March 30, 2006

A Peaceful Iraq… in Turkey?

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Howard Kaloogian, the California congressional candidate who“mistakenly” tried to pass off a photo of a peaceful Turkey street setting as a scene from Baghdad, has now called the blunder a “stupid” web error. Kaloogian is running to fill the space left by Randy “Duke” Cunningham, the Republican congressman who resigned amidst evidence that he accepted at least
$2.4 million in bribes.

Kaloogian has been touting the accomplishments of Operation Iraqi Freedom for some time, claiming that biased media reports have given Iraq an undeserved reputation as a violent locale. Iraq “is much more calm and stable than what many people believe it to be. But, each day the news media finds any violence occurring in the country and screams and shouts about it–in part because many journalists are opposed to the U.S. effort the fight terrorism.” In staying with his message about the true tranquility of Iraq, Kaloogian captioned his now-infamous photo: “we took this photo in downtown Baghdad while we were in Iraq.” Oops.

But these “stupid mistakes” can no longer slip by unnoticed. Within hours, the blogosphere was pointing out the many faulty aspects in the photo, including western tourists and Roman characters, unlikely in Baghdad. The internet is changing the political landscape, as everything is now fair game for questioning.

For added kicks, check out the latest photo on Kaloogian’s site. It was taken from the upper floor of the Rashid hotel in the Green Zone on July 13, 2005—a little out of date—and one of the buildings depicted has now been completely obliterated.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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