Jim Kouri: Another wannabe journalist who got to be a propagandist

By Lee Russ

Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 05:50 PM

Where does the right wing outrage factory find all these reporter wannabes?  One after another, often with backgrounds in the military, or law enforcement, or....gay prostitution.

No, it hardly ended with Jeff Gannon.  The web is stuffed with "news" sites that all print the same stories, all "authored" (and that sure does deserve the quotes) by one of a lengthy list of "contributors."

Meet Jim Kouri:

Jim Kouri is a certified protection professional, terrorism expert, writer, commentator and contributing editor for Chief of Police Magazine. A former chief at a housing project in New York City's Washington Heights district -- dubbed Crack City -- he serves as Fifth-Vice President of the National Association of Chiefs of Police (www.aphf.org). He possesses over 25 years of law enforcement and security experience and writes a regular column for KingNewsMedia.Com. He's the author of Crime Talk: Conversations with America's Top Crimefighters and Assume The Position: Police Science for Novelists, Screenwriters and Journalist, and his magazine articles appear in many publications. He's a frequent guest on many TV and radio stations including Fox News, CNN, CBS, ABC, CNBC, and others. Kouri holds a bachelor of science in criminal justice and master of arts in public administration and he's a board certified protection professional.

He also writes for Mens News Daily, Common Voice, and a whole host of other outraged right sites.  So many, in fact, that you have to wonder how a man who is so busy on television, authoring books, and being a "board certified protection professional" could possibly find the time.

Perhaps it's easier for Mr. Kouri because although he signs his name to the stories, there are already accusations of plagiarism, backed with pretty good proof that what he does is slightly reformat news wire stories and forget to credit the wire service.  Say, didn't Gannon and GOPUSA do that?  That must be why Gannon only needed a couple of days journalism training at that right wing-funded journalism school he attended.

Lots of web bloggers use wire stories as a jumping off point for discussion, or elaboration, including me.  But we (including me) don't conceal what we're doing and we cite and link to the story.  Not Gannon. Not Kouri.

And in Kouri's case, the plagiarism claim is especially ironic, since he's the "author" of this (go to this site and scroll down; the story's about half way down the page):

Do members of the news media remind Americans that Senator Joe Biden is a plagiarist?
Say what you will about Judge John Roberts, but I'll bet the farm he writes his own briefs and opinions. Although Biden touts himself as someone who has earned national and international recognition as a policy innovator, effective legislator and party spokesman on international relations and arms control, he is best known as a politician who was drummed out of the 1988 presidential race when he was caught plagiarizing speeches from other politicians. It was then disclosed that Biden was involved in a plagiarism incident in law school and exaggerated his academic record.

Think he might regret having written that only to be accused of plagiarism himself?

I could almost feel sorry for Kouri--his ambition to be somebody, to write important "stuff" on the topics of the day--if his writings weren't so ridiculously and transparently propaganda.  Take this gem:

Human Rights Groups and News Media Aid Terrorists?
May 15, 2006
by Jim Kouri, CPP

Two human rights groups wish to use the European Union's satellites to uncover CIA secret detention facilities. The organizations involved are The Council of Europe and Human Rights Watch, which is based in the United States.

What's shocking about this revelation is that two supposedly well-regarded human rights groups are aiding a network of people who murder innocent civilians, torture and decapitate prisoners, and call for the annihilation of an entire people (Israelis). They are attempting to perform a counterintelligence operation for terrorists, whether they do so intentionally or unintentionally.

Don't you love the attempt to ameliorate the smear with the "intentionally or unintentionally?"  Or maybe you like the "supposedly well regarded" device better.

Jim Kouri.  Law enforcement background.  But then again, Bernie Kerik was from law enforcement, too.  And Duke Cunningham was a military hero.

I'm neither, though I served time in the Army and Viet Nam.  But I am pissed at what passes for journalism among the outrage manufacturers, and at what passes for journalists in that increasingly strident, increasingly isolated world where fear and outrage are all that keep the molecules from flying apart.