MENTIRAS, mentiras y más mentiras las que diseminan La Vanguardia y Ediciones Apóstrofe: ayer, el diario barcelonés publicó una entrevista con un ex-Marine, Jimmy Massey, que ha publicado un libro, Cowboys del infierno (título original: "Kill, Kill, Kill"), en el que Massey habla de las supuestas atrocidades cometidas por él y sus compañeros en Iraq (requiere registro):

- Usted se declara como un asesino psicópata entrenado.

- El entrenamiento al que es sometido un marine se basa en la deshumanización. La violencia se convierte en la manera de relacionarse, un ritual aceptado, al igual que el alcohol, las drogas y el sexo perverso.

- ¿Cómo eran esos entrenamientos?

- Las torturas que sufrieron los presos de Abu Graib (Bagdad) y que escandalizaron al mundo eran parte de nuestro entrenamiento.

- ¿Ustedes sufrían esas torturas?

- Sí. Primero te agotan físicamente y después empiezan los abusos verbales: te insultan, te escupen, te empujan, se te mean encima..., hasta que anulan tu personalidad y comienza la reprogramación.

- ¿Cuáles son las consignas?

- Los civiles son una manada de ovejas, unos débiles mentales, y nosotros somos guerreros, podemos morir en cualquier momento, por eso el libertinaje está permitido y volarle a alguien la cabeza a 500 metros es una machada, lo he hecho muchas veces.

- ¡¿. ..?!

- Tu primer muerto se celebra, es un acto litúrgico, un bautismo de sangre. A partir de ahí, matar se convierte en un gozo casi sexual, llegas al nirvana, te sientes poderoso.

Y sigue así.

El problema es que desde noviembre del año pasado se sabe que Massey es un fraude, un tipo con problemas psiquiátricos que inventó todo.

La impostura de Massey quedó en evidencia en un artículo de Ron Harris en el Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. Ha pasado a sus archivos de pago, por lo que enlazo con el Seattle Times que lo republicó el 10 de noviembre de 2005:

For more than a year, former Marine Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey has been telling anybody who would listen about the atrocities that he and other Marines committed in Iraq.

In scores of newspaper, magazine and broadcast stories, at a Canadian immigration hearing and in numerous speeches across the country, Massey told how he and other Marines recklessly, sometimes intentionally killed dozens of innocent Iraqi civilians.

Among his claims:

• Marines fired on and killed peaceful Iraqi protesters.

• Americans shot a 4-year-old Iraqi girl in the head.

• Tractor-trailers were filled with the bodies of civilian men, women and children killed by American artillery.

Massey's claims have gained him celebrity. Last month, Massey's book, "Kill, Kill, Kill," was released in France. His allegations have been reported in nationwide publications such as Vanity Fair and USA Today, as well as numerous broadcast reports.

This year, he joined the anti-war bus tour of Cindy Sheehan and he's spoken at Cornell and Syracuse universities, among others.

News organizations worldwide published or broadcast Massey's claims without any corroboration and in most cases without investigation. Outside of the Marines, almost no one has seriously questioned whether Massey, a 12-year veteran who was honorably discharged, was telling the truth.

He wasn't.

Each of his claims is either demonstrably false or exaggerated — according to his fellow Marines, Massey's own admissions and the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's unit, including a reporter and photographer from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and reporters from the Associated Press and the Wall Street Journal.

Leed el resto, porque lo destroza. El propio Harris, en otro artículo del mismo Saint Louis Post Dispatch, explicó la génesis de la mentira de Massey y por qué todos los medios picaron el anzuelo. No he encontrado una versión en la web, así que dejo el enlace original y copio el artículo entero:

Why did the press swallow Massey's stories?
By Ron Harris
POST-DISPATCH WASHINGTON BUREAU
11/05/2005

WASHINGTON

Media outlets throughout the world have reported Jimmy Massey's claims of war crimes, frequently without ever seeking to verify them.

For instance, no one ever called any of the five journalists who were embedded with Massey's battalion to ask him or her about his claims.

The Associated Press, which serves more than 8,500 newspaper, radio and television stations worldwide, wrote three stories about Massey, including an interview with him in October about his new book.

But none of the AP reporters ever called Ravi Nessman, an Associated Press reporter who was embedded with Massey's unit. Nessman wrote more than 30 stories about the unit from the beginning of the war until April 15, after Baghdad had fallen.

Jack Stokes, a spokesman for the AP, said he didn't know why the reporters didn't talk to Nessman, nor could he explain why the AP ran stories without seeking a response from the Marine Corps. The organization also refused to allow Nessman to be interviewed for this story.

