'NYT' Reporter Reveals How He Got 'Blackwater' Scoop

By: Joe Strupp This week?s detailed account by The New York Times of the controversial Blackwater security shooting in Baghdad was not the result of some in-depth investigative effort using leaked documents or high-ranking anonymous sources.

It was, in reality, good old fashioned police reporting, say its authors.

James Glanz, who penned the acclaimed report in last Wednesday?s paper along with Alissa J. Rubin, said the duo did nothing more than their fellow reporters in midtown Manhattan might have done with a city shooting ? reach officials, find witnesses, and keep asking questions.

?It was a regular old cop story,? Glanz, an eight year Times veteran told E&P via cell phone. ?If you forget about official sources and look at it like a shooting at 34th and Broadway, you have the story.?

And quite a story they got. The detailed piece revealed a string of previously unreported details, using 12 witnesses and numerous officials, about the controversial Sept. 16 incident that has drawn new interest in the private security firms used in Baghdad.

Among the reporter?s findings:

* ?A deadly cascade of events began when a single bullet apparently fired by a Blackwater guard killed an Iraqi man whose weight probably remained on the accelerator and propelled the car forward as the passenger, the man?s mother, clutched him and screamed.?

* ?The car continued to roll toward the convoy, which responded with an intense barrage of gunfire in several directions, striking Iraqis who were desperately trying to flee.?

* ?Minutes after that shooting stopped, a Blackwater convoy ? possibly the same one ? moved north from the square and opened fire on another line of traffic a few hundred yards away, in a previously unreported separate shooting, investigators and several witnesses say.?

?It was a matter of finding official and quasi-official sources, talking to witnesses and getting the story,? said Glanz, who is on his seventh Iraq assignment since 2004. ?It was one of the more normal stories we have done.?

Glanz added that the incident occurred just outside the so-called ?Green Zone? safe haven, making it somewhat easier to roam the area for information. ?It has an interesting twist to it, but it was mostly like a cop reporter,? he says, adding he still has one of the bullet casings on his desk. ?A couple of times I called American investigative sources and they asked me questions. You can tell where you are from that.?

He stressed that it took time for the reporters to lock into some of the key sources, such as witnesses, noting the need to follow such a story for days, and even weeks. ?We had been collecting string on it but really it cracked into that when they began pulling witnesses through,? he said about the Iraqi investigators. ?It came together over o couple of days when Alissa worked the scene, person by person by person.?

He added that there are numerous local stories that could be uncovered if reporters were able to stick with them more. ?There is a tendency here because of the exhaustive nature to get the day story and move on,? he explained. ?You have to have a gut sense as to what you can make progress on.?

The reporters also credited the Iraqi officials with cooperating, often more than Americans. ?We often criticize Iraqi officials,? he said. ?Here is one case where they led the way and did everything they were supposed to.?