Salam's Story

May 30, 2003 2:31 AM

Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger is finally tracked down.
posted by MintSauce (20 comments total)

If the bombs start falling here in Seoul, the Guardian better fucking well give me a job too. You know, if I live through it.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:38 AM on May 30, 2003

Thanks for posting this bit of news!
posted by plep at 2:48 AM on May 30, 2003

He really was the best correspondent in Iraq, so it's good to see that he's getting paid for it now. Paid well, I hope, the guy's got major street cred in the bank.

Stav, Bush's stamp card will be filled up after Iran, so I think he gets both Koreas free.
posted by planetkyoto at 2:53 AM on May 30, 2003

Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger is finally tracked down.

Does that mean we can stop being cynical about him now?
posted by walrus at 3:05 AM on May 30, 2003

I stand corrected.

(Or maybe the hoaxers just got to The Guardian's Iraq correspondent!)
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 3:51 AM on May 30, 2003

Didn't an Austrian Magazine already do this?

Also, if you read Salam's site, you'll see he mentioned doing the interview over a week ago (let's hope he doesn't mean the bit about selling his soul to the devil, or hid new fortnightly column will be hard to file)
posted by ascullion at 3:54 AM on May 30, 2003

Oh, and, don't forget to compare and contrast the text in the blog and the Guardian (thanks to Buzzmachine)
posted by ascullion at 4:00 AM on May 30, 2003

To be fair the Guardian does state that the excerpts are edited.
posted by viama at 4:34 AM on May 30, 2003

No matter who was first to report this, it's good to see that he really does exist and really was reporting things from inside Iraq. Unlike some Times reporters.
posted by tommasz at 6:49 AM on May 30, 2003

Am I the only who's still worried that he's particularly unsafe now? I mean, it's not as if Saddam's dead, or even, apparently, defanged...
posted by soyjoy at 7:19 AM on May 30, 2003

Oh, give me a break. We all know that he was already exposed as being an operative of Saddam's regime. He can't be for real. Also, we all know that the Iraqis love Americans, and are very thankful for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Anyone who disagrees obviously hates freedom and is with the terrorists.
posted by drstrangelove at 7:36 AM on May 30, 2003

Great news. I was always worried he was a figment of someone's imagination, but it's good to hear he's a real person.

How long until he gets a multimillion dollar book deal?
posted by mathowie at 8:19 AM on May 30, 2003

Anyone who disagrees obviously hates freedom and is with the terrorists.

Dr Strangelove, are you a bot?

If not, you're running seriously short on original (or witty) material.
posted by dhoyt at 9:43 AM on May 30, 2003

The way this side of the war has worked out really makes me feel pretty good about the world.

At first I was worried Salam would go under the radar and just be forgotten. Then I worried he'd turn out to be a fake stain the credibility of web log media for years.

Increasingly it's all working out perfectly. Salam is probably going to be the first weblog launched rock star journalist and I'm fairly positive this is going to be a trend.
posted by Leonard at 9:45 AM on May 30, 2003

Wow, dhoyt. Maybe he was made by the same company that made foldy?
posted by dgaicun at 10:29 AM on May 30, 2003

Salam's gay!
posted by WolfDaddy at 12:29 PM on May 30, 2003

*Shhhhh* his mother doesn't know
posted by dgaicun at 1:24 PM on May 30, 2003

Good call dhoyt. I really like the social system metafilter has: someone keeps fucking up and everyone will sooner or later hear about it. Makes me proud to be a Metafilter member.
posted by Keyser Soze at 3:56 PM on May 30, 2003

A not-to-be-missed Salam Pax update from the reporter for whom he anonymously translated, Peter Maass. Salam—this is his real first name—was sitting in a chair in the lobby, reading Philip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle. I knew, at that moment, that I would hire him.
posted by dhartung at 5:34 PM on June 2, 2003

Thanks, dhartung, that was great.
posted by languagehat at 6:43 PM on June 2, 2003