''FDD's Long War Journal'' (LWJ) is an American
news website
An online newspaper (or electronic news or electronic news publication) is the online version of a newspaper, either as a stand-alone publication or as the online version of a printed periodical.
Going online created more opportunities for newspa ...
, also described as a
blog
A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
, which reports on the
War on terror
The war on terror, officially the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), is an ongoing international Counterterrorism, counterterrorism military campaign initiated by the United States following the September 11 attacks. The main targets of the campa ...
. The site is operated by Public Multimedia Incorporated (PMI), a non-profit media organization established in 2007. PMI is run by Paul Hanusz and
Bill Roggio
Bill Roggio is an American commentator on military affairs,
and the managing editor of ''The Long War Journal''. Prior to leading a team of online commentators, Roggio published the online weblog ''The Fourth Rail''. Roggio was an active duty ...
. Roggio is the managing editor of the journal and
Thomas Joscelyn
Thomas may refer to:
People
* List of people with given name Thomas
* Thomas (name)
* Thomas (surname)
* Saint Thomas (disambiguation)
* Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, and Doctor of the Church
* Thomas the ...
is senior editor. The site is a project of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank and registered lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., United States.
The group's political leanings have been described as hawkish and neoconservative ...
, where both Roggio and Joscelyn are senior fellows.
The journal evolved from Roggio's personal blog with which he reported on conflicts involving terrorism and Islamic insurgencies around the world. PMI states that its journal seeks to provide news on conflicts without promoting a political agenda and with a goal of providing in-depth, contextual, detailed reporting. The site's staff, led by Roggio, use international media sources plus contacts in the
United States intelligence community
United may refer to:
Places
* United, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community
* United, West Virginia, an unincorporated community
Arts and entertainment Films
* ''United'' (2003 film), a Norwegian film
* ''United'' (2011 film), a BBC Two fi ...
for information for their reports.
The organization is funded by private donations, sponsorships, and grants. As of 2011, the site received an estimated average of 12,000 views a day. ''FDD's Long War Journal'' has been used as a source by a number of large, mass media organizations. The journal's reporting has included stories on insurgent and terrorist activities in
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
.
History and mission
''FDD's Long War Journal'' began as Roggio's personal blog, BillRoggio.com, in which he provided detailed reporting on conflicts around the world using information obtained from media and internet sources plus information given him by contacts in the United States intelligence community. Hanusz, a regular reader and financial contributor to Roggio's blog, had the idea of organizing Roggio's reporting into a nonprofit journalism organization along the lines of the
Center for Public Integrity
The Center for Public Integrity (CPI) is an American nonprofit investigative journalism organization whose stated mission is "to reveal abuses of power, corruption and dereliction of duty by powerful public and private institutions in order to c ...
. Thus, in 2007, Roggio and Hanusz left their full-time jobs and created PMI as a non-profit corporation with the goal, according to the ''
Columbia Journalism Review
The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...
'', "to develop a first-of-its-kind media entity made up of independent reporters, at home and abroad, dedicated solely to reporting on terrorism, so-called small wars, and counterterrorism efforts around the world, to do it in the kind of fine-grained detail that the mainstream press never will, and, as much as possible, without an overt partisan bent."
[Mcleary, Paul,]
Blogging the long war: Bill Roggio wants to be your source for conflict coverage
, ''Columbia Journalism Review
The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' (''CJR'') is a biannual magazine for professional journalists that has been published by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961. Its contents include news and media industry trends, ana ...
'', 46.6 (March–April 2008): 36+, (3621 words).[Spillman, Benjamin,]
All About the Blog
, ''Las Vegas Review-Journal
The ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' is a daily subscription newspaper published in Las Vegas, Nevada, since 1909. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada and one of two daily newspapers in the Las Vegas area.
The ''Review-Journal'' ...
'', November 9, 2007; retrieved June 16, 2011.
Roggio and the ''Long War Journal's'' staff use reports from various media organizations, including publications in countries where terrorists or Islamic insurgencies are active, such as in Afghanistan and Pakistan, then amplify and add historical context to what they find with information from their own network of US intelligence sources. In some cases, PMI has funded trips by its own media-credentialed journalists to report on war zones such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines. Roggio, a former
United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
signalman
A signalman is a person who historically made signals using flags and light. In modern times, the role of signalmen has evolved and now usually uses electronic communication equipment. Signalmen usually work in rail transport networks, armed for ...
and
infantry
Infantry is a military specialization which engages in ground combat on foot. Infantry generally consists of light infantry, mountain infantry, motorized infantry & mechanized infantry, airborne infantry, air assault infantry, and marine i ...
man, uses his military experience to add strategic, operational, and tactical level context to the journal's reports. According to the ''Columbia Journalism Review'', "Roggio's greatest service, then, may be the way he picks up where the mainstream press leaves off, giving readers a simultaneously more specific and holistic understanding of the battlefield."
