Η “αποκάλυψη” του Brady Kiesling
(Serafim schools Katrina, or how a high-circulation Greek daily turns Brady Kiesling’s informed comment into a string of “revelations”. The “revelations” are limited to Kiesling’s summary of known facts about the case – facts Kiesling probably got from Greek media accounts in the first place. And since Kiesling implies that any such covert operation has to be sanctioned by the US ambassador, the headline confidently proclaims: “[Eavesdropping] had US ambassador’s approval.” Kiesling’s piece is great commentary, and is newsworthy as such, esp. for an American audience. It is certainly not an exposé. For a Greek view on the substantive aspect of the story, read here.)
Διαβάστε το πολύ καλό και σίγουρα newsworthy σχόλιο του J. Brady Kiesling στο Nation. Διαβάστε και το σχετικό ρεπορτάζ στη χτεσινή Ελευθεροτυπία. Και μετά εξηγήστε μου πώς είναι δυνατόν ένας σοβαρός – και με άριστη γνώση της αγγλικής – δημοσιογράφος να βαφτίζει “αποκάλυψη” τον ‘ενημερωμένο σχολιασμό’ μιας (βάσιμης) εικασίας. Πρόκειται για εικασία την οποία ο σχολιαστής απλά αναπαράγει, άντε υιοθετεί διακριτικά – στηριζόμενος πάντως σε γνωστά σε όλους ευρήματα τρίτων.
Τα μεγάλα γέλια είναι βέβαια στο πρωτοσέλιδο: εκεί όπου ο Kiesling μας… αποκαλύπτει αυτά που ενδεχομένως είχε διαβάσει προ εβδομάδων στην ίδια την “Ε”: ότι δηλαδή «οι υποκλοπές προωθούντο από 4 σταθμούς με κέντρο την πρεσβεία των ΗΠΑ»*. Αποκάλυψη που ασφαλώς στοιχειοθετεί την ακόμα πιο τρανταχτή του τίτλου. Priceless. [Σχετικά: lazopolis]
[Update: Ο B.K. γράφει γι’ αυτά και άλλα στην προσωπική του σελίδα.]
*ακριβής μετάφραση του “The intercepted calls were forwarded from four cellular antennas. Their coverage circles overlapped atop the US Embassy”…
—Yorgos
7 σχόλια
δείτε το “blog back” στο άρθρο του Nation..
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060320/kiesling
Thanks for making an important point. In fairness to the journalist involved, the Eleftherotypia headline was written not by him but by people whose job it is to sell newspapers, not to inform the public…
True – although it’s not unfair to argue that portions of the piece itself were misleading.
Financial and political motives aside, I guess the Eleftherotypia case also reflects popular frustration at the apparent unwillingness of Greek authorities to dig deeper. If we can’t find a whistleblower, we may have to invent one =)
I’d like to be optimistic, but I really don’t expect plausible answers, or any kind of closure to this story. Worse, I’m afraid that today’s reasonable hypotheses will most likely feed into tomorrow’s paranoid politics.
Thanks for your comment.
I had hoped for informed commentary by the likes of Bruce Schneier, but his first post on the subject got turned into the usual Slashdot-like melee, while his second one (seemingly) misses the point entirely.
by people whose job it is to sell newspapers, not to inform the public
Knowing “E”‘s tendencies for sensationalist writeups, I’d concede the point to BK. It used to be “all the news that’s fit to print” (NYT’s masthead logo), now it’s “all the news that’s fit to sell”.
Idle speculation: I wonder how “E” would cover the Plame case in NYT’s place…
I popped over here after doing some technorati search on the subject as I was interested in teh Greek blogs coverage.
I worked in Greece for about 10 years in the mid 80’s to mid 90’s. I used to laugh at all the conspiracy theories and chide my Grek friends. sure, in teh big picutre mos tof Greece’s decsions in thies centruy have been made by others, but I felt most Greeks took the idea of consipracies too seriously. But I keep in touch with a lot of former expats who used to work in Greece. They are all sober, mesured people, and it is clear to all of us this was a US operation
I don’t follow Takis Michas ()the author of the E peice) much in Eleftherotypia, but I have read a number of pieces he has written in the Wall Street Journal and a number of things he has had to say while flogging his book when it was translated into English. My take is he offers a gross misrepresentation of Greece when writing in the English language press. He is the main purveyor of the idea Greeks have a hyper exagerrated anti-Americanism, an assertion which I have found to be false, especially compared to most of Europe (“old” and “new”).
But here we have a real event. connecting the dots on this one is not complex at all. If one considers means, motive, who was tapped (even the American phone was a phone loned to a Greek) it is clear as day.
This is also highly disfunctional in the effort to gain support of tthe GWOT, if govenments know that thye themselves will be tapped, exploited , corrupted, not to mention embarrased, on interests outside the GWOT.
The source of “anti-Americanism”, the source of sagging support on the GWOT is to be found in our own back yard.
If I was a Greek I would send half th bill for the Olympic security, which Greece was BLACKMAILED into spending over to the White House.
Here is my take
Oneiros, they’d probably do the NYT routine, minus the Calame piece, the Keller piece, the massage, the manicure and the steak dinner =)
Henry, I agree that known facts make it more than likely that the US intelligence community was involved in this. On the other hand, we’re still very much in the dark and there are always new twists to keep us entertained — most recently the revelation that the bug was actually activated after the 2004 Games (this was disclosed today, in the preliminary report by the ‘Hellenic Authority for the Information and Communication Security and Privacy’ (sic)).
As for anti-American sentiment in Greece: I think it is indeed somewhat exaggerated, but it’s something that became marked after the Balkan wars of the mid-90s, and esp. the NATO intervention in Kosovo. And then came Dubya..
Απαράδεκτα παραπλανητικό το άρθροο του Μίχα. Αν και το άρθρο του Kiesling υπονοεί πως οι Αμερικανοί έκαναν τις υποκλοπές (θα έλεγα πως είναι αρκετά ασαφής), στο άρθρο του Μίχα ο Kiesling παρουσιάζεται σαν πηγή που επιβεβαιώνει πως οι Αμερικανοί έκαναν όντως τις υποκλοπές.