IS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S JOURNALISTIC QUALITY FALLING?

IS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL'S JOURNALISTIC QUALITY FALLING?

MIL-ED is a Defense Department sanctioned site whose function is to select and publish articles to promote robust discussion among the officer corps of the United States. Publication is based on the contribution of the article to furthering robust discussion and  does not constitute endorsement by MIL-ED, the Department of Defense and /or any other federal agency.

Recently, one of our editorial board  members reviewed an article appearing in the Wall Street Journal written by Joshua Mitchell. His comments were sent directly to Mitchell but as yet Mitchell is not responded. We regard the Wall Street Journal, especially it editorial section,  as generally providing first-class journalistic coverage. However, even the Wall Street Journal occasionally slips as may be indicated by this article and the comments.

Please read and formulate your own evaluation.

Article excerpts and comments follow:

To: joshua.mitchell@wsj.com

Subject: Your article is pretty good but you might want to explore certain points before you repeat them.

Date: September 29, 2019 

1.     The whistleblower complaint’s description of the call with Mr. Zelensky aligned closely with the content of the reconstructed transcript released by the White House.

No it did not. As a check on me  had both my wife  in my eldest son a computer engineer read both of them and compare.    My wife and my son [and I ] find that the whistleblower report contains all source of allegations of items that were not mentioned in the phone conversation numerous  distortions of items that were mentioned in the phone conversation.

2.     drew from testimonials of more than a half-dozen unidentified U.S. officials who expressed concern about Mr. Trump’s conduct.

 It is not a testimonial until it is stated under oath and cross-examined. Otherwise is just unverified hearsay which is interpreted according to the wishes and biases of the ‘whistleblower”

3.     Mr. Trump’s former homeland security adviser Tom Bossert on Sunday denounced the president for bringing up a debunked conspiracy theory during the call. Mr. Trump asked the Ukrainian leader to do another favor for the U.S. related to the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, which conducted forensic analysis of the Democratic National Committee’s computer network after it was hacked in 2016.

 Tom Bossert has absolutely no  credentials to comment upon this. All of the information that he received was through individuals who were  3° or 4° removed from the actual analytical/forensic discussions.

4.     CrowdStrike concluded the hack was carried out by Russian intelligence officers, a finding corroborated by U.S. intelligence agencies and special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 election.

 CrowdStrike is a DNC contractor. Despite of all of the remarks that it was  vetted,  examined, approved,  etc.  by the intelligence community,  there was never an independent assessment. Many in the cyber community take strong issue with the “conclusion”. If  you and/or any of your associates interested in a serious exploration, I will  then search and forward to you  unclassified materials from intelligence sources  which dispute the Russian  hacking allegations.

While I hate WikiLeaks and believe their founder has committed acts of near treason, he has never been found wrong when he has made a statement. The intelligence community and the Justice Department and have opportunity to grant  him immunity and to question him under oath