Blackwater Reporting

The Duke 'rape' reporters now bring you Blackwater 'news'

Remember the sensational fake story about the Duke University lacrosse team members who supposedly raped an "escort service dancer"? As one of Duke's nearby newspapers, the Raleigh News & Observer played a big role in that story, for better and for worse.

Now that same paper - through Joseph Neff, one of the very same reporters on the Duke story - is doing a job on Blackwater. And as with the fictitious rape report, the wire services and big chains like the McClatchy Newspapers are trusting the News & Observer (N&O) and recycling its stories. (The News & Observer is a McClatchy subsidiary).

US News & World Report suspected the Duke rape story was untrue and called reporter Joseph Neff on it in the summer of 2006. Neff got defensive. "It would be irresponsible for us not to report what the local district attorney is telling the community," he said. "That's our job." US News didn't buy it, calling the coverage "Duke's Trial by Media."

Ready for Waxman: Neff starts Blackwater blog

Just in time for the October 2, 2007 Waxman hearing before which Blackwater CEO Erik Prince will testify, Joseph Neff launched a new Blackwater blog on the Raleigh News & Observer website. (The N&O is owned by McClatchy Newspapers.)

Blackwater fans are encouraged to post comments on Neff's blog. Here's the link: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/blackwater

Neff makes little attempt to be fair and objective. In announcing his new blog, he writes that Prince has a lot to tell Congress, then rattles off a litany of issues that reflect poorly on Prince and his company. Not that Neff, whom US News & World Report took to task for his reporting on the fake Duke University lacrosse rape case, would find anything positive in a business whose guards take gunfire almost daily form insurgents and which lost 30 of its own people protecting American diplomats, congressmen and convoys.

Neff inaccurately portrays Prince's willingness to appear before Waxman's committee. Implying that the Blackwater founder is somehow recalcritant or unwilling to appear, Neff claims that Prince "is not knocking down the door to testify."

Rep. Henry Waxman's office indicates that Prince will be testifying freely on October 2, adding that Waxman only requested the testimony - and didn't require it or make any threats to subpoena.  Click here to contact Neff and his editors.