John McQuaid

I’m going to immediately contradict my criticism in the previous post and note that, despite their flaws, newspapers are driving the anthrax story. At the moment, only papers have the wherewithal – the combination of experience and smarts, contacts within the law enforcement and bioterrorism prevention establishment, and the resources required – to assemble this kind of complicated story, fast. In addition, the form the “story” itself doesn’t benefit from the Internet’s inevitable fragmentation, but from aggregation – putting everything together into a comprehensible form. Not necessarily a single narrative (though I’d like to see that) but a form that still lays it all out.

Scoop-driven network TV news isn’t going to do it. New online outlets such as ProPublica might be able to, but there aren’t many of them. Blogs and social media are at a disadvantage negotiating this kind of secretive, highly specialized milieu.

As newspapers implode and inevitably shed investigative capacity, it’s going to be harder for them to mount this kind of effort. We need to cultivate the kind of talent and narrative forms required to replace that in the new media universe.

It’s both interesting and chilling to watch the story of Bruce Ivins, the FBI’s anthrax suspect who committed suicide last week, unfold bit by bit in the media. The problem is, right now all we have are fragments, at-times contradictory little pieces of a complex narrative involving even-more complex science, Ivins’ personal foibles, the FBI’s own troubled record on the case, and the ways the anthrax attacks were purposely associated with the Iraq war buildup in the media and public consciousnesses.

So we get a fascinating, but fractured and contradictory portrait of Ivins as a dutiful, colorless federal employee, a community-minded volunteer – but also as someone with possibly perverse designs on money or professional recognition and success, who was decidedly unbalanced, whom a psychotherapist called “homicidal” and a “sociopath” and who routinely made death threats. Another wrinkle: the local paper published Ivins’s letters to the editor in which he comes off as a hardline conservative Catholic with political views to match. The central question here is, was Ivins driven to madness by the FBI closing in, or did his psychological problems predate the later stages of the investigation and relate to the deeds in question?

At this stage is we don’t know enough yet to answer that. And in the meantime, everybody’s bidding to control the narrative, and competing agendas are playing out under the surface of the stories. Because of confidentiality commitments, “objectivity” rules and the like, sometimes the media doesn’t advance the story but muddles it. Take this Washington Post story today, headlined “Scientists Question FBI Probe on Anthrax: Ivins Could Not Have Been Attacker, Some Say.”

But the “scientists” of the headline have an obvious interest in Ivins’ supposed innocence. He was their friend and colleague. The reputation of their lab is on the line, and to some extent their own professional and personal judgment. The FBI, meanwhile, thinks Ivins was their man, and has evidence to that effect. But of course, after hounding Steven Hatfill, it’s trying to restore its own reputation.

So the story veers back and forth:

One bioweapons expert familiar with the FBI investigation said Ivins indeed possessed the skills needed to create the dust-fine powder used in the attacks. At the Army lab where he worked, Ivins specialized in making sophisticated preparations of anthrax bacteria spores for use in animal tests, said the expert, who requested anonymity because the investigation remains active.

Ivins’s daily routine included the use of processes and equipment the anthrax terrorist likely used in making his weapons. He also is known to have had ready access to the specific strain of Bacillus anthracis used in the attack — a strain found to match samples found in Ivins’s lab, he said.

“You could make it in a week,” the expert said. “And you could leave USAMRIID with nothing more than a couple of vials. Bear in mind, they weren’t exactly doing body searches of scientists back then.”

Who is this expert? S/he is “familiar with the FBI investigation.” I take that to mean s/he’s with the FBI or worked with it in some capacity, and that this reflects the FBI line. But the paper can’t come out and say that. So is this a credible expert view or an FBI view, or both, or neither?

Then this:

“USAMRIID doesn’t deal with powdered anthrax,” said Richard O. Spertzel, a former biodefense scientist who worked with Ivins at the Army lab. “I don’t think there’s anyone there who would have the foggiest idea how to do it. You would need to have the opportunity, the capability and the motivation, and he didn’t possess any of those.”

Which is it? Obviously, the reporters couldn’t resolve this contradiction before their deadline. I empathize. But I wonder whether this story should have run at all, since it essentially tells us nothing.