A spokesperson for Ft. Campbell, where Abdo had been stationed prior to going AWOL, said the soldier was also being investigated for child pornography discovered on his government computer. Abdo had applied for conscientious objector status the day before he was due to deploy to Afghanistan, but was denied his request by Ft. Campbell officials.

A representative for Fort Hood clarified that Abdo had not been at Fort Hood at the time of his arrest:

We are aware at this time that Killeen Police Department arrested a soldier yesterday. The incident leading to the arrest did not occur on Fort Hood and the soldier was not a Fort Hood based soldier. At this time, there has been no incident at Fort Hood. We continue our diligence in keeping our force protection at appropriate levels.

Abdo will likely face charges later today.

National security correspondent Jennifer Griffin joined Fox News from the Pentagon this afternoon to discuss the arrest. According to Griffin, Abdo was arrested while attempting to buy weapons and explosives at the same store where the suspected Ft. Hood shooter bought guns for his attack two years ago. Griffin mentioned that Abdo is a Muslim who was in possession of radical jihadist literature and bomb-making materials. Fox News also showed video of an interview Abdo gave to Al-Jazeera following his attempt to apply as a conscientious objector.

Watch Fox News’ segment on the arrest:

Who: Brian Williams, interviewed by Jeff Greenfield
What: “In the News with Jeff Greenfield – Brian Williams”
Where: 92^nd St. Y
When: April 18, 2010
Thumbs: Up

Brian Williams said proudly that he grew up watching Johnny Carson and Walter Cronkite. This comes as no surprise to his fans who recognize that on a regular basis Williams finds the perfect blend between comedy and self-deprecation and earnestness and seriousness.

While Williams acknowledged that the days when families gathered around the TV for the 6:30 news – as his did – are long gone, he reminded the audience that nightly newscasts still do very well ratings-wise. He pointed out that NBC’s ratings in February, for example, were three to four times better than Bill O’Reilly’s were. And, he added, broadcasts are still the main source of news for Americans, ahead of websites and newspapers.

What does Williams read on the internet? “Mostly aggregators,” he said. Drudge and HuffPo are in the mix with Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, New York Post, and USA Today. There are no bloggers that Williams would cite by name as being on the A-list, but he did credit Gawker for its breaking coverage of the Fort Hood massacre last year. That evening, he said, Gawker was beating the networks to information by an hour or two. Williams admitted that around the time of major events or decisions – Supreme Court, elections, natural disasters – he checks blogs to see what they’re reporting.

But those sites are limited. Nightly news excels in its world news coverage. On-the-ground reporting is especially close to Williams’ heart, and he credits NBC for allowing him to do so much of it despite the stark reality of its expense. That’s something new media doesn’t yet do well. It’s a good thing we have anchors like Williams providing images and reports we can conjure up when framing and reconsidering our impressions.

What They Said
“When you get to the afternoon, Fox goes from the attractive Munster daughter to the monster under the stairs.”
- Brian Williams looks at how the news competition shapes up

“I think people confused the coverage on behalf of the electorate with coverage of the man.”
- Brian Williams responds to criticism that the media is in bed with Obama with a simple answer: his story had actual significance.

“When complaints are down the middle, I’m happy. All is right in the world.”
- Brian Williams says that he judges his bias – and fairness – in reporting based on the feedback he receives

“If you’re covering a rally and one of them is doing something to a plastic doll…I’m just saying.”
- Brian Williams tries to explain why the Tea Party has been depicted the way it has in the media

What We Thought

• Jeff Greenfield set a very high bar for other interviewers. Not only were his questions well-considered and -prepared, he added his own thoughts and impressions to the back end of Williams’ comments. As a veteran media professional himself – and equally worthy of being in the interview seat, no doubt – Greenfield brought insights and stories that further enhanced the discussion.
• We agree with Williams and Greenfield that newspapers continue to offer something that websites cannot: the stumble. Some subjects like architecture aren’t as prone to make you click a headline. But if reading a newspaper, Williams said, you might find yourself intrigued by the story as you scan your eyes over it. We know that we’ve discovered interest in topics we didn’t plan to read about as a result of the newspaper stumble.

