... flawed data, and questionable conclusions. I'm referring, of course, to the Jamil Hussein brouhaha now turning into a MSM vs. Blogs spitting match. As background, understand that the Associated Press has used the slippery phantasm Mr. Hussein as a source on 61 stories about sectarian violence in Baghdad over the course of the last nine months or so. Yet Mr. Hussein seems not to exist; no one can locate a police captain by that name, and the AP has declined to produce him, instead answering simply with "trust us." Michelle Malkin, Eason Jordan and Curt from Flopping Aces are recreating the TV show "In Search Of ..." Eric Boehlert, writing at Media Matters, has narrowed those 61 stories down to one now discredited report, and stated that the "warbloggers " (a nebulous term that includes who, exactly?) have used that one false report to counter all reporting of chaos in Iraq. In doing so he's truncated quotes inappropriately, but that's another story. Let's take a step aside for perspective, however, and look a little more clinically at the problem.
You're a research scientist. (Okay, you're not, but bear with me here.) You want to test a hypothesis and have devised an experiment to do so. Your design is careful, and thorough, and to be sure you have some independent reviews done to verify the experimental design. You produce data which, due to your care in the design of your experiment, you trust fully. You repeat the study to verify it, and you produce similar data. From these data you draw appropriate conclusions, and you write a paper to publicize your results. It's submitted for review and then accepted and published.
Now the problems for you start. The paper is read by other scientists working in the field, and they notice a serious flaw in your methodology, a flaw to which you were blinded by a significant bias. Your independent reviewers were blinded by a similar bias. You couldn't see the problem with your design, but upon publication it is now well known that this was a profoundly flawed paper and a flawed design. Your conclusions may (or may not) be right, but if the experiment that produced them is garbage, you can't prove it. "Garbage in, garbage out" as they say.
You're hosed. Unless you either prove that your design is correct or back away from the paper - and all other work using that experimental design - all your future work will be scrutinized with a microscope to be sure you're not missing something and biasing your results, or possibly even dismissed out of hand. All your past work will be gone over with a fine tooth comb by other people working in the field, to determine whether they can trust anything you've published. And legitimate scientists who value their credibility will be loathe to use your work for reference to back up their own.
Now let's bring the AP back into the picture. They've been caught, or rather may have been complicit in, a flagrant slight of hand, using a flawed experimental design. The gentlemen whom they've relied upon for accurate information inside Baghdad, a dangerous place to be sure, has been outed as not who he says he is, producing one clearly false tale for them. They now have several choices. They can defend the design against all logic and with strong evidence of the flaw, best done by producing the person they've relied upon and verifying that he is who they say he is; they can withdraw the story and defend the others in which this person was involved, insisting that the error is isolated; or they can admit that the use of this individual itself was the problem and retract all stories in which this individual played a prominent role, unless such stories can be independently and openly verified. This last is the only rational choice if they value their credibility, and to this point they have not chosen it.
Faulty methodology produces flawed data and questionable conclusions. As Eric at Classical Values points out
Lies presented in furtherance of a greater "truth" are not really considered to be lies, at least not in the moral sense. The idea is to persuade people, and if fictional people or incidents have to be used, that's OK, as long as it's in the interest of the greater truth.
The problem I have with this approach is that I don't like being lied to. Even when I agree with the cause the lie is intended to support. I don't find lies emotionally fulfilling because they pollute the process of thought. When lies are presented as "news reports," it's even worse, because it makes me distrustful every time I pick up the paper or turn on the television.
To clear things up for Mr. Boehlert, the claim is not that since Mr.
Jamil Hussein seems not to be who the AP claims he is then things are
going swimmingly in Baghdad. The claim is that the AP's credibility is
on the line, and to this point they have defended indefensible reporting. Unless they follow the course outlined above all
of their reporting from Baghdad must be considered suspect. If, for
instance, Jamil Hussein is part of the Sunni/Al Qaeda terrorist
insurgency, then his efforts with the AP are part of the group's media
campaign. We know that a goal of the terrorists is to generate Sunni
vs. Shiite civil war. Would Iraq be heading toward civil war if the
reporting had been more accurate on the specifics of the violence, and
its genesis, i.e., originating with the terrorists?
We also need to wonder if the AP's now-suspect reporting on violence in Baghdad affected the perception of the problems there by the American public. How badly did this "poison pill" pollute a balanced and rational look at our problems achieving our goals?
