You’ve no doubt heard, or read, the news. The USA were the ones who destroyed three of the four Nord Stream pipelines in September 2022, according to Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh. The story, or responses to it, were then reported in other, more prominent, news outlets. These include the UK’s The Times, Reuters, Al Jazeera and the New York Post.

It’s a cliché at this point to describe Hersh as a controversial figure. His investigative reporting revealed US military abuses in the past, most notably at My Lai during the Vietnam war and torture at the Abu Ghraib facility during the Iraq war. However, more befitting the label for “controversial,” he also has publicly asserted that the Obama administration had lied about the circumstances surrounding the death of Osama Bin Laden, and that sarin gas attacks in Syria were not perpetrated by the Syrian state.

This article is not meant to definitively answer the question of whether or not Hersh’s reporting should be given the benefit of the doubt or dismissed outright. Rather, this article will focus on the ways which media literacy have impacted the public’s ability to critically examine reports that offer a particular view of events. You will not find clear-cut answers to any of the controversial claims made by Hersh here.

Instead, Hersh and his latest piece serves as the perfect example of a reporter who’s work is not so easily defined by business interests, or by ideological motivation. Sometimes, reading our news media requires a foundation for critical examination that is hardly taught to the widespread public. This article’s intent will be to cultivate that view so that you can come to your own conclusions, rather than accept one view or the other wholesale.

Sarin Gas and Syrian Civil War

By necessity, this piece will not delve deeply into the details, specifics, or debate around Hersh’s claim that the Syrian government was not responsible for sarin gas attacks in August 2013. However, since it is the most recent piece of his reporting that shares similar issues as his Nord Stream article, it will be necessary to examine the broad strokes.

Hersh’s 2013 piece Whose Sarin? published in the London Review of Books makes the claim that the Syrian government was not responsible for the August 2013 attacks. The main pillars of his arguments are as follows: the al-Nusra Front, “a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida” also had access to sarin gas and the resources to create it, and the Obama administration omitted facts to present their own narrative of the sarin gas attacks that took place in August of that year.

The entire piece is worth reading, however there are issues that arise from Seymour’s reporting. One of the experts he uses is Theodore Postol, a then professor of technology and national security at MIT, who concludes that the rockets could have been made outside a professional setting. Postol uses “PartisanGirl” as a source in this area, who has appeared on fascist extremist David Duke’s podcast. Later they both appeared on a podcast hosted by the anti-semitic Ryan Dawson, where Postol said “I could tell from her voice… that she was a trained chemist.” In addition to Postol, the piece heavily relies on anonymous sources to tell much of the story. These facts rightfully foster doubt.

While these are worthwhile critiques of sources, other critics show their hand far more than they intended in their rebuttal. Writing in the LA Review of Books, Muhammad Idrees Ahmad laid out many salient critiques of Whose Sarin? However, when he refutes the idea that US intervention was a main goal of the gas attack, as laid out by Hersh, he makes a dubious claim. “Had [intervention from the USA] happened, it is not certain that its consequences would have been any worse than the consequences of nonintervention.”

Certainly the denizens of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya would disagree. Beyond that, it’s unclear how a hypothetical game of “what-ifs” strengthens arguments against Hersh.

Even so, as we’ve seen, there are salient critiques of reporting in Whose Sarin? that continue in How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline. Reading such critiques should lead any discerning reader to not take the reporting on face-value, but to critically examine the claims being made by Hersh, read rebuttals, and come to their own conclusions.

Nord Stream

The Nord Stream piece shares similar problems, though on a lower scale. The main thrust of his entire piece is that the US government planted explosives in a covert operation in conjunction with the Norwegian intelligence services. The details are plentiful, in one instance describing how last minute changes from Biden prompted the use of robust signal technology to ensure efficacy in a delayed detonation.

However, the sole source provided for these claims is someone anonymous with “direct knowledge of the operational planning.” No mention of their department, no mention of their role in the process, simply someone who knew about the operation.

While it would be erroneous to point to this fact in order to dismiss the entire story, what can be said is that this single anonymous source makes the claims open to doubt. In comparison, Radio Free Asia, a US funded propaganda outlet, uses anonymous sources liberally and without qualification in its reporting, and is rightfully critiqued for that tactic. Though we can clearly distinguish the difference between Hersh, a proven investigative journalist, and a Washington-based service using anonymous sources to spread unfounded fearmongering about countries like the DPRK, that doesn’t automatically lend the Hersh story unqualified credibility. Any reader who understands this dynamic in relation to Radio Free Asia has no excuse to accept the Nord Stream story in an unqualified manner.