PANEL RULES!

Some audience behavior seems to repeat itself panel after panel. We’ll be updating a running list of “PANEL RULES!” that will help ensure that you are not the dweeb of the Panel Nerds.

Panel Nerds don’t like…Tiger spotters
While most of the questions were excellent, one stood out for us as a tad low-brow. Someone wanted to know why the media had run “hog wild” with Tiger Woods’ coverage and when it would cease. Williams protested that his network had covered it only “sparingly” because he doesn’t really see the news value in the story. The merits of the need to cover the story can be debated. But not in April. We’ve already seen the Masters go by and a definite dissipation in the interest and coverage of the story. This question would have had some teeth if it was posed back in December or January. In April, it’s just an old story, even for those who secretly want to know what will happen next for Tiger.

“Peter Hoekstra, the most senior Republican on the House Intelligence Committee and a member of Congress for Detroit’s state of Michigan, told AFP the suspect could have links to US-born Yemeni imam Anwar al-Aulaqi. Aulaqi, who is accused of being a senior Al-Qaeda recruiter, was known to have had emails contacts with US army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan who allegedly gunned down 13 people at a Texas military base last month. ‘He (Abdulmutallab) may have been in contact with the American imam al-Aulaqi,’ Hoekstra said after the bomb suspect apparently tried to blow up a US airliner as it began its descent into Detroit. ‘There are reports that he had contact and that he was recently in Yemen. The question we’ll have to raise is was this imam in Yemen influential enough to get some people to attack the US again,’ Hoekstra said.”

Hoekstra has been known for making somewhat exaggerated statements before and it remains to be seen if this one will pan out — still, obviously a very scary prospect should there be any truth to it. Meanwhile, according to NPR, passengers flying today appear to be taking yesterday’s incident and today’s increased security measures (such as they are) in stride:”People are very calm about it.” We’ll update as more info becomes available.

As a handful of commenters on the site point out, websites run ads against tragic or otherwise negative news stories all the time; should they stop? Where’s the cutoff?

Fair questions to ask, but the front page of a newspaper is still a privileged space, which is why papers took to selling front-page ads in the first place. Regardless of the broader question, it’s safe to say that balloons and rabbits will probably not sell much in the way of wine, spirits, and finer foods next to news of a national tragedy.

(via Fitz & Jen)

– Dave Miller, the deputy managing editor of the Killeen Daily Herald, the hometown paper for Fort Hood, providing a voice of reason during what had to be the most chaotic news event in the paper’s history. CJR has the full interview with Miller, and it’s worth a read if only to remind that not every media outlet in the country is solely interested in extreme headlines.

The witness, who asked not to be identified because it could damage his military career, has been interviewed by the Defense Criminal Investigative Division. He said Major Hasan wheeled on Sergeant Munley as she rounded the corner of a building and shot her, putting her on the ground. Then Major Hasan turned his back on her and started putting another magazine into his semiautomatic pistol. It was at that moment that Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, a veteran police officer, rounded another corner of the building, found Major Hasan fumbling with his weapon and shot him.

Without question there was a great deal of chaos surrounding the unprecedented events that took place at Fort Hood last Thursday afternoon. It was also reported for many hours that shooter Nadil Hasan was dead, when in fact he was at the hospital in stable condition. Also the result of the chaos? It’s entirely possible. However the Army does not have a great track record with the media when it comes to accuracy.

The case of Pat Tillman has recently returned to the headlines — Tillman was killed in a friendly fire incident in Afghanistan in 2004, though the Army (and the White House) initially tried to turn death into a propoganda win by telling people he had died under enemy attack.

The current confusion also brings to mind Jessica Lynch: “When the Army initially reported Private Lynch had been captured in Iraq after a Rambo-like performance in which she emptied her weapon and was wounded in battle. It was later learned she had been badly hurt in a vehicle accident during an ambush and was being well cared for by the Iraqis.”

Obviously, the full story, including Nadil Hasan’s testimony, has yet to come to light, and currently the Army is refusing to provide further details and yesterday on Oprah neither Sgt. Todd nor Sgt. Munley offered up any (possibly because they are not allowed yet to discuss it in public). However, under the harsh media spotlight currently trained on Fort Hood — which will only increase should this be determined an act of terrorism — one suspects the Army won’t be able to keep the details of the events to themselves for much longer.

