Back in the days of the Bush administration, Jason Leopold was an institution at Daily Kos at one time. He was an up and coming investigative journalist who had the ability to go where the corporate media wouldn't in investigating the Bush Administration. However, all that came crashing down in May of 2006. Leopold wrongly claimed that Karl Rove was about to get indicted over Plamegate. It turned out to be completely wrong and Leopold's reputation, as well as Truthout's, took a serious hit.
I felt (and still do) that in order to create a new media infrastructure, then we needed to do better than Judith Miller. But on the other hand, we are dealing with grey here, not black and white. Pro Publica was easy, it turned out. This is a lot more problematic.
After the Rove fiasco, Leopold went on to found his own outfit, The Public Record, while returning to Truthout as lead investigative reporter after he had left for a time. Here is a sampling of their work.
Truthout:
"Mrs. Clinton can have her factories"
Translation of an interview with a Haitian factory worker who had to work for a maximum of $30 for every two weeks for a factory that Hillary Clinton had helped open. The workers are not blind.
North Carolina -- A Banana Republic for Dirty Energy
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how North Carolina's GOP supermajorities were planning to suppress the vote. They are also seeking to create a banana republic for dirty energy interests.
Zero Manufacturing Jobs Added
The economy, despite the lower unemployment, is still not good -- many people have simply dropped out of the workforce. And no manufacturing jobs have been added.
The Public Record:
US, UK Holding Detainee who Knows Too Much
Allegedly, the US and the UK are in collusion to hold a detainee who knows too much about the lies leading up to the Iraq War.
Suspicious circumstances surrounding the deaths of two Guantanamo detainees
Leopold says based on newly released autopsy reports that two detainees died in suspicious circumstances.
Government Snooping on Guantanamo Detainees
The mail of three defendants were ransacked and seized according to this piece.
NOW, LET'S TURN TO THE PROBLEMATIC ASPECTS.
The first, obviously, is the indictment of Rove that never happened. What it all comes down to is sources. If a reporter has an anonymous source giving them information, then they have to be absolutely sure that source is a truthful person who is telling them the truth and is in a position to be able to make such an assertion. One of the first rules of journalism is that it's better to be late than wrong.
The other is discussed here, about an article of Leopold's that Salon removed:
In September 2002, following a two-week investigation, Salon removed from its website an article authored by Leopold about Army Secretary Thomas E. White's role in the Enron collapse, due to questions about the validity of an e-mail and allegations that portions of the article had not been adequately credited to the Financial Times. The disputed e-mail was said to have been from White, telling the recipient to "Close a bigger deal to hide the loss." According to Salon, Leopold's article "used seven full paragraphs amounting to 480 words, virtually verbatim, from the FT. There were two attributions to the FT within the passage, but they appeared to apply only to the specific sentences that contained them, not to the full passage." Leopold later admitted that he had been careless by not providing the FT with additional credit, but insisted that Salon's editors had all the relevant documents, including the disputed White email, before the story was published. Paul Krugman of the New York Times, who wrote a piece based in part on Leopold's work, also had to backpedal, acknowledging that he should not have cited the e-mail.
Salon removed the story from its website and said that Leopold had plagiarized text from the FT, but the article remains in the Nexis archives. Leopold said he had slightly misquoted the email, which should have read "Close a bigger deal. Hide the loss before the 1Q". White denied sending the email in a letter he sent to The New York Times, and when Salon's editors contacted Leopold's source, the source denied speaking to him. The Village Voice reported, "Obviously, Leopold made mistakes, but it's not at all clear they justify a full repudiation of the story or a revocation of his journalistic license. As Paul Krugman told the Voice, 'Everything else in that story checked out. The substance of his reporting was entirely correct.'" Commenting on the case, Kerry Lauerman of Salon said that "Leopold definitely represents the dark side of the web ... he became this sort of hero for throngs of people online".
NOW, FOR THE GOOD
Leopold came to prominence in 2001 when he successfully helped break the Enron story. His work was cited on the floor of Congress and the NPR did a whole special program, "Blind Trust," on his work. His reporting helped turn the perception of Enron from Wall Street darlings into ponzi scammers.
And he has done some of his best work after the Rove fiasco. He broke the news about the BP Spill; it was subsequently cited by 60 Minutes, Digital Journal, and CNN, all of whom cited his work and all of whom looked at different angles.
Leopold and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation broke a story about the Air Force using Biblical imagery to justify the use of nuclear weapons and force. The Air Force materials quoted a Nazi in the material. The material was subsequently removed and the story helped raise awareness about a rampant culture of religious indoctrination within the Air Force.
Leopold obtained documents confirming many anecdotal reports that Guantanamo detainees were given psychoactive drugs. This story shows his strong suit -- being able to effectively use the FOIA to obtain documents that create news stories. There were many anecdotal reports out there, but this confirmed these reports.
My common sense would say that we should look at any such stories individually for accuracy. This has to be a continuous process of striving for accuracy. But I'd like to know what you think, both good and bad. Does one bad story permanently disqualify a reporter as a source of information? Or is there an ongoing pattern of this sort of reporting?