What further strains the credibility of Hersh’s piece is the situation in which it was published. In his inaugural substack post, he states that he had been working on the story for three months, “with no pressure from a publisher, editors or peers.”

Put simply, with a story this large, an editor (or even a peer) is needed. A second set of trusted eyes that can verify the source and to confirm the reporting to those inquiring is a glaring omission in a piece that essentially accuses the US of an act of war. Does Hersh have someone who can corroborate the authenticity of his claim? At time of writing, there has been no mention.

Again, this alone does not disqualify the reporting. Do I agree that substack offers a more preferable alternative to the industry standard, profit-oriented and hegemonic capitalist news industry? Of course, and Hersh himself is aware of the challenges inherent to reporting abuses by superpowers in their imperialist missions. But with no mention of an editor, even one hired by Hersh to work freelance on his reporting for this piece, another layer of doubt should come into focus. If the last time a widely accepted, crucial piece of investigative reporting done by Hersh was 20 years ago, he’s certainly earned a listen, but not necessarily an acceptance.

The Truth

As stated earlier, this piece will not be able to deliver the concrete truth about the two discussed instances of Hersh’s reporting. It should be noted that not every issue with his reporting in this piece, or in others, have been explored here. However, to that end, it must be said that the organizations that can prove or disprove Hersh’s assertion are large news media companies. The resources wielded by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, the Guardian, Al Jazeera and countless others are far more than independent journalists of any calibre can utilize. In this manner, Hersh has done one undeniably good thing: he has put out a report that can either be confirmed or denied.

It may be the case that these large news media organizations choose to side with US imperialism and militarism, and skew their reporting to target Hersh for his piece. The issues discussed here are not concocted wholesale out of spite, but they could be used to exploit doubt about his claims to the point of baldfaced denial and support of US power structures. It is also equally possible that these organizations simply abdicate their nominal responsibilities, choosing to dismiss Hersh as a crank who shouldn’t be listened to under any circumstances. If either option is chosen, a critical reader would find more reason to believe Hersh’s reporting.

The correct path forward, however, would be for these news agencies to reach out to their own contacts who are willing to talk, examine participants in BALTOPS 22, check available records, and further independently verify the claims made by Hersh in this piece. It will be difficult, as such an operation would have required the utmost secrecy by every participant, but with a concerted effort, cracks could appear in the official story. Any news agency that fails to attempt this will be complicit in covering up the truth, whatever it may be.

But the conversation has appeared to skip that part, and focused mainly on Hersh’s inherent credibility. As such, there are two primary responses to this article’s existence. Firstly, to accept the reporting and spread the piece in a way to confirm previously held beliefs. Groups of people have posted the reporting, using Hersh’s past qualifications to bolster credibility while others respond with endless variations of the phrase “called it.” Secondly, to point out the issues and dismiss the reporting, wholesale, and by extension any responsibility the US may have had in the event. “One anonymous source means its conclusions are false” applies for unknown journalists writing in isolation, organizations who repeatedly utilize the tactic to push narratives, or government institutions justifying policy. Though journalists like Eliot Higgins may assert that Hersh’s reporting is inherently useless, he’s also openly admitted on multiple occasions that Bellingcat’s funding comes from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US-state funded organization created by President Reagan to promote US interests in the global sphere. This does not discount the critiques laid out here, but it does raise the question of why dismissal of Hersh is so integral to people like Higgins.

In this fashion, the content of Hersh’s piece becomes secondary to one’s personal values. Reading How America Took Out The Nord Stream Pipeline in its entirety is necessary for those interested in geopolitics, but so is critically examining the structure and publication surrounding it, as well as the criticism available and where it stems from. The distinct lack of effort to do this is an indictment of the current state of news media literacy. If you do not apply the critical eye used for billionaire-funded news media, state-affiliated organizations or outright propaganda outlets to other reports that assert what you believe, your framework is incomplete. Conversely, if you use one source of doubt in a story of this character to dismiss it outright, your framework is also incomplete.

This is not material analysis, it’s self-aggrandizement.