Yesterday, a colleague of mine was attempting to get a weblink for a recent article in the Washington Times. It’s a newspaper, I’m a “researcher”—so I think simple enough. Except, what do I find? Nothing. Rounding up the usual suspects was fruitless – not the on the newspaper’s website, not on Google news, and not even on Lexis. Here we were holding the hard copy and there seemed to be no other trace of it. We started to think it never existed.
This is where I became slightly obsessed. Assuming the usual laws of the internet having printed materials are still in effect, I know there is probably some good explanation for this or a link right under my nose that I “insist” on missing. So, I turn to you, the lovely people of the ArmsControlWonk nation, for help.
Here are the article details: “Pakistan’s nuclear ties probed” by Ian Traynor, published in the Washington Times on Monday January 9, 2006, in the Briefing/Global Issues section. This is a scanned version, Wash Times Jan9-2006.pdf, which is rather hard to read.
While there are parts of this article which are very similar to The Guardian articles from a few days ago, this one is different. The focus here is almost exclusively on Pakistan and the A.Q. Khan network. Notably, Traynor quotes a U.S. official on the possibility that parts of the network remain:
Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri insisted last week in response to the Guardian report that his government had taken all “appropriate action” to break up the Khan network.
But a U.S. official in Washington said the network may not have been dismantled completely.
“It’s possible that elements still exist, and the U.S. government is certainly aware and looking at this possibility,” the official told The Washington Times.
And get this, I found articles about this article in a few other places. OutlookIndia.com did a piece citing the Washington Times, as did IBNLive.com.
I feel so thwarted in my internet skills. Help me. I can’t sleep at night. I apologize in advance to anyone who goes on a wild goose chase. But at the same time I want others to feel my pain.
Also, on the post titles, some credits: “If you believe they put a man on the moon” from Man on the Moon, by REM, “We are Monkeys” by Travis, “Hoping everything’s not lost” from Everything’s Not Lost by Coldplay.
Nitin | January 12, 2006
Jeffrey,
Coincidentally, I was hunting for the same article after I saw it cited in the Pakistani press.
I think Washington Times’ search feature is buggy.
Mike Toppa | January 12, 2006
It’s not you. I tried searching for the story in Google News (which covers 4500+ news sources) and that article isn’t there. It did have week-old articles on Khan from from the BBC and China Daily (credited to AP), but not the Washington Times article.
Stephen Schwartz | January 12, 2006
That section of the Washington Times regularly reproduces articles from other newspapers and magazines. Unless Traynor wrote it specifically for the Times, I suspect that may be the case here. If so, it’s possible that the Times received permission to reproduce it in the actual paper but not in any other format. A call to Traynor or the Times (the person who authorizes reprints should know) could help pin this down. Or maybe it’s just part of the vast right-wing conspiracy.
Chuck Thornton | January 12, 2006
The article is not even on LexisNexis. I suspect Stephen is correct.
Arthur Shulman | January 12, 2006
As of a year ago, the Washington Times website seemed to make a regular practice of not including some of the articles that appeared in the print edition. I don’t recall noticing that this was limited to articles reproduced from other sources. The omitted pieces were often those of most interest to our work.