Some media did seek out comment from the Marine Corps and were told that an investigation of Massey's accusations had found them baseless. Still, those news outlets printed Massey's claims without any evidence other than the word of Massey, who had been released from service because of depression and post traumatic stress disorder.

"Why would we have run this?"

That Massey wasn't telling the truth should have become obvious the more he told his stories, said Phillip Dixon, former managing editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer and currently chairman of the Howard University Department of Journalism.

Dixon examined dozens of newspaper articles in which Massey told of the atrocities that Marines allegedly committed in Iraq.

"He couldn't keep his story straight," said Dixon, who has also been an editor at The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. "First it was a 4-year-old girl with a bullet hole in her head, then it was a 6-year-old girl."

Editors at some papers look back at the Massey articles and are surprised that they ran them without examining whether the claims were true or without ever asking the Marine Corps about them.

"I'm looking at the story and going, 'Why, why would we have run this without getting another side of the story?'" said Lois Wilson, managing editor of the Star Gazette in Elmira, N.Y.

David Holwerk, editorial page editor for The Sacramento Bee, said he thought the newspaper handled its story, a question and answer interview with Massey, poorly.

"I feel fairly confident that we did not subject this to the rigorous scrutiny that we should have or to which we would subject it today," he said.

Rex Smith, editor of the Albany (N.Y.) Times Union, said he thought the newspaper's story about Massey could have "benefited from some additional reporting." But he didn't necessarily see anything particularly at odds with standard journalism practices.

The paper printed a story in which Massey reportedly told an audience how he and other Marines killed peaceful demonstrators. There was no response from the Marine Corps or any other evidence to back Massey's claims.

Smith said that, unfortunately, that is the nature of the newspaper business.

"You could take any day's newspaper and probably pick out a half dozen or more stories that ought to be subjected to a more rigorous truth test," he said.

"Yes, it would have been much better if we had the other side. But all I'm saying is that this is unfortunately something that happens every day in our newspapers and with practically every story on television."

"The truth suffers"

Michael Parks sees it differently. He is the director of the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and formerly the editor of the Los Angeles Times. Parks also reviewed stories written about Massey.

"A reporter's obligation is to check the allegation, to seek comment from the organization that's accused," said Parks, a Pulitzer Prize winner who covered the Vietnam War as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun. "They can't let allegations lie on the table, unchecked or unchallenged. When they don't do that, it's a clear disservice to the reader."

In many cases, journalists covered Massey as he was speaking at public gatherings. Some reporters said that because he was making public statements, they didn't feel an obligation to check his claims. Some editors worried they could be accused of covering up his claims if they didn't report on his speech.

Dixon and Parks disagree.

"We're not stenographers, we're journalists," Dixon said. "What separates journalism from other forms of writing is that we practice the craft of verification. By not doing that, that's saying they're abdicating any responsibility from exercising news judgment."

Parks said the journalist's responsibilities when covering someone who makes allegations while speaking in a public forum can be different from those when seeking an interview with an accuser.

"Still, if the person making the allegation has spoken at a public forum, and the audience has heard it, the obligation of the reporter remains to get the other side."

Dixon said: "As a journalist, you want to put accurate information before the public so they can make opinions and decisions based on accurate information. When something like this happens, harm is done, the truth suffers. "

Tras esta investigación (que en realidad empezó bastantes meses antes en el blog Dust In The Light, donde veréis el delirio de las diferentes versiones que iba dando a la mismas historias), a Massey se le acabaron sus quince minutos de gloria en EEUU, y desde hace un tiempo sólo le hacen caso en Europa. Y no en toda: sólo merece atención en gacetillas de medio pelo y en algún que otro periódico antaño venerable que se ha quedado a medias en su presupuesto de investigación y que, por lo tanto, ha tirado su rigor informativo por la ventana desde hace tiempo.

Lo que no disminuye un ápice la culpabilidad, ni de la editorial -que debería publicarlo como ficción y no como ensayo o documento- y de La Vanguardia, que debería investigar un poco antes de diseminar cualquier información.

Podéis leer mucho, muchísimo más sobre el tema en Gateway Pundit, Michelle Malkin dos veces (una, dos) y en Democracy Project.

Y una vez lo hayáis hecho, quizás querráis hacerle saber tanto a la editorial (info@edicionesapostrofe.com) como al defensor del lector de La Vanguardia (ombudsman@lavanguardia.es) que están difundiendo una sarta de mentiras. Hacedlo con educación, pero sed firmes.