The astonishing thing about this story is the laziness and incompetence of
this country’s journalistic establishment. Annie Jacobsen’s story has been
out there a week now. By this time we should know all sorts of things: the
name of this Syrian band, the place where they played their gig (or
certainty that there was no such place), interviews with other passengers
who were on Annie’s flight, and so on. The NY Times, the nation’s other
broadsheet newspapers, and the big Network and cable TV outlets all have
highly-paid staffs of reporters who should be digging these things out.
So… where are they? The piece in today’s Times is pathetic, telling us
nothing we didn’t know. Any London tabloid could do better investigative
work than this. Perhaps the National Inquirer will come up with something?