What's News?

The question rings through the journalistic community, most recently in the AJR's navel-gazing about whether the Downing Street memo(s) were really news, or just forced on the media radar screen via active left-wing emailers.

Now comes a story, courtesy of the Asia Times, that would seem to cast a fine, evil backlight on the mushroom cloud alarmism of the pre-Iraq War Administration statements. The report suggets that Saudi Arabia, which reputedly has been trying to go nuclear since 1975 (!!), has purchased nuclear materials from our other close friend, Pakistan (the father of whose bomb, A.Q. Khan, has previously been revealed to have sold nuclear goodies to North Korea, Iran, and Libya, among other good citizens of the world). The report also indicates that said Saud kingdom also paid a certain Middle East figure to develop a nuclear capability -- none other than Saddam Hussein.

Maybe it's the head-spinning quality of this reporting that explains why it's been followed up, or refuted, nowhere inside the American media bubble. Our ace journalists used to follow up the merest tidbit of Clintonian scandal unearthed by Richard Mellon Scaife's Pittsburgh daily, but apparently the Asia Times' story of nuclear prolilferation by our closest allies would involve lifting that's just a bit too heavy.