What a surprise it must have been when Major Nidal Malik Hasan woke up from his coma to find himself not in paradise but in Brooke Army Medical Center, deep in the heart of Texas, under security so tight that there were armed guards patrolling both the intensive-care unit and checkpoints at the nearest freeway off-ramp. This was not the finalé he had scripted when he gave away all his earthly goods — his desk lamp and air mattress, his frozen broccoli and spinach, his copies of the Koran. He had told his imam he was planning to visit his parents before deploying to Afghanistan. He did not mention that his parents had been dead for nearly 10 years.

It is also looking very much like the aftermath of Fort Hood may see the end of political correctness, at least in regards to how it’s applied in the army (and possibly the media world).

But others are convinced that his religion protected him from stronger action by the Army. “He’d have to murder the general’s wife and daughter on the parade ground at high noon in order to get a serious reprimand,” says Ralph Peters, an outspoken retired Army lieutenant colonel who now writes military books and a newspaper column. While stressing “there shouldn’t be witch hunts” against Muslims in uniform, Peters insists that “this guy got a pass because he was a Muslim, despite the Army’s claim that everybody’s green and we’re all the same.” A top Pentagon official admits there may be some truth to the charge. “We’re wondering why some of these strange encounters didn’t trigger something more formal,” he says. “I think people were overly sensitive about Muslims in the military, and that led to a reluctance to say, ‘This guy is nuts.’ The Army is going to have to review their procedures to make sure someone can raise issues like this.”

Full story here: The Fort Hood Killer: Terrified … or Terrorist?

Mostly though Beck feels as though we are being endangered by our own political correctness: “I’m not playing their politically correct game anymore! This man was a Muslim, extremist, terrorist, end of story. Born in America, bred here in America…Know what I find amazing, this man was not afraid to speak his point of view, he was protected, but you’re not.” Video below.

Fox News, on the other hand — the “not a news network” news network — was live the majority of the day, with the exception of the 1-3 pmET business shows and the 8-10 pmET Huckabee/Beck block, breaking for coverage in the afternoon of President Obama’s speech and the live Fort Hood press conference during the 8 o’clock hour (before cutting back to Huckabee). CNN’s simultaneous Fort Hood special also aired during the 8 pmET slot, inconveniently eclipsing the live news on the matter.

When it came time for Nancy Pelosi to give her floor speech during yesterday’s debates, again only Fox was there, as also noted by TVNewser, while CNN went with taped programming and MSNBC cut in with only a soundless visual. To their credit, MSNBC did provide streaming coverage via an embeddable online player, with intermittent live coverage throughout the afternoon on television before ultimately airing the final vote as it happened.

Those die-hards obsessively tracking the progress of the bill were watching CSPAN, of course, but it is interesting to note how on point Fox News was throughout a hectic news day, especially so soon after their chops were questioned so extensively by the White House. It’s almost as if the passage of the health care bill in the House was more important to Fox News’ generally right-leaning viewers as the opposition than those who might’ve been expected to celebrate Pelosi’s speech and the bill as a historic achievement.

Whatever the case, where were CNN and MSNBC? It will be interesting to see how the weekend ratings play out, but if recent history is any indication, one bet is safer than the others.

As I’m walking up to it the gunshots start. Slow and methodical. But continuous. Two ambulatory wounded came out. Then two soldiers dragging a third who was covered in blood. Hearing the shots but not seeing the shooter, along with a couple other soldiers I stood in the street and yelled at everyone who came running that it was clear but to “RUN!”.

From there, he explicitly details the blood, bullet holes and the eventual takedown of the shooter:

(I’m about 15-20 meters from the shooter.) I yell at the cop, “He’s reloading, he’s reloading. Shoot him! Shoot him!) You have to understand, everything was quiet at this point. The cop appears to hear me and comes around the corner and shoots the shooter.

