So the New York Times finally retracted #Caliphate.

It's not enough. The problem goes much deeper than one lying source, one tainted podcast, one horrible reporter.

We need to take a hard look at ourselves. All of us. Not those of us who produce the news; we who consume it too.

@ZahraHankir & @Gottesdiener both reminded me that I've been calling out now-disgraced @nytimes reporter @rcallimachi's "reporting" for five years now.

I did a search & it made me furious all over again.

Let's take a look, shall we?

The first time was five years ago, when she started spreading the widely believed lie that the terrorists who killed 130 people in Paris were Syrian refugees, not EU citizens.

It's hard to overestimate how much damage—how much suffering, how much death—this one lie has led to.

By inextricably linking refugees to Islamic State violence in the public imagination, this one lie has single-handedly killed countless people.

I do not say this lightly.

All those refugees dying in the Mediterranean, or in Libyan slave camps, because nobody will take them in?

Here's NATO commander Philip Breedlove telling Congress that ISIS is "spreading like cancer" among refugees.

The EU & the US both invoked this poisonous, racist narrative to justify their historic violations of the Geneva conventions on refugees. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/01/refugees-isis-nato-commander-terrorists

Here's a feel-good NYT story about Canadians taking in refugees. Because of this tainted, lying narrative, even a feel-good story like this feels the need to mention the possibility—WHICH WAS NOT REAL—that the Canadians might be taking in terrorists "posing as refugees" instead.

FACT:

Those Islamic State members who went to Syria? They were EU citizens. With EU passports.

They were not Syrians. They were Belgians & Frenchmen.

The Paris attackers were EU citizens who infiltrated Syria—NOT the other way around.

The story does not mention this fact.

Another fact they left out: ALL REFUGEES ARE RIGOROUSLY, OBSESSIVELY SCREENED. Especially the kind who are accepted into refugee resettlement programs like the one in this story.

But this historic lie—that all refugees are potentially ISIS—had horrific, lasting consequences.

Trump would weaponize this lie in his hateful retelling of Oscar Brown's The Snake:

But it wasn't just him.

Here's Chuck Schumer & other Democrats—DEMOCRATS, YALL—suggesting we "pause" taking in refugees. https://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/syrian-refugees-democrats-paris-216032

This lie—that refugees are dangerous, that they're all potentially ISIS—was the basis for the deep historic shame that was the EU-Turkey deal.

A historic violation of international laws & norms.

The model for Trump's "Keep Them in Mexico" policy.

Both have led to many deaths.

Do I need to point out the parallel between this & the anti-refugee hysteria of the 1930s, when the US refused to take in thousands of European Jews—accused, at the time, of harboring dangerous ideologies? Many of whom later died in the Holocaust? Do I?

https://twitter.com/Stl_Manifest 

By early-to-mid-2018, many reporters & academics were raising serious questions about Callimachi's work. @rafiazakaria, who was one of them, is compiling a list: https://twitter.com/annia/status/1315681718913961984.

As @benyt wrote last month, other @nytimes reporters were raising alarms internally...

... only to be told they were "jealous" of her success.

If you know the reporters named in @benyt's piece—like @ABarnardNYT & @cjchivers, & I've no doubt many others not named—you know that's a laughable claim.

These are not self-promoters.

This is not about ~careers.~

This is about death & incalculable misery that has been done, & cannot ever be undone, to people in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa & beyond.

It's about 20,000 airstrikes on Raqqa & Mosul. Countless civilians killed—because, in the public mind, they're all potentially ISIS.

It's about refugees drowning, or starving, or selling their daughters to rich khaleejis in order to eat.

Because nobody will take them. Because they're all—potentially!—ISIS.

It's about the hundreds of children I would see on the streets of Beirut every. single. fucking. day.

Begging for food, money, milk. Huddled together, freezing, in the cold winter rain. Crying because they were hungry.

Here's Walid. He is/was one of them. He worked shining shoes but he should have been in school.

He was just a kid. He loved cats:

Because nobody would take them.

Because they were all, potentially, ISIS. All "cancer."

This is the power of lies.

Which brings me to January of this year, 2020, when 45 was flirting with a war on Iran. Remember that?

Who do you think was first to cheerlead? First in line for the Judith Miller Prize in Distinguished War-Drum Beating & the Stenographic Arts?

If you said @rcallimachi, you are correct!

Cue the anonymous Trump administration sources dangling shocking revelations—exclusive! My sources tell me!

All so juicy you don't notice they're completely evidence-free.

I did a long takedown of that one: https://twitter.com/annia/status/1213513396215308290

Why does all this matter? ISIS is evil, right? What they did was real. And the Iranian regime, they're no angels either. So what's the harm in documenting their atrocities... even if you break a few rules along the way? That's what it takes to get the story out. Right?

Wrong.

The @nytimes has other reporters who do not bend the rules. Who do not f**k over helpless people for the sake of a juicy anecdote. Who do not print dubiously sourced stories, or loot documents from war zones, or normalize racist language like "Muslim aggressors" in their work.

We have a saying in the news business: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.

That standard seems to have been thrown out the window when it came to Callimachi's coverage. Why?

I have a guess—readers gobbled it up, & that meant $$$. But that's just a guess.

I hope the @nytimes will do a thorough re-investigation of ALL Callimachi's coverage, not just the infamous Caliphate podcast.

For you, dear reader, some advice: please remember this debacle next time you get all excited about some thrilling, titillating tale from far-off lands.

Remember that it's easy to spread stories about people in other countries—especially the kinds of people that, as @benyt points out, aren't exactly going to call up & demand a correction.

(Fun fact: ISIS loves negative press—it's great for recruiting.)

The great Les Payne, whose book on Malcolm X just won the National Book Award, had a name for this. He called it "ooga-booga journalism."

Okay I have a lot more to say but now I'm late for a meeting, so as always, if you've made it this far, THANK YOU FOR READING!

Okay I’m back & still hopping mad. “the NYT has not retracted the series, but rather has put Michael Barbaro’s daily-style interview w Baquet & Mazzetti atop the caliphate page,” my friend @RobertNeuwirth points out. “Like it’s just one more part of the podcast.”

“the Times reckons only w the damage done to the Times — but not the damage done in the wider world.”

(I haven’t listened to it yet, I’m too f’ing angry.)

I hope they do some honest self-examination.

This isn’t just about Callimachi. Why did editors let this stuff slide?

Why did they repeatedly shield her from accountability? Why did they allow ethics violations from her that they wouldn’t have from others? Why did they hire an Islamophobe who speaks zero Arabic as their ISIS reporter?

I have an answer, & it’s not pretty.

I hope I’m wrong, but:

Western news outlets apply different standards when it comes to stories about Muslims & Arabs.

You can get away with some outrageous bulls**t if you’re writing about the Middle East. I’m sorry, it hurts to say this, but it’s a fact.

Not just at the Times, either.

This is a bigger problem. It goes beyond Callimachi, or her editors. It’s on us too—news consumers, people who read stuff.

Why the endless appetite for sensationalized stories? I’m including myself here, I’m not immune to this stuff. Why?

I’ll leave you with this thought:

What’s the story we’re lapping up today that’s going to be the next Caliphate tomorrow? The story that seems too good to be true, that excites us in a way we don’t examine as much as we should? Does it demonize people, esp people our society finds it convenient to demonize?

On that thought: thank you for reading! good night, and good luck.

(Not-so-fun fact: did you know beloved journalistic icon Edward R. Murrow supported the internment of Japanese-Americans during WII with viciously racist rhetoric? George Clooney left that part out of the movie)