The 'before' photo gives rise to the thought that if he had snuck into the U.S. and hung out with the hobos, he could have used his real name and everyone would have grinned and said, "Yeah, right."
Captivating News
Caught on Video: How the Story Played Out
By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 15, 2003; Page C01
~~snip~~
Shots were also fired in the cable wars. CNN sent out an e-mail saying that Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre broke the story at 5:03 a.m., reporting that several individuals had been captured in Iraq and U.S. officials "believe that one of them is Saddam Hussein." The information first came from correspondent Alphonso Van Marsh, who was embedded with the unit involved in the capture. MSNBC and Fox followed over the next 25 minutes. The first print report came from Reuters at 4:58 a.m., quoting the Iranian News Agency.
At 11 p.m. EST Saturday, once the raid had begun, Van Marsh "was aware of a lot of excitement and commotion," said Chris Cramer, managing director of CNN International. "He clearly knew something was going on," but military officials "weren't about to tell him anything."
Van Marsh, 32, an Atlanta-based producer sent to Tikrit just six weeks ago, alerted the network, and McIntyre confirmed the story after an hour of early morning phone calls. Van Marsh "is a very resourceful journalist who has just gotten the scoop of his life," Cramer said.
The White House was hoping the story would not leak earlier than it did to CNN, said communications director Dan Bartlett, because military officials needed more time to confirm that the captive was Hussein. The decision to release the video "was in large part made for military purposes," he said, to convince the Arab world in particular that this was Hussein, not to provide fodder for U.S. networks.
~~snip~~
Jim, FreeRepublic (Gigantor) clearly scooped electronic and print media outlets.