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The media has enormous power to create and promote the experts we rely on, just by putting them on a TV screen. What follows is a cautionary tale.
An Afghan court has found three Americans guilty of torture and illegal detention and sentenced them to up to 10 years in prison.
The three men, including a former US Green Beret, were accused of running a freelance private prison in central Kabul.
They were arrested in July after Afghan security forces raided a house and found eight people who claimed to have been tortured by them.
The former green beret Tony Jones is talking about is Jonathan Keith Idema or Jack Idema as he's usually known.
Since September 11 Jack has been used by the international media as an expert on terrorism in hundreds of interviews including stories on your own ABC.
Idema has also shown a remarkable talent for glorifying and financing his exploits through the media. Even his private prison venture was at least in part a media stunt.
Media Watch has obtained photos of what Idema was up to. (See: Links and Resources.)
We've been told he's the one who scrawled across them, NOT FOR RELEASE — at least, it appears, not until you pay. (See: Links and Resources.)
In the weeks preceding his arrest, Idema was actually sending footage of himself interrogating prisoners to a major US network, hoping to sell a world exclusive.
He sent this email to Dan Rather at American ‘60 Minutes’ (See also: Links and Resources.):For Dan Rather’s eyes only
"…we now have so many terrorists we need to a rent a jail…"
"…only money and resources has kept us from catching them all…"
The ‘Columbia Journalism Review’ reports that Idema was asking for a cool $250,000 for the exclusive use of his footage, and access to his Afghani victims
The 'CJR' is America's longest running, media-watchdog journal, and in it's January edition it accuses the media, including the ABC, of creating a monster, of recklessly giving a man who was a liar, a thug and a con man, credibility and glory he could then turn into cold hard cash. (See: Links and Resources.)
Let’s go back to early 2002 when Jack Idema made his first appearance on the ABC.When the guys come in, right, we'd come in like this and come up — they'd use a kind of Israeli method and they came and stepped into the room — Bang, bang bang…
Jack featured in a series of stories that won ABC correspondent Eric Campbell a Logie for the best news stories of 2002.
The stories contained a world exclusive — video of Islamic fanatics training in Afghanistan.Here revealed for the first time the frightening extent of Al Qaeda's terrorist ambitions. At an abandoned school near Kabul dozens of Al Qaeda's fanatics train in close quarters fighting, hostage taking, psychological warfare and assassination. [Gunfire]
Jack Idema was the source of those videos, and in Eric Campbell's stories he was also presented as the counter terrorist expert we could trust to tell us what the tapes revealed about Al Qaeda. JKI: The danger is that everybody thinks that the face of al Qaeda is bin Laden. And we saw in this tape, the faces of Al Qaeda are from children at two years old all the way up to instructors at 50 years old.
EC: So a problem for many decades to come?
JKI: A problem for many decades to come.
But Jack Idema was a controversial figure even back then.
Sir Edward Artis, the head of aid group Knightsbridge International, faxed this warning to the US authorities in late 2001. (See also: Links and Resources.)This man is a very dangerous person by virtue of his carelessness and stupidity, and before he gets someone killed, possibly me or some-one travelling with me inside Afghanistan, he needs to be removed from the area.
By the end of 2001 Idema had a reputation for violence, recklessness and self-aggrandisement around media circles in Kabul. The ABC's Eric Campbell was aware of this before his story went to air.Jack is basically a nut, and none of the Special Forces guys in Kabul wanted anything to do with him.
But there was nothing to suggest any reservations about Jack's character or credibility in Eric Campbell's stories.We obtained the tapes through a US Special Forces veteran now advising the Afghan military. [slide]
We toured the camp with a US Special Forces veteran, known as J.K Idema. He's spent the past three months in Afghanistan as an adviser to the Northern Alliance.
Jack liked to tell people he was a 20 year Green Beret who'd been on secret missions around the world, but he never saw combat with the special forces. His active service was for just 3 years, nearly thirty years ago, and he was refused permission to re-enlist. He then spent a further three years in the reserves.
In 1977 a military evaluation described him as:…without a doubt the most unmotivated, unprofessional, immature enlisted man I have known…
This less-than-glorious record emerged during Idema's US trial for a quarter million dollar fraud — he spent three years in prison.
