp graduation ceremony in Pakistan, supposedly dispatching attack teams to the United States, Canada, Great Britain and Germany.”

The question arises: Why are Dadullah and his “Pakistani journalist” being so good to ABC? Last month, they gave the network an exclusive on the “graduation ceremony,” which was dutifully reported without qualification.

No one would want to dampen the investigative team’s zeal for terrorist coverage, but perhaps Brian Ross and his crew are cultivating their sources a bit too much.

Terrorists must have their Scooter Libbys, too, and it would be a shame if American journalists hadn’t learned to be more skeptical of all leakers bearing gifts.

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