By David Phinney

Aug. 8, 2005 — It’s always gratifying to break a new story: the US Marines arresting and jailing a Zapata private security convoy over Memorial Day weekend near Fallujah, Iraq without charges. An investigation continues, of course, as first reported June 2 in this blog and picked up by the other media June 8.

Not only did my June 7 story set the pace for hundreds of others around the world (thanks to a kind source), it has now become a touchstone and anecdote for most of the significant stories about private security companies in Iraq ever since, including the latest piece on Triple Canopy in The New York Times.

I also enjoy the echo effect of headlines. My original story had the kicker: “Tension and Confusion Grow Amid the ‘Fog of War.'” A July 10 Washington Post report on the same Zapata convoy: “Tension and Confusion Between Troops, and Contractors on the Battlefield.”

Strangely, I pitched the story to a number of major news organizations only to seem them reiterate my reporting without credit and certainly without payment. Actually, not so strange — it’s a predictable pattern among news organizations that claim the internet is destroying their business.