Eric Campbell says he knew Jack was a convicted conman but told Media Watch that his criminal past was irrelevant to the story and Idema's credibility as an expert.In war zones…the people you deal with and from whom you glean information are very often mass murderers, rapists, thieves and charlatans… On that scale dealing with someone convicted of business fraud in the US eight years earlier was not something to be unduly shocked by…Jack's past business dealings in the US were irrelevant to the story.
Eric says that he made checks on Jack's background as a counter terrorism expert and was told that despite Idema's unsavoury past, he was …one of the best people in the world to be talking about this.
Checking the CV of a conman like Jack is tricky.
None of the controversy made it into the TV stories, but in his just published book, Eric Campbell is more forthcoming.To confirm the footage was genuine, we made two trips out to the village …to see if we could match the landscape and buildings to the tapes. Given Jack's penchant for self promotion, I also needed to make absolutely sure he hadn't staged the footage.
Campbell and his colleagues spoke to villagers to confirm the validity of the tapes — but he still had doubts about Jack.It was tempting to simply dismiss Jack as a fantasist and a con man. After a couple of uncomfortable days, I decided that it was safe to go ahead with the story — the footage was just too good to ignore.
The footage was good, but was Jack Idema the right choice to assess its significance?
Jack was in the middle of auctioning the world rights to the tapes, and had a financial interest in talking up their value. I think that releasing their faces can only help us to uncover them throughout the world.
More importantly, it can help people understand what Al Qaeda's all about and why this war needs to continue, why we need to bring it to their doorstep wherever they may be.
Though the ABC didn't pay for the tapes, Eric Campbell knew about the media auction.
But perhaps he didn't realise that his story would also help give Jack the credibility he craved.
Media Watch has discovered that Idema used the ABC story to assist in his sales pitch…
A few days before it went to air Jack's agents sent this letter to Fox News:The tape feature extraordinary footage showing Al Qaeda fighters learning to mount terrorist attacks…For your convenience, I am enclosing copies of a working script from the Australian report which gives some additional background…
Mr Idema will reserves the right to reject bids that are under $150,000.
An American print journalist who knew Idema in Kabul told Media Watch he was relieved when his editors turned down Jack's pictures.He's a relentless self-promoter — I want to be in this, I want to be in that…but the tapes were the story, not him… He wouldn't increase the credibility of the product. You put that guy in and everyone would say 'This guy's a nut.
Some media turned down the tapes, but of course there were eager buyers.
America's ‘60 Minutes’ sent Dan Rather to cover the story of Jack and his tapes.
But Rather's report used Idema sparingly and described him with caution.60 Minutes II got these tapes from Keith Idema, a former member of the US Military special forces. He is a Green Beret. He is brash and controversial, a man who's murky past makes him perfectly at home in Afghanistan's freewheeling wild west atmosphere.
Once the footage was out there, most outlets took the view they could not afford to be left behind NBC, MSNBC, BBC and ABC America all used the tapes.
And the more the tapes aired, the more Idema became an accepted and credible media expert on anything and everything connected with terror. His appearances peaked in the lead up to the war on Iraq.
True to form he lied…So who do you work for?
It's an interesting story. I was in the Army Special forces for 20 years…
And, as usual, the media let him continue his fantasy. Could Jack tell us about the connection between Iraq and Al Qaeda? Absolutely, first hand:Q: Is it a good idea to go into Iraq?
JI: We have to go to Iraq. I mean I don't know why we're not telling the American public. He definitely has weapons of mass destruction.
Q: And the connection with Al Qaeda?
JI: Oh yes. Absolutely.
When a viewer had the temerity to ring in and suggest that Jack was a fraud, he was dismissed with contempt.
Jack not genuine? What'd he mean? Jack had been on 60 Minutes.Genuine…
I mean it's just laughable.
Between October 2001 and June 2002 the stories about jack and his exploits have appeareed in over 1000 US newspapers and over 250 TV shows. Even Dan rather went to Afghanistan just to interview him for 60 Minutes.
As Idema's media profile grew, Sir Edward Artis, the man who'd tried to warn them, watched in anger and despair:The media gave him a licence… they ran story after story that furthered the cachet of a self-serving, self-aggrandising criminal.
And, according to recent reports, even an Afghani prison can't stop Jack Idema spruiking his tales. IDEMA: I STOPPED HUGE PLOT TO KILL GI'S IN AFGHANISTAN — Says He Used Loud Melissa Ethridge [sic] Music To Make Terrorist Confess
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