The ''Columbia Journalism Review'' reports that the ''Long War Journal'' for the most part avoids political bias in its stories. The ''Review'', however, noted that Roggio has at times aligned himself with conservative bloggers on issues such as the "
Easongate" controversy.
The journal states that it is a publication of the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit think tank and registered lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C., United States.
The group's political leanings have been described as hawkish and neoconservative ...
, which describes itself as non-partisan but has been called "
neoconservative
Neoconservatism is a political movement that began in the United States during the 1960s among liberal hawks who became disenchanted with the increasingly pacifist foreign policy of the Democratic Party and with the growing New Left and coun ...
" by various resources.
[Goldberg, Michelle,]
The 'Hero' of the War on Terror
, ''The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', February 10, 2011; retrieved June 17, 2011.
In 2006, before the establishment of the ''Journal'',
Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
commentator
Stephen Kaus
Stephen Kaus is a judge in the Alameda County Superior Court, Oakland, California, appointed by Governor Jerry Brown, effective December 2012. Previous to his appointment Kaus was a partner practicing civil litigation attorney at Cooper, White & ...
criticized Roggio after Roggio complained about ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
's'' negative coverage of his 2005 trip to Iraq as an embedded reporter with the
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...
. Kaus criticized Roggio as a sensationalist who likes to get people to read his articles by distorting the news.
Kaus later added, however, that "I should make clear that Roggio's reporting and blogging make a valuable contribution and I take my hat off to his courage. It is the attacks on the Post that are unwarranted."
[ Kaus, Stephen,]
Military Blogger Bill Roggio Swiftboats the Washington Post
, ''Huffington Post
''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...
'', January 8, 2006.
Staff and funding
, PMI's editorial board includes Roggio (managing editor) and four senior and associate editors. Reporters work on a part-time or voluntary basis. The organization has employed up to 16 reporters at various times, including sending them on field reporting trips to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Philippines.
Reader donations help finance PMI, which also seeks financial assistance through corporate sponsorships, foundation grants, and content-distribution deals. The organization does not release details on its finances.
Traffic and use
The ''
Las Vegas Review-Journal
The ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' is a daily subscription newspaper published in Las Vegas, Nevada, since 1909. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada and one of two daily newspapers in the Las Vegas area.
The ''Review-Journal'' ...
'' reported in November 2007 that ''FDD's Long War Journal'' was getting between 10,000 and 20,000 views each day.
In 2008, the ''Columbia Journalism Review'' reported that ''FDD's Long War Journal'' website was receiving about 6,000 daily visitors.
As of June 2011, the site ranked 91,493 on
Alexa
Alexa may refer to: Technology
*Amazon Alexa, a virtual assistant developed by Amazon
* Alexa Internet, a defunct website ranking and traffic analysis service
* Arri Alexa, a digital motion picture camera
People
*Alexa (name), a given name and ...
. The site's rank in the United States was 25,177 and 20,141 in Pakistan. According to Alexa, 984 other sites linked to ''FDD's Long War Journal's'' site.
Quantcast
Quantcast is an American technology company, founded in 2006, that specializes in AI-driven real-time advertising, audience insights and measurement. It has offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom, Ireland, Fran ...
, in June 2011, estimated that the site received an average of 12,000 visitors a day for the preceding one-year period. According to Quantcast estimation, 67% of the site's visitors are male, 84% are
caucasian
Caucasian may refer to:
Anthropology
*Anything from the Caucasus region
**
**
** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus region
*
*
*
Languages
* Northwest Caucasian l ...
, and 67% are attending or have graduated from college.
''FDD's Long War Journal'' has been used as a source by media organizations or quoted in press publications including ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' (two of which were on the newspaper's front page), ''
Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world.
The agency was estab ...
'', ''
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. newspa ...
'', ''
United Press International
United Press International (UPI) is an American international news agency whose newswires, photo, news film, and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations for most of the 20th ...
'', ''
Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, whi ...
'', ''
The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the secon ...
'', ''
Cable News Network
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
'', the ''
Times of India
''The Times of India'', also known by its abbreviation ''TOI'', is an Indian English language, English-language daily newspaper and digital news media owned and managed by The Times Group. It is the List of newspapers in India by circulation, t ...
'', ''
The Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
'', ''
CTC Sentinel'', ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'',
[Thompson, Mark,]
Battleland: Mullen Talks Tougher in Pakistan
, ''Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...
