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This Issue from John Kuczaj:
• Daniel Pepper Mystery: Solved!
• Meigs Field Massacre
Daniel Pepper Mystery: Solved!
Last ish, I wrote about the Daniel Pepper / reformed human shield essay that showed up in the Sun-Times and has been popping up on various websites & blogs since. My B.S.-O-Meter went off and I questioned whether or not there was a real Daniel Pepper. Well, I have the answer.
Daniel Pepper exists...but HE did not write the essay.
On Friday, I received an e-mail from someone who claimed to be a friend of Daniel Pepper. He said that Daniel Pepper, himself, is not an urban myth. Oddly, the proof was local - he was a student at University of Chicago who had photos from his trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan published in the Maroon. He said that Daniel was definitely living in London and definitely planning on going to Iraq, though the human shield thing was news to him. Daniel is also apparently very liberal.
A search of the Internet revealed information about Daniel Pepper photos:
A U of C Press Release touting an exhibition of "A collection of photographs of Afghan refugees in Pakistani refugee camps, taken by fourth-year Daniel Pepper in December 2001." Some of those pictures can be found Here Another exhibit of pictures from the same trip can be found in the yellow box here
Okay, so it appears that there is indeed, a Daniel Pepper who is a photographer and who seeks out and records conflict.
On Monday, that same friend of Daniel sent me another message, having talked to Daniel on Sunday. He told me that the article itself was not written by Pepper. It was based on an interview with him, but definitely not written by him. Pepper tried to get his own article published, but the London Guardian wouldn't print it. The ethics of ghostwritten commentary pieces are pretty clear-cut to me: It's a fabrication, a deception, a falsehood, a lie. So there you have it: the guardian printed a lie, the Sun-Times reprinted it...and you thought "facts" presented on the Internet couldn't be trusted?
Apparently, Daniel was pressured to be more vocal by the organization that assembled the human shields, but he doesn't consider himself to be a tool or a mouthpiece for anyone. I searched the web for that organization, the Universal Kinship Society , run by Ken Nichols O'Keefe. O'Keefe organized the human shields, and also runs www.humanshields.org
At that point, I decided to search both O'Keefe and Pepper. That's when I hit the jackpot in the guise of a Philadelphia Inquirer story:
"...A young American on the trip, Ohioan Daniel Pepper, 23, was surprised to learn firsthand from a Baghdad taxi driver that dictator Saddam Hussein was hated in Iraq...Pepper, the American, said he was not really a human shield but joined the others both to photograph the mission and to make an antiwar statement of his own..."
Pepper has apparently been contacted by larger news orgs looking for interviews, such as CNN, Fox, and the BBC. His friend says that when Pepper told them that he does not want to be a spokesperson, and more importantly, that he is not in fact pro-war or pro-Bush, they seemed to lose interest. More info about Daniel Pepper: His photography trips took him to Ramallah during the Intifadah, though he left when the Palestinians he was with could no longer guarantee the safety of an American-Jew. He's traveled to Pakistan, and even Northern Afghanistan both before the war there as well as with the UN and an NGO after the war. Pepper plans on returning to Northern Iraq to document the changing political landscape within the Kurdish population. He is apparently doing this independently, and for gallery-presentations, as opposed to photojournalism. Oh, and Daniel--if you're reading this--drop me a line!
So, there you have it. Daniel Pepper exists, but he didn't author the essay. The cool thing is that I found all this out via the new "Sun-Times Investigative Way", which is to sit on your ass and examine numbers-like Pension records or CTA fare card usage reports or teacher test scores. Cool. Anyway, it's interesting to note that Daniel Pepper is not a photojournalist per se, but rather an independent photographer. Consider everything you now know about Daniel Pepper and the conduct of Peter Arnett and Geraldo Rivera during this war. Who conducted themselves in the most respectable way, not compromising their objectiveness or ethics?
I don't know about you, but I'm a Pepper!
Meigs Field Massacre
I was pretty pissed that Mayor Daley snuck off and destroyed Meigs Field. I would probably never have cause to use the airstrip, but the sneaky, middle-of-the-night way he carried out his destruction turned my healthy skepticism of him into full-blown distrust. I was so damn mad that I wrote a letter to the editor, but neither the Sun-Times nor the Tribune printed it. I've got it up on my homepage, under the title "Richard M. Daley, Lying Sack of Manure".
