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Caliphate · The New York Times

Chapter One: The Reporter

April 19, 2018·25 min·2 clips
NYT reporter Rukmini Callimachi called 911 convinced ISIS was at her door — it was the water department.
The warning comes first. Before the original chase gets moving, the feed explains that Huzaifa was later identified as Shairoz Chowdhury, then arrested and charged by Canadian police with perpetrating a hoax. That changes the whole listen. The Times says its re-examination found misrepresentations and no corroboration for the violent acts he had described in the podcast. Then the tape rewinds. Rukmini and her colleagues walk through what they thought they had at the time: a Canadian they believed had joined the Islamic State and come back to Canada. The trail starts with a smiling Instagram profile, then turns darker with a reposted knife image and a caption that treats harm like performance. From there, the work gets plain and methodical. Screenshots, the New York Times research team, LinkedIn, and an email address turn an online clue into a way to approach him. Rukmini expected nothing back. Instead, he picked up, and a normal phone call suddenly cracked open something bigger. The first meeting feels odd from the start. There is tea and water, friendly surface stuff, while the reporters are preparing to ask about ISIS ideology. Rukmini keeps the questions careful. She asks why the group pulled in so many people and what they should call him. His correction matters: Abu Huzaifa, with an F. In the moment, he is a source in the room. In the corrected version, he is also a claim the reporting has to survive. The episode follows the thrill of getting access while the later correction keeps tapping the brakes: access is not proof.

As heard by us

A newsroom reckoning that keeps the reporting process in view.

The chapter treats a newsroom reckoning as the main story. It follows the reporting around Abu Huzaifa al-Qanadi, tracing how claims about ISIS and multiple murders were gathered, checked, and then revisited after Canadian police arrested Huzaifa, whose real name is Shairoz…

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Why you'd press play

You want a newsroom reckoning built from the reporting and the Times's own re-examination.

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