Woman Who Fell From the Sky - Jennifer Steil [122]
I race back to the office. By the time I arrive, I have calmed down. Luke is still there, chewing qat with the guys. Faris had phoned and made Luke read him the story. It wasn’t even anonymously sourced—we used the name of the director of the interior minister’s office. Enass actually heard Radia interview the man, so there is a witness to the conversation. Of course, women aren’t taken seriously as witnesses. Luke and I figure that the director must have spoken out of turn, and then, when the story was posted, he got in trouble and was forced to deny his statement.
Luke has already found some additional photos for the front page, and together we reconfigure it. It all goes smoothly. We are just finishing when Faris calls to check in.
“What story did you put on the front page?” he says.
“A cheerful little story about Yemeni expatriates getting surveyed so that they can be provided with new services,” I say. “Do you want to know what is on the rest of the front page?”
“No,” he says. “I trust you.”
He trusts me?
I tell Faris our theory that someone at the ministry had spoken out of turn, got in trouble, and then retracted.
“But he’s denying it,” says Faris.
“Yes, I know. But I am quite certain that Radia would never lie.” On this point, I will not budge.
Faris has calmed down and seems almost willing to accept that Radia hasn’t committed a crime. He asks me to promise that I will call him if we run anything else on the Huthis. Saleh is very touchy about any story about these rebels. God forbid we actually find out what the government is doing up there in the North.
Later that night, after a glass of wine with my neighbor, it all seems funny. We laugh about it until after midnight, when I reluctantly head home to bed.
THE STORY ABRUPTLY CEASES to be humorous the following Wednesday, when Faris summons me to his office.
“I need to speak with you,” he says. Faris never needs to speak with me if things are going well. Heart racing, I leap up the stairs to his office.
“We’re in trouble,” he says. “The minister of the interior is suing us. What do you think we should do?”
“But we never printed the story!”
“About twenty Arabic papers managed to pick it up from the Web before we took it down.”
“Christ.”
“He denies that he said anything. He is denying that he even spoke to a reporter. That anyone in his office spoke to a reporter.”
“But Radia did speak to someone in his office.”
“He’s saying she didn’t.”
“I really don’t think Radia would lie.”
“Well, either he is lying or she is lying.”
“He has a motive to lie; she doesn’t.”
“Look….” Faris clicks through a few Web pages. “He put it on the Web. That he is denying everything.”
“Hmmm.”
“So what should we do?”
“Well …” I think for a minute. I am glad that Faris is asking my advice and has not just called me to his office to chastise me. “In the States what we would do is write another article, with the minister’s reaction to the previous story. Set the record straight.” I still think the minister is lying, but we have no way to prove that anyone spoke with Radia because we have no way to record phone calls. And Faris is basically asking me how to cover our asses and not get the paper closed.
“That won’t work.”
“But then it would be on record that we wrote the ‘correct’ version.”
“That would just make everything worse. Things aren’t done like that here.”
“Okay, so what are our other options?”
“I don’t know.” He fidgets with his mouse, clicking on and off websites and twirling in his chair. “Jennifer, the minister of the interior refused to shake my hand yesterday at the Italian embassy. I have never been snubbed like that. Do you know what that is like?”
“No …”
“I have a lot of enemies here. There are a lot of people who are after me, and I want to keep them from getting at me through the Yemen Observer. You understand? So the next time we have a story like this, just print the official government press release and that is all, okay?”
I nod. So much for holding power accountable.
We sit quietly