The demolition occurred last Sunday evening, so Monday is when everything hit the fan. First we get a laughable press conference where truth was in short supply. Daley seemed very emotionally charged and even more ill at ease than he usually is. His cutesy "I no need to speak in correct grammar" style that has endeared him to the oblivious majority of the voting public was on overdrive. Like a spasming tourettes-sufferer going through a seizure, Daley blurted out his statements in a halting, staccato manner. With every labored breath, it seemed as if someone turned his volume control up one notch before stopping on "eleven". Finally through vomiting his remarks at the reporters, relief on Daley's face appeared, then faded as he began to deflect questions with such skill that Bob Pullford must have had thoughts of signing this impenetrable net minder. The questions came fast, and in typical Daley fashion, he answered only some of them. Some questions were totally ignored, as if he didn't "Habla Ingles". Some questions were answered with non-sequitors such as "No firepower! No firepower!" (What the hell does that mean, anyway???) Some questions were partially answered and some were laughed off. A precious few were answered truthfully. So much for our elected officials being accountable, huh?
Behind Daley was his group of loyal lap dogs. Their tongues were a-waggin and their ears were perked up as they watched their leader from behind. You could tell that some of the doggies, like the Police Superintendent, REALLY wanted to sniff the Mayor's ass, like a good doggie would. But on that day, the Alpha Doggie was the Executive Director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications (EDOEMC, for those of you scoring at home) who most definitely had his nose planted firmly 'tween the Mayor's butt cheeks.
A major local story like this is exactly why "Chicago Tonight" exists and this was the time for the show to shine. Except that the host of the show, Bob Sirott, was off for the night-no doubt he was playing golf with Aaron Brown. It didn't matter because Phil Ponce was in charge, and first up, Elizabeth Brackett (I'm pretty sure it was her) directed the discussion with the EDOEMC, Cortez Trotter and a guy from the friends of Meigs Field. The discussion was interesting in that Trotter came across (to me, at least) as a total moron. Seriously. It could very well be that Trotter is a smart guy, following the orders of his temporarily insane boss, but the crap he spewed on "Chicago Tonight" was so rank that at one point, he got trapped into claiming that ultimately the Chicago Park District closed the airfield, not the Mayor!!! Later in the broadcast, Ponce and former WBBM-AM newsman Bob Crawford mockingly laughed at that assertion. Anyway, Trotter tried to avoid giving straight answers to questions and talked over the Friends of the Park guy until the segment ended.
What's up with Chicago Tonight & the rigid timing? Why does the news segment have to end after 13 minutes no matter what? I thought the hour-long format allowed for a flexible format? This story deserved more coverage than it got.
On Friday, I lucked into Channel 5's late news where Dick Kay revealed that the "No Fly Zone" that Mayor Daley wanted so much, but then was so disappointed with after it was granted, was HIS idea. That is to say, the City submitted the map to the FAA and the FAA approved the exact map. Daley had bitched about how the no fly zone didn't extend far enough South...yet HE WAS THE ONE WHO MAPPED IT OUT! Of course, unless you watched Channel 5 that night, you wouldn't know this because no other news outlet picked up on it-as far as I can tell.
My favorite columns about this whole mess were: John Kass' "Daley's abuse of power leaves marks on city" and Ed Schwartz' "The Night of a Thousand Sighs" Check 'em out. You have to register with the Trib in order to view Kass' columns, but he's worth it--plus, you get an unlimited supply of popup ads!!!
Oh, and check out the Red Face for a bitingly satirical take on our arrogant Mayor.
IN THE CURRENT CHICAGO RED FACE:
- Krause Resigns, cites "Diminishing skills" clause
- COMPLETE COVERAGE! WAR ON IRAQ
- Daley Destroys Ike X-Way to Protect Loop
- Catholic Priests Thank Their Lucky SARS; Convene in Singapore
- Saddam Alive & Well
- Sox fans are pretty gay
- JAY MERRYMAN: Leftwich Impressive
- Cool Again: Optimus Prime
Check it out at: www.chicagoredface.com.
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