Those fake rape photos

It was 10 days ago now that WorldNetDaily first blew the whistle on the fake rape photos that were being disseminated internationally in an effort to exaggerate the extent of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.

Explicit photos depicting rape of Iraqi women by American GIs were picked up from porn sites in the U.S. and abroad by Arab and Muslim propagandists and posted on Internet sites and published in newspapers.

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Certainly, these horrifying bogus images of brutality have persuaded millions that the prisoner abuse scandal is far worse than it really is.

Perhaps those expectations are par for the course in the Arab and Muslim world where hatred for the West runs deep. But how does one explain the reaction of the Boston Globe when a city councilor challenged the paper to investigate the authenticity of the already discredited photos?

The Boston Globe published them.

No checking.

No verification.

Not even as much as a Google search was performed by the reporters and editors involved.

If even this kind of cursory search had been done, the previous WorldNetDaily articles would have popped up. One U.S. porn site had already shut down as a result of the WND series.

What can one say about such sloppy journalism?

Does it make you angry?

Were the editors at the Boston Globe repentant?

Guess what?

The staff at the Boston Globe was furious at WorldNetDaily for exposing their gaffe.

Within minutes of the posting of the story, the Globe reporter and editors were angrily demanding WND editors retract the story, pull it from the website, make it go away.

Why?

The reporter first told WND editors that our reporter, Sherrie Gossett, had not identified herself as a journalist.

After Gossett produced e-mails in which she clearly identified herself as a journalist and offered up links to four previous stories she had written on the subject of the bogus rape photos in an effort to help the Globe, the story changed.

Then one of the editors told me our reporter had failed to explain she was eliciting information for the purpose of preparing a story.

I explained patiently to this editor that in my nearly 30 years in this business I couldn't recall a single instance in which I said to an interview subject that I was eliciting information for the purpose of preparing a story. That is understood. I've also been interviewed dozens of times by journalists and never once has one explained to me in advance that he or she was eliciting information for the purpose of preparing a story.

Yet, such was the level of embarrassment at the Boston Globe that staffers were grasping at straws this week in an effort to cover their own shame.

Unfortunately, as we've seen with the history of these photos published by the Globe, they are not merely journalistic embarrassments, they truly hurt America's position in the war in Iraq and the broader war against Islamist terrorism.

More than 24 hours after publishing the photos, the Boston Globe had still not offered up a correction.

Too many Americans, perhaps the Boston Globe included, are eager to see the USA get a black eye in Iraq. They are ready, willing and able to expect the worst about our conduct in this war. Some are projecting, before the evidence is in, this scandal is just part of the systematic and widespread human rights abuses perpetrated by the U.S. military.

Without wasting any more time, without fueling any more anti-American hatred and before endangering any more American lives, the Boston Globe should do the right thing – make a full and complete retraction of those photos.

And maybe the Globe editors should thank WND for bringing this matter to their attention instead of blaming us for their embarrassment.