He goes down. The cop kicks his weapon further away. I sprint up to the downed female cop. Another captain (I think he was with me behind the cars) comes up as well. She’s bleeding profusely out of her thigh. We take our belts off and tourniquet her just like we’ve been trained (I hope we did it right…we didn’t have any CLS (combat lifesaver) bags with their awesome tourniquets on us, so we worked with what we had).

He calls the subsequent media photos “the most bizarre moment of the day” and continues to describe the emergency response:

The female cop had been taken away,and a medic was pumping plasma into the shooter. I’m not proud of this but I went up to her and said “this is the shooter, is there anyone else who needs attention…do them first”. She indicated everyone else living was attended to. I still hadn’t seen any EMTs or ambulances. I had so much blood on me that people kept asking me if I was OK.

Mediaite contacted MilBlogs for more information about the source, questions addressed in the following note on ROFASIX which now appears at the bottom of the post:

A number of folks have asked me to identify the writer for them. This email was passed around in the “good ol’ boy army aviator” circuit. When it was sent the comment was made that they didn’t doubt the veracity of this supposed JAG officer. It read right, and reflected some of the confusion that just now is being resolved. Yet, no one could verify this was an actual 1st person eye witness account. I tend to believe it is.

MilBlogs also passed on the above photo, which was reportedly published with the caption: “A first responder to a lone gunman’s attack at Fort Hood Nov. 5 renders honors at retreat after aiding his fellow soldiers. U.S. Army photo.”

The chilling story can be read in its entirety here.

UPDATE: At his blog, Abram Sauer details the similarities between the above Ft. Hood account and another anonymous version of the story running at Mother Jones. The tone is different, the newer version is more politicized, but “[t]his is the same person’s account,” writes Sauer. “Whether that person was really there or not is impossible to tell … But if it’s fake, what’s the motivation?”

(h/t Abram Sauer)

After the “hey look, Twitter did a new thing!” factor wore off, there was a backlash against Twitter lists. Early on, Jeff Jarvis astutely pointed out that aside from adding a “listed” stat for accounts, the lists themselves weren’t being used all that much:

As Mediaite pointed out, they take a long time to make correctly, and even then the current infrastructure favors already-big players like corporations and celebrities. The laundry list of problems goes on: they’re easy to game with blogroll-like listing exchanges; there are so many redundant lists as to cancel out the value of any individual one.

The response to the tragic Forth Hood shootings highlights a potentially fruitful approach. Rather than creating broad, evergreen, mostly useless lists like “/blogs/,” a topical list like “/ft-hood/” can emerge in a time of need to filter out the drek that inevitable emerges in a sure-to-be-flooded hashtag like #forthood.

Writing on the same topic, the Columbia Journalism Review notes that many of the best and most authoritative lists covering the tragedy emerged from established media outlets riffing off of other established media outlets. “Journalism and curation—it’s becoming increasingly difficult to determine where the one ends and the other begins,” CJR writes. Lists “represent a new—or, more precisely, a newly facilitated—way for news organizations to collaborate … So The New York Times gets to provide its users real-time information from Waco’s NewsChannel 25—and NewsChannel 25, in turn, gets to have its reporting amplified to the readers of the paper of record. Win and win.”

One problem: what if everyone is getting it wrong? Glenn Greenwald compellingly condemns big media outlets and Twitter alike for putting out tons of inaccurate details about the Fort Hood shooting (were there three gunmen? was the shooter a convert to Islam? did the shooter die? did combat fatigue have something to do with it?) and influencing early news consumers’ views of the situation as a result.

A feed of information can only be as good as its components, but upping the quality of those components can only be good news for its consumers and, by extension, for its curators.

Related: two especially good lists:

NY Times’ curated list

CNN Breaking News’ curated list

Here are five things we learned last night from cable news coverage of the shooting.

• Fox News’ “news” does news: Two of the newsiest early interviews took place on Fox News, during Shepard Smith‘s 7pmET hour. They included one with a former colleague of Nidal Malik Hasan and one with his cousin. In the cousin’s interview, the big news was that Hasan was fearful of being deployed overseas. It got big pick-up across the web and through other media – and interestingly, by CNN.

