On Publishing Scoops and Canards (Concerning Debkafile's reliability)

The Online Journalism Review [USC, Annanberg] ^ | April , 2002 | Gary Baum

[quidnunc]

Sounds to me as though Debkafile is the intelligence equivalent of a supermarket tabloid.

[fourdeuce82d]

intelligence equivalent of a supermarket tabloid.

"tens of thousands of heathen chinee troops massing on Israel's borders- film at eleven."

And who can forget Rense.com?

[judicial meanz]

Having read intelligence reports for years now, I can understand why they dont hit 100 percent all the time. No "Intelligence" related activity will ever be accurate to the 100th percentile. Unbelievable stuff can become fact pretty quick in the intelligence world, and believable scenarios turn out to be totally wrong. Intelligence will never be an exact science, and it should be viewed critically.

I can either take them or leave them. Sometimes they hit something good, sometimes they miss by a mile. Its just the nature of the Intelligence beast.

[Lijahsbubbe]

intelligence equivalent of a supermarket tabloid.

Yeah, well, people laugh about the Enquirer, but they pay people good money to get the scoop. I remember they were way ahead of the lamestream press on the O.J. trial, and alot of their stories come out in the lamestream a couple of weeks after they published it. (plus I like looking at the pictures)

NOW LEAVE MY ENQUIRER ALONE! J/k

[TomB]

And who can forget Rense.com?

Careful! There are some FReepers who consider Rense as gospel. You see some of them posting to some science and medical threads references to Rense as a legitimate source.

[Peace will be here soon]

It is better than the New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters etc... but then so are market tabloids.

[quidnunc]

fourdeuce82d wrote: "tens of thousands of heathen chinee troops massing on Israel's borders- film at eleven."

Actually, Debka reported that at thousands of Chinese troops had crossed into Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban against U.S. forces.

Debka is not much more than a rumor milll, and sometimes the rumors are right to varying degrees and often they are dead-wrong.

With Debka it's a crap shoot.

[quidnunc]

Peace will be here soon wrote: It is better than the New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters etc... but then so are market tabloids.

I did a Google search and it seems to the consensus of opinion around the blogsphere that Debka is too unreliable to be considered a solid source of information.

[mewzilla]

Debkaka :)

[Peace will be here soon]

I don`t know. I visit the site on a regular basis and find it to be somewhat accurate. It beats reading the muck coming from alot of the so called " major " news outlets here in the US. I recall Drudge getting the same type of skepticism when he started off. Now Drudge is looked upon , by most, as a reasonably reliable source of news and information. I believe Debkafile is still somewhat new ( at least to me), only time will tell.

[FairOpinion]

From the article you posted: "Although the Observer allowed that the accuracy of Debkafile’s information is difficult to assess, it noted that the site must be doing something right if so many military and intelligence officials, as well as journalists make up its core audience. "

[quidnunc]

FairOpinion wrote: From the article you posted: "Although the Observer allowed that the accuracy of Debkafile’s information is difficult to assess, it noted that the site must be doing something right if so many military and intelligence officials, as well as journalists make up its core audience. "

And how do we know for a certainty how many journalists and military and intelligence officials are in its core audience?

The first I heard of Debka was soon after 9/11 when Michael Medved referenced a sensational Debka article in which it was alleged, among other things, that a U.S. nuke sub had to return to port because of a virtual mutiny by Muslim crew members.

At the time Medved said that Debka claimed to be 93% accurate.

Callers took Medved apart on the air and he never has mentioned Debka since insofar as I have heard.

I believe that Debka deliberately airs those wild rumors as fetchers while at the same time putting out mundane, uninteresting stuff gleaned from news reports in order to be able to claim it has a good accuracy record.

Debka is totally self-serving.

[FairOpinion]

So, if you don't like Debka, don't read it.

But what is your interest in turning every thread which mentions any news from Debka into a Debka-bashing fest?

[George W. Bush]

'We start where the media stop.'

Kind of like an intern saying that she starts where Monica stopped.

[quidnunc]

FairOpinion wrote: So, if you don't like Debka, don't read it. But what is your interest in turning every thread which mentions any news from Debka into a Debka-bashing fest?

Denizens of Free Republic need to know that Debka is of questionable reliability and that caveat lector (let the reader beware) is the order of the day when reading stuff from there.

You may be getting the inside skinny, but then again it may be pure bullbleep and there's no sure way to know which it is.

I think a good rule of thumb is that the more sensational the article the less likely it is to be factual.

[FairOpinion]

So why don't you post articles about the unreliability of the NY Times, CNN and so on, every time anyone posts a news item from them?

Everyone know about Debka and everyone can make up their minds. Your ferocious anti-Debka crusade doesn't make me wonder about Debka, but makes me wonder why you are so fanatic about it.

I was told about Debka sometime before 9-11, it was from something someone posted. I had no preconceived notions either way. Then I started to follow them and found them quite reliable about a lot of things, with a lot of good analyses too.

So why can't you let others go, read it, find out, and decide for themselves, instead of trying to tell everyone what they should think?

[gcruse]

Sounds to me as though Debkafile is the
 intelligence equivalent of a supermarket tabloid.

In an age when investigative journalism has been
relegated to tabloids, and the National Inquirer
breaks major stories, that isn't always a bad thing.

[quidnunc]

gcruse wrote: In an age when investigative journalism has been relegated to tabloids, and the National Inquirer breaks major stories, that isn't always a bad thing.

The National Enquirer doesn't purport to be anything more than a scandal sheet which practices checkbook journalism.

Debka makes for interesting reading sometimes, just so long as one remembers that what one is reading has a 50-50 chance of being pure bollocks.

[fourdeuce82d]

quidnunc

semper ubi sub ubi... *grin*

[John H K]

In fact, it seems to have become the gospel for the trail-blazing news Web site, which has gained fame in recent months for its scoops on stories including the Bush-Putin pact to support the War on Terror and the Chinese military presence with al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Getting a scoop on a 100% false story is something to be proud of? There was no Chinese military presence with Al Queda in Afghanistan.

Unless you're dumb enough count having Chinese small arms ammo as a "military presence" in which case there's a Chinese "military presence" in Wal-Marts and basements all over this country.