Op-Ed: Think You Got An Exclusive? Some Helpful Hints I Got From DJ Staff And LGF

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It's nearly impossible to get a hot lead for a news story these days. There's so many looking. And most of us cover news stories already out there by report or OpEd.

But what if you find, or even stumble upon, a hot lead no one else has? That's the situation I found myself in early Friday morning.

I didn't even realize it at first. I was clicking around randomly about 1:00 in the morning and went to check something on a lark. And then I saw it.

Didn't figure it was a big thing. I mean, I KNEW it was a big thing. Even expected it to happen. But I figured at least some popular blogs would be making hay of it already.

Nothing. Nada. Nowhere. Did I just find something big here?

Sheet! I gotta get this out before someone beats me to the punch! Gotta check Drudge, every major media and blog, both right and left. Then Google up and down the 'net. Make sure.

203 Google hits, all scattered keywords. Nothing cogent or thematic, like what I had.

Looks like an Exclusive. Could it be?

Gotta move sure, gotta move fast. Before somebody else catches it. Gotta move light speed.

Hold on. A few things to consider first, with the help of Digital Journal staffers and the popular weblog Little Green Footballs.

Do you have an exclusive? Sure of it? Is it a big story, really? Or just a big story to you?

It is big? Okay, write your article and post it PDQ. But as a DJ staffer told me, if you have an exclusive but you're only 99.999% sure, don't put EXCLUSIVE? like I did. It's either exclusive or it isn't. And don't put it there unless you're SURE.

Okay. Did some more rummaging, found nothing, I'm sure. Now it's an EXCLUSIVE!

But what made it a headline-worthy Exclusive?

To know why I thought that, you need a little background.

You're all familiar with the contretemps going back and forth between the Obama and Clinton campaigns over ties to members of the former domestic terrorist group Weather Underground?

If not, here's a quick recap.

It came to light that Obama has been very cozy with William Ayers, a former WU bomber and now English Professor at the University of Chicago, and Ayer's wife, former Top Ten FBI Most Wanted Bernardine Dohrn.
In a twist of fate and irony, Mr. Ayers was quoted in the September 11, 2001 issue of the New York Times as saying ''I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough.''

At the most recent Democratic debate, George Stephanopoulos questioned Obama on that very subject. Ayers has long retired from C-4 politics, as Obama stated, and I quote, "this is something the man did forty years ago when I was eight years old."

Hillary had a few things to say about that relationship, too. Said it was fair game to ask those questions and wonder. Bravo, Miss Hillary!

No sooner were those words out of her mouth than somebody dug up the ghost of President William Jefferson Clinton's infamous pardon of two Weather Underground members in his final hours of office, among many others that day.

That pardon included former WU member Susan Rosenberg, who was sentenced to 58 years in prison for being in possession of 740 pounds of weapons and explosives, and was also known to be the getaway driver in a Brinks robbery which resulted in the deaths of two policemen and an armed guard.

Obama was quick to jump on it. Hillary was quick to tell Inside Edition, "Oh, I don't know anything about those."

The facts speak otherwise. But Obama would no sooner say those words to the media than find himself under attack for yet ANOTHER link to the Bombing Clique.

It turned out that Mr. Hatem El-Hady had a member page on the Obama website and was actively campaigning and fundraising for Obama.

In 2006, Mr. El-Hady's Kindhearts Foundation was shut down and all its assets seized by Treasury for funding the terror group HAMAS, and possibly even Al Qaeda. In fact, the federal government went so far as to say Kindhearts had stepped in to fill the Terrorist NGO void after the Holy Land Foundation and other 'Islamic relief groups' were shut down by the feds for terrorist funding also.

There's more. A senior fundraiser for KHF was the designated HAMAS bag man in the US, Mohammed El-Mezain. And last summer, El-Hady was questioned by the FBI concerning his knowledge of possible conspirators in a UK-based terror plot.

This is news, right? This guy El-Hady setting up his own page on Obama's official campaign website and actively engaging in fundraising for him?

It gets better. El-Hady had three friends listed on his page, friends that can only be chosen by invite or request. One of those three friends was Michelle Obama.

Bigger news, right? The Little Green Footballs website published a screenshot of El-Hady's page on Obama's website, with details of Mr. El-Hady that were actually quite scary. It is was not expected that Mr. El-Hady's Obama web page would last very long, given the unfavorable scrutiny.

I even made a joke about the link to it, saying 'while it's still there,' as Charles Johnson of LGF quipped.

So I crash for a while last night, get up around 12:40AM, grab a cup of coffee and start wandering the cyberhighways. I think back to the LGF story and decide to see if Mr. El-Hady's Obama page was 'still there.'

It was, but somehow Michelle Obama's name had mysteriously vanished from his 'friends' list. Okay, let's go to LGF and see what they had to say. That's news, right? Nothing. I go to Michelle Malkin. Nothing. I even check out KOS and HuffPo. Nothing.

