Lessons from the Seymour Hersh story

Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh's London Review of Books article The Killing of Osama bin Laden has caused a minor meltdown in the news.

Yet, we could have read the basic bullet points [pun intended] as early as August 2011 under the heading Bin Laden turned in by informant - courier was cover story.

This was a blog post by R.J. Hillhouse, one of my favorite Michigan ladies. Even before Hillhouse, others spoke up, for example former CIA operative Robert Baer.

Despite these and other reports, Mr. Hersh's piece was attacked from many sides. One of the most infamous hit jobs was delivered by online site VOX.
Vox represented something of a template for others: no new facts countering Mr. Hersh, the sloppiest of research (dates wrong in the first version) plus famous conspiracy critic Cas Sunstein thrown in.
Next on the slightly more credible nay-sayer side was CNN expert Bergen, the man who claims too have written "the book on bin Laden", who claims Mr. Hersh wrote nonsense.

Only with NBC reporting that there might be some truth to Hersh and with the New York Times saying a detail rings true, did a little bit of sanity return to the debate.

Lesson 1: ad hominem rules the day
You can publish almost whatever you want but as soon as important people or some larger publication notices, be prepared for the "kook attack" - you being accused of being the kook.
In the case of Mr. Hersh, there is a strong element of ageism. I am sure if you ask him, he will be the first one to caution about potential unfavorable consequences of getting old but don't ever underestimate a well functioning older mind.

Lesson 2: it not what is said but who said it
While some media outlets, including the New York Times and TheIntercept, mentioned the Hillhouse blog, they did not go as far as our statement.
It took a journalist with the credentials of Mr. Hersh to make the rest of the media and the politicians pay close attention.

Lesson 3: framed in terms of liberals vs. conservatives, pro- & anti-president
The New Republic came up with a neat quadrant phrasing the debate in these terms. Of course, the quadrant looks persuasive, and it fits into the simple left-right paradigm of reporting.

We prefer the circle graph shown in this posting by journalism professor J. Rosen.

A lot of people are hard at work trying to push Mr. Hersh into the "Sphere of deviance".

Lesson 4: avoiding the hard questions
Funny how media outlets perform wild speculation but stop short of asking relevant questions. But one of our Michigan ladies interjected a nice one:  While we're obsessing abt Hersh, anyone started wondering whether Zawahiri has limited movement under ISI's guidance?

One more thing:
Though not essential to this post, here is our take on Mr. Hersh: the President himself spoke of cooperation with Pakistan when he arrived at the podium after his "victory strut". An obvious giveaway was the photo of old bin Laden in front of an old screen - an old man, probably suffering from Parkinson's or one of the other "shaking diseases".

But we are willing to listen to adherents of the official story if you can assure us you looked for the people who turned off the electricity that night and could not find them.