During Campbell Brown‘s 8pmET hour, she mistakenly introduced a clip as CNN original video, then played part of Shep’s interview. Immediately after, she identified it as a Fox News interview. But the point is – during a traditional news hour, Fox News was doing traditional news. This contradicts what CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein said recently to the Los Angeles Times, “They are in a completely different business than we are…We are not putting out the same product as they are. And we shouldn’t be compared to them on that account.” (FNC’s response: “Jon’s correct: It’s unfair to compare CNN to Fox News…Based on his network’s dismal ratings, it’s more accurate to compare CNN to the G4 channel.”)

• CNN will do it live: Once again, CNN took it upon themselves as the newsiest news network, and covered the Fort Hood story significantly more than their competitors. On one level, it was simply a decision to go live for more time than MSNBC or Fox News. After Anderson Cooper did two live hours as opposed to one, Wolf Blitzer anchored another hour at MidnightET. On Fox News, Greta Van Susteren also did two live hours instead of one, before FNC went back to tape. MSNBC stuck to its usual schedule, which meant going to repeats at 10pmET – and meant at 10:18pmET, the 8:18pmET Keith Olbermann told viewers Hasan was dead.

But it was more than just staying live. The majority of all of their programs, including Lou Dobbs‘ at 7pmET, covered the Fort Hood story as the major breaking news story it was. Will it translates to ratings? Probably not, but who cares. This is the storyline CNN wants to portray, and even more importantly, this is the directive – focus on journalistic quality. It happened last night.

• Rachel Maddow can handle breaking news: As we made our way through the prime time line-ups at Fox News and MSNBC, it was interesting to see how each network handled the Fort Hood news. Both Olbermann and Bill O’Reilly did not spend significant time covering the story, while their 9pmET counterparts, Rachel Maddow and Sean Hannity were almost forced to because the lengthy press conference took place during their hour. But as Hannity jumped in and out of Fort Hood coverage, Maddow made it a focus of her show (until the very end).

And the coverage was unique and interesting. One of the key guests was Lee Christopher Smith, who recently wrote a lengthy piece for Rolling Stone (amazingly, RS still doesn’t put most of its stories online) about the Fort Carson slayings. His expertise on that situation lent a perspective that wasn’t found on other networks. The apolitical anchoring showed Maddow has the ability to move beyond an opinion-based show, and into a hard news role if the circumstances dictate.

>>>NEXT PAGE: Bachmann, speculation and videos.

Civilian police Sgt. Kimberly Munley and her partner responded within three minutes of reported gunfire Thursday afternoon, Lt. Gen. Bob Cone said Friday. Munley, who had been trained in active-response tactics, rushed into the building and confronted the shooter as he was turning a corner, Cone said. “It was an amazing and an aggressive performance by this police officer,” Cone said. Munley was only a few feet from crazed Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when she opened fire.

And this is a screengrab Munley’s Twitter account, though she doesn’t appear to use it with great frequency. Her Twitter bio reads:

I live a good life….a hard one, but I go to sleep peacefully @ night knowing that I may have made a difference in someone’s life.

AP is reporting:

WASHINGTON — The Army says seven people were killed and 20 wounded in a pair of shootings at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. An Army spokesman at the Pentagon says the shootings began about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at a personnel and medical processing center at Fort Hood.

The spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Banks, says two shooters were apparently involved. There is no word yet on who they were, nor on identities of the dead.

Banks says the second incident took place at a theater on the sprawling base.

He says it is too soon to tell whether there is any link to battle stress or repeated deployments. The Army is suffering a record high suicide rate and other signs of stress from fighting two wars.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — The U.S. Army has closed its massive Army base at Fort Hood, Texas, amid reports that several people have been shot and killed at the post.

The Web site of the base in central Texas has posted an alert that says, “Effective immediately Fort Hood is closed.” The Web site said that units at the base have been ordered to account for all personnel.

The site says, “This is not a Drill. It is an Emergency Situation.”

Several television stations in Texas say several people were both killed and wounded in the shooting. Officials at the base and in the nearby town of Killeen, Texas, have not confirmed those accounts.

Fort Hood is located halfway between Austin and Waco.