I went through every step I outlined previously and found nothing. Did I miraculously click on the Obama website the very moment they erased Michelle Obama's name from Mr.El-Hady's 'friends' list?

Got a scoop! Did my homework. Wrote fast. Got it up on DJ.

I sent it out to LGF, Ms. Malkin and a number of others. Also asked them if I had a scoop here. Turns out I did, and was credited on those sites and many others with the find.

That's a big scoop, isn't it? Being there at the right millisecond to witness the Obama campaign's airbrushing of Michelle Obama's self-chosen friendship with Mr. El-Hady, a man who was and no doubt will be bringing some major heat with him, as William Ayers has done?

Good one, right? All locked down and ready for the presses?

Still not done yet. Another DJ staffer emailed me and asked, 'how do you know he didn't put her name there?' That was a very big question. I agreed, and thought I was covered by this statement from Mr. Johnson's LGF post on the El-Hady/Michelle Obama 'friendship':

'Note: when someone is listed as a “friend,” it means they specifically chose it. In other words, Michelle Obama’s name isn’t there because El-Hady put it there — it’s there because she chose to be listed as his friend.'

But it put the question in my mind: just because I read it at LGF, a very popular and high-ranking news blog, did that make it true? They've had to make corrections before, like everyone else.

I trusted Charles Johnson, but I had to verify based on the DJ staffer's very insightful question. I HAD to be right and know it beyond a doubt. That fact was at the heart of the sensationalism of the story. If it was false, and El-Hady put Michelle's name there, I had no story.

So I emailed Charles Johnson at LGF.

It appears I wasn't the only one with the same question. Mr. Johnson had received enough of them he felt it necessary to publish a clarification confirming what he said was the truth. He had even gone so far (as I did) to go directly to Obama's website, sign on and see how the 'friends' function worked.

It was true. It was good, and so was the world. At least mine, anyway.

Ind the end, though, Is it a huge news story? Or just one I think is huge?

That's up to You the Jury and the major blogs and news sites. You must be able to figure out the implications of it. I think it's big.

Why? because it's one thing if Mr. El-Hady is on the Obama web page, then gone after bad pub. It's quite another for his 'friend' Michelle to disappear in the dead of night first. It's a complication. And I thought, a hot lead.

Think of it this way, from the beginning:

1. A very recently active terror fundraiser shut down by the government two years ago, and who was questioned last year in a UK bombing plot, is now on Obama's campaign as a fundraiser. Even has his own page.

2. Michele Obama, either by invite or request, becomes a self-designated 'friend' of Mr. El-Hady.

3. News stories break across the blogosphere stating all those relevant facts, posting screenshots of El-Hady's web page with 'friend' Michelle Obama.

4. Michelle Obama's name vanishes in the dead of night from Mr. El-Hady's 'friends' list. Got my own screenshot of that too, as proof. Tons of 'em out there now, though.

5. Finally, Mr. El-Hady himself vanishes from the Obama campaign website.

Does not step #4 add a piece in the puzzle to the overall picture? The story is definitely Mr. El-Hady and Michelle Obama's 'friendship.' It's one thing for the page to just disappear because of bad pub. But why did Michelle Obama's name disappear first?

More important to the story, now the Obama campaign has to explain THREE damning screenshots of Mr. El-Hady's web page instead of two.

And that's why I believe it was a scoop. Having followed the story, I just happened to click on Mr. El-Bady's Obama page to see if it was still even there, and must have caught the erasure at the exact moment it happened.

That's how it happens. It practically takes a precise alignment of the planets to be at that right place in that right time. In that instant of random checking I discovered the first Orwellian vanishing of Michelle Obama's name from Mr. El-Hady's 'friends' list.

Which, of course, no longer exists because because neither does Mr. El-Hady now. He is an un-person, at least as far is the Obama campaign is concerned.

Problem is, you can't make un-people now. Too many videos, records, caches and screenshots all over the web.

See what happens. If it breaks or not.

All that said, I will confess that I sent a link and a hello to Hillary's campaign website. You have to promote your own work. If Hillary doesn't bite, I'll go to the Vast Right WIng Conspiracy. They eat this stuff up.

But the story is starting to get legs. It's at Digg, LGF, Michelle Malkin and many other blogs and websites. Not really expecting the New York Times to cover it, though.

For the record, I have nothing personal against Mr. Obama. Just some of the company he keeps. But if it came down to running a hot exclusive, I'd take down President Bush in a heartbeat, too.

There's no such thing as bad publicity.

Unless you screw up a major news story, that is.

Just do your homework, use your head, and learn from what I've learned here. Maybe even run it by DJ staff to see what you got before you post it. I definitely will next time.

If there ever is a next time, of course. Finding leads like that are like hitting the lottery.

Happy Hunting, DJs!