Press Action ::: The 'Little Red Book' Crackdown Hoax

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

The 'Little Red Book' Crackdown Hoax

What’s the name of the Massachusetts college student who lied about getting a visit from Ministry of Homeland Security henchmen after he supposedly requested a copy of Mao’s “Little Red Book” through interlibrary loan? The news media isn’t disclosing his name.

The newspaper that initially broke the story, the New Bedford Standard-Times, now reports the unnamed senior at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth admitted to the hoax after his history professor, Brian Glyn Williams, confronted him about inconsistencies in his story.

NewsBusters wonders why The Standard-Times isn’t naming the student.

Here’s a big problem I have with both stories from The Standard Times. For starters, they protected the name of the liar: “Although The Standard-Times knows the name of the student, he is not coming forward because he fears repercussions should his name become public.” In the second article admitting the hoax, they still did not name him. Are they worried Bush’s “Men In Black” will really go after him now for lying? I think he has defaulted on his right to privacy (forget for the moment that that isn’t an actual right.)

The Boston Globe, which did not write a story about the student’s original assertions, opted not to identify the student in its story about the hoax, even though the newspaper interviewed the student on Dec. 22.

The student was not identified in any reports. The Globe interviewed him Thursday but decided not to write a story about his assertion, because of doubts about its veracity. The student could not be reached yesterday.

Steve Trinward writes on Free-Market News Network that if the student’s name is ever released, “there might be a possibility to discover whether the story was at least hypothetically a plant and the student a messenger.”

Hints may be provided at the very end of the SCT article, where two questions may have been answered, however inadvertently. In two consecutive paragraphs, the paper offers motivation for two parties, in succession: First is a potential motive for officials themselves to create or float the story: “Dr. Williams said the whole affair has had one bright point: The question of whether it is safe for students to do research has been answered: “I can now tell my students that it is safe to do research without being monitored,” he said. “With that hanging in the air like before, I couldn’t say that to them.’” (This might be seen by some as the feds setting up a fake crackdown and then disproving the story, to undercut those who have warned about the potential for such oppression under the Patriot Act. By that theory, the feds could then snoop with impunity, since their critics would have been discredited.)

Second is a claim made about the student himself, that he was a “thrill-seeker” who started the story to get his name in the paper: “The student’s motivation remains a mystery, but in the interview on Thursday, he provided a glimpse: ‘When I came back, like wow, there’s this circus coming on. I saw my cell phone, and I see like, wow, I have something like 75 messages and like something like 87 missed calls,’ he said. ‘Wow, I was popular. I usually get one or probably two a week and that’s about it, and I usually pick them up.’” (This would still not explain the initial report, only the embellishment of it by the student, to keep himself on the front pages a bit longer. His initial inspiration still remains in doubt.)

If the student’s name is ever released, there might be a possibility to discover whether the story was at least hypothetically a plant and the student a messenger. Readers should recall the Bush Administration has already admitted to planting stories in the American press—and to launching a virtual bogus news organization in Iraq. There are obviously those who wish to discredit reporting, and especially Internet reporting. Such activities, unfortunately, remain a viable mechanism.