Several days ago I noted that ABC News reporting on Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan's - the alleged Fort Hood shooter- ties to terrorists was extremely dubious, lacking any specifics, and stoking anti-Muslim sentiment with negligent reporting.
The New York Times, however, has the story that ABC should have written and provides compelling details and support for the allegations. In other words, while ABC was journalism MIA, NYT shows us how it is done. Here are the details about Hasan:
Intelligence agencies intercepted communications last year and this year between the military psychiatrist accused of shooting to death 13 people at Fort Hood, Tex., and a radical cleric in Yemen known for his incendiary anti-American teachings.
Unlike the ABC article, which ONLY told us the following:
U.S. intelligence agencies were aware months ago that Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan was attempting to make contact with people associated with al Qaeda, two American officials briefed on classified material in the case told ABC News.
You can see the difference immediately. The New York Times article tells us the nature of the "contact" which appears to be communications, so email is likely. This article also tells us that there were multiple communications - again, likely email. We also know that authorities - likely NSA - intercepted these communications last year.
The ABC article, however, tells us that Hasan was "attempting to make contact months ago with al Qaeda." Clearly, Hasan did make contact according to NYT, multiple times last year with a radical cleric, not al Qaeda.
(more after the fold)
The ABC article gave us nothing after the explosive allegations they reported. Nothing at all to support the "news" of it. They got the basic facts wrong as well, such as Hasan's alleged attempt at communications vs. Hasan's actual communications.
In addition, the ABC article does not tell us the nature of the contact or the number of times. For all we know, it could have been smoke signals.
NYT, however, gives us a great deal more in the following graphs:
But the federal authorities dropped an inquiry into the matter after deciding that the messages from the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, did not suggest any threat of violence and concluding that no further action was warranted, government officials said Monday.
Major Hasan’s 10 to 20 messages to Anwar al-Awlaki, once a spiritual leader at a mosque in suburban Virginia where Major Hasan worshiped, indicate that the troubled military psychiatrist came to the attention of the authorities long before last Thursday’s shooting rampage at Fort Hood, but that the authorities left him in his post.
So there were a good many times that Hasan had in fact communicated with Awlaki, at least "10-20 messages." It looks like these communications were by telephone or email or both. According to NYT, the authorities investigated the communications and found nothing to suggest violence. Of course we know that last week Hasan murdered his fellow soldiers.
More from NYT
Counterterrorism and military officials said Monday night that the communications, first intercepted last December as part of an unrelated investigation, were consistent with a research project the psychiatrist was then conducting at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington on post-traumatic stress disorder.
“There was no indication that Major Hasan was planning an imminent attack at all, or that he was directed to do anything,” one senior investigator said. He and the other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity, saying the case was under investigation.
Note that the NYT tells us that some of their sources are counterterrorism and military officials. If you go back to the opening graph of the ABC article, they tell us their sources are "two American officials."
We also learn that the people talking to NYT have direct experience with Hasan and/or have investigated him, possibly even worked with him. The ABC sources, on the other hand, were two people ONLY "briefed," not having first-hand knowledge. Yet they went to press with that explosive report.
In short, NYT got the story. ABC did not have the story, but negligently ran a piece on such a sensitive topic.
We still know nothing
All of that aside, what is becoming clear and what we have already concluded earlier is that Hasan was radicalized in recent years. We know this. What we don't know is what set him off. What we don't know is if he was part of an operation or a lone soldier gone insane. What we don't know is a good deal.
Again, given the subject matter, it is important to proceed slowly and carefully in reporting information about this case. NYT did a fine job in providing not only allegations, but details to support those allegations. ABC News failed to get the story and was negligent in running such a hack piece.
On a side note, what was this research project mentioned above that involved Hasan's communications? That requires deeper looking into.
I also think authorities are going to be hammered over how they handled Hasan after they became aware of him, as they should. But again, let's be careful, we really don't know what the investigation looked like from their end of things.
