Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand: Criticized as gullible for accepting Mao hoax
The story of the UMass Dartmouth undergrad who lied about being questioned by agents for the Department of Homeland Security had everything.
It played directly into the split between Red and Blue states. It was made for the Internet and Fox television and talk radio.
And it was timed perfectly because of the firestorm that erupted two weeks ago when The New York Times broke the news that the Bush administration had authorized federal agents to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens calling abroad.
Critics of the Bush administration threw themselves in front of microphones and reporters with notebooks to charge that the president had broken the law, while Bush supporters leapt to the president's defense, saying that his first job as commander in chief is to protect Americans from attack, and that in times of war it is proper and prudent to use almost any means to get information that might derail an enemy's plans.
Standard-Times editors asked one of our best political reporters, Aaron Nicodemus, to contact people for their reaction to the Times story.
Among those he called were two local experts, UMass Dartmouth history professors Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand.
Professor Williams, who has traveled and researched the Middle East extensively, was asked whether he believed the president's authorization for tapping the phones and e-mails of U.S. citizens talking with foreigners was going too far. He told reporter Nicodemus that he believes his own calls were tapped while he was speaking once with the foreign minister of Chechnya, scene of a bloody civil war with Russian forces and numerous acts of terrorism..
Almost as an aside, professor Williams told the story of one of his students who said he had been visited by FBI agents after he tried to take out a library book by the infamous Chinese premier, the late Mao Zedong.
Mr. Nicodemus recognized immediately that that was a pretty good story and started to check it out. Dr. Williams provided the student's name, and Mr. Nicodemus did a little research to find his home address and telephone number. He spoke with the student's father, who would not talk about the case and referred our reporter to his son, saying the student was in the shower but giving Mr. Nicodemus his son's cell phone number.
When Mr. Nicodemus called the son several times, he didn't answer and did not return phone calls, so Mr. Nicodemus went to the house. Nobody answered.
What he had for a story then was a tale from a single UMass Dartmouth professor -- someone who has been an excellent source on numerous occasions. It made me uncomfortable, however, and we decided not to publish the story without corroboration. Mr. Nicodemus went back to work and found a second source, professor Pontbriand, to whom the student had told the same story, but with one important difference: The agents were from the Department of Homeland Security and not the FBI, as professor Williams had said.
Troubled by that inconsistency, Mr. Nicodemus called back professor Williams, who said he had been wrong the first time and that, in fact, the student had said the visit was from representatives of Homeland Security. Otherwise, the professors' stories corroborated one another.
"I knew depending on a second-hand source was problematic," but professor Williams had been reliable previously, Mr. Nicodemus said. ...
Read entire article at South Coast Today
It played directly into the split between Red and Blue states. It was made for the Internet and Fox television and talk radio.
And it was timed perfectly because of the firestorm that erupted two weeks ago when The New York Times broke the news that the Bush administration had authorized federal agents to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens calling abroad.
Critics of the Bush administration threw themselves in front of microphones and reporters with notebooks to charge that the president had broken the law, while Bush supporters leapt to the president's defense, saying that his first job as commander in chief is to protect Americans from attack, and that in times of war it is proper and prudent to use almost any means to get information that might derail an enemy's plans.
Standard-Times editors asked one of our best political reporters, Aaron Nicodemus, to contact people for their reaction to the Times story.
Among those he called were two local experts, UMass Dartmouth history professors Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand.
Professor Williams, who has traveled and researched the Middle East extensively, was asked whether he believed the president's authorization for tapping the phones and e-mails of U.S. citizens talking with foreigners was going too far. He told reporter Nicodemus that he believes his own calls were tapped while he was speaking once with the foreign minister of Chechnya, scene of a bloody civil war with Russian forces and numerous acts of terrorism..
Almost as an aside, professor Williams told the story of one of his students who said he had been visited by FBI agents after he tried to take out a library book by the infamous Chinese premier, the late Mao Zedong.
Mr. Nicodemus recognized immediately that that was a pretty good story and started to check it out. Dr. Williams provided the student's name, and Mr. Nicodemus did a little research to find his home address and telephone number. He spoke with the student's father, who would not talk about the case and referred our reporter to his son, saying the student was in the shower but giving Mr. Nicodemus his son's cell phone number.
When Mr. Nicodemus called the son several times, he didn't answer and did not return phone calls, so Mr. Nicodemus went to the house. Nobody answered.
What he had for a story then was a tale from a single UMass Dartmouth professor -- someone who has been an excellent source on numerous occasions. It made me uncomfortable, however, and we decided not to publish the story without corroboration. Mr. Nicodemus went back to work and found a second source, professor Pontbriand, to whom the student had told the same story, but with one important difference: The agents were from the Department of Homeland Security and not the FBI, as professor Williams had said.
Troubled by that inconsistency, Mr. Nicodemus called back professor Williams, who said he had been wrong the first time and that, in fact, the student had said the visit was from representatives of Homeland Security. Otherwise, the professors' stories corroborated one another.
"I knew depending on a second-hand source was problematic," but professor Williams had been reliable previously, Mr. Nicodemus said. ...