'', April 21, 2011; retrieved June 17, 2011. ''
The Nation
''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'',
''
The Washington Times
''The Washington Times'' is an American conservative daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., that covers general interest topics with a particular emphasis on national politics. Its broadsheet daily edition is distributed throughout ...
'', and ''
The Atlantic
''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science.
It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
''.
Marc Thiessen
Marc Alexander Thiessen (born January 13, 1967) is an American conservative author, political appointee, and weekly columnist for ''The Washington Post''. Thiessen served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush from 2007 to 2009 and Secreta ...
used the journal as a source in a March 15, 2011 opinion piece for ''The Washington Post''.
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
-winning reporter
Thomas E. Ricks cited ''FDD's Long War Journal'' reporter Nathan Webster in Ricks' Iraq-related book,
''The Gamble''.
Reports
In December 2007 the journal reported, with accompanying graphics and maps, on supply routes for weapons and supplies from Iran to insurgents in Iraq. The story was ignored by the mainstream press.
''FDD's Long War Journal'' predicted nine months in advance that the government of Pakistan would make a truce with the Taliban of North Waziristan. The journal also was among the first, before most mainstream media, to report on Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan and the conflict between militants in those areas and the Pakistani military.
In addition, the journal has reported on the relationship between the Pakistani government and military and the
Haqqani network
The Haqqani network is an Afghan Islamist group, built around the family of the same name, that has used asymmetric warfare in Afghanistan to fight against Soviet forces in the 1980s, and US-led NATO forces and the Islamic Republic of Afghanist ...
.
Controversies
After Baitullah Mehsud was killed in August 2009, Roggio claimed on August 6, 2009, that a US intelligence official told him US officials thought Mehsud was still alive. This claim about Mehsud's fate was not accurate, as Pentagon spokesman Jeff Morrell and National Security Advisor James Jones claimed that US officials were 90% certain he was killed and they had yet to see any evidence to assume otherwise, and the Pakistan Taliban later confirmed he was killed.
In April 2009, Roggio claimed
Rashid Rauf
Rashid Rauf (ca. 1981 – 22 November 2008) was an alleged Al-Qaeda operative. He was a dual citizen of Britain and Pakistan who was arrested in Bhawalpur, Pakistan in connection with the 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot in August 2006, a day b ...
, an Al Qaeda operative who was reported to have been killed in a US
drone strike
Drone warfare is a form of aerial warfare using unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAV) or weaponized commercial unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The United States, United Kingdom, Israel, China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, France, India, Pakista ...
which took place in North Waziristan on November 22, 2008, was still alive. This claim about Rauf's fate was never proven to be true and in July 2010, a U.S. counterterrorism official told the ''
Daily News'' that Rauf was killed in the drone strike. In October 2012. Rauf's family confirmed he was killed in a drone strike.
In September 2010, Thomas Joscelyn falsely claimed that
Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
had released al-Qaeda spokesman
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. In reality, Abu Ghaith was still under house arrest and was not released until 2013. Abu Ghaith was subsequently captured in Turkey, deported to Jordan and handed over to U.S. law enforcement.
After Osama bin Laden was killed in May 2011, Roggio claimed that his son Sa'ad, who was believed to have been killed in a drone strike in 2009, was one of his possible successors. At this time, Roggio gave no mention to the earlier report about Sa'ad's death and stated that Sa'ad "is considered a senior leader and an operational commander in al Qaeda" and that "he is known to shelter in Iran and to move back and forth across the Iranian border with Pakistan." A letter captured from the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where Osama was killed also discussed Sa'ad's death. In September 2012, al-Qaeda leader
Ayman al-Zawahiri
Ayman Mohammed Rabie al-Zawahiri (June 19, 1951 – July 31, 2022) was an Egyptian-born terrorist and physician who served as the second emir of al-Qaeda from June 16, 2011, until his death.
Al-Zawahiri graduated from Cairo University with ...
confirmed in a video message that Saad was killed in a drone strike.
In March 2012, Roggio echoed claims by the
''Daily Times'' that
Ilyas Kashmiri
Ilyas Kashmiri, also referred to as Maulana Ilyas Kashmiri, Mufti Ilyas Kashmiri and Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri (10 February 1964 – 3 June 2011), was a Pakistani ex-Special Forces Islamist guerrilla insurgent who fought against India in K ...
was still alive and was spotted in a meeting with Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in North Waziristan. However, the accuracy of this report was disputed because journalists were unable to access the region where Kashmiri was allegedly spotted. A few days later, the report of Kashmiri's survival was further contradicted when an Al Qaeda spokesman eulogized him along with other Pakistani militants who had been killed in various drone strikes.
References
{{Use mdy dates, date=March 2013
Counterterrorism in the United States
American news websites
Internet properties established in 2007