Unlikely to be a hoax. See this article and link from Editor and Publisher Journal. Also Google "Farnaz Fassihi"... he is a WSJ reporter and there are multiple confirms...
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Will 'WSJ' Reporter Who Wrote Famous E-mail on Horrid Conditions In Iraq Lose Her Beat?
By Greg Mitchell
(October 04, 2004) -- Will Wall Street Journal reporter Farnaz Fassihi be taken off her Baghdad beat in response to the notoriety surrounding the world-famous e-mail that she wrote 11 days ago? Her editor, Paul Steiger, says no, she is just taking a well-earned and long-scheduled vacation, out of the country. Fassihi confirmed this in an e-mail to E&P on Monday night.
That said, it's certainly fortuitous that the vacation started this past weekend, just days after the e-mail, which called Iraq a "disaster" for the U.S. despite President Bush's "rosy assessments," started receiving wide play in the press. (It was the subject of my previous column.)
Some reporters have nominated the e-mail (which was circulated without Fassihi's permission) for a Pulitzer Prize; others feel she compromised her news reporting by revealing her private opinions.
"She is on a scheduled vacation," Robert Christie, the Journal's spokesman, told my colleague Joe Strupp on Monday. "Reporters routinely rotate out for R&R from hot spots." But Christie would not comment when asked if Fassihi had been barred from future reporting on Iraq, although he pointed out that she was still "our Middle East correspondent."
Barney Calame, deputy managing editor, declined to speak at length, but confirmed "it's a very sensitive situation and it is one we are trying to make sure we all understand. Paul (Steiger) is involved and we are deciding on it collaboratively."
This raises the questions: Why is the situation "sensitive," and what do Journal editors have to decide about it?
Speculation on this point emerged about the time Fassihi began her vacation, with Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times reporting that two WSJ staffers, who asked not to be identified, said "they had been told that Fassihi would not be allowed to write about Iraq for the paper until after the election, presumably because unauthorized publication of her private correspondence somehow called into question the fairness of her journalism."
This prompted Rutten to ask Steiger for comment, which came via email, revealing the planned vacation that would indeed "extend past the election" (presumably, the U.S. election).
Rutten then proposed a follow-up question: Would Fassihi be allowed to keep writing about Iraq? Steiger replied, again, that she would be on vacation, "and has no plans to work during that time."
Fassihi had sent her lengthy email to 40 of her friends on Sept. 24, describing, in unusually frank terms, the deteriorating U.S. control over the country and the hideous dangers of doing her job. Fassihi, 33, who hails from the Portland, Ore., area, previously worked at The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., and The Providence Journal.
In her e-mail to E&P on Monday, she referred to her private correspondence being thrust into the public domain "without my consent."
After her e-mail surfaced, Steiger stated that, as far as he was concerned, her personal opinions had not gotten in the way of her very fair and accurate reporting from Iraq.
But Aly Colon, who teaches ethics at he Poynter Institute, told Richard Read of The Oregonian in Portland that the Journal should consider re-assigning Fassihi because her views are now so public.
The lesson for Karen Leland, a consultant on e-mail matters in Sausalito, Calif., was a little different (according to Read): "You don't want to say anything on e-mail that you wouldn't want printed on the front page of The New York Times."
No matter how this plays out, this much appears clear: Fassihi's assessment of conditions in Iraq seems to hit close to the mark. Liz Halloran, staff writer for The Hartford (Conn.) Courant, took the trouble to interview several reporters still in, or just out of, Baghdad.
Alex Berenson, just back from Iraq for The New York Times, told Halloran that the Fassihi e-mail was "entirely accurate in its descripiton of reporting conditions."
Thanassi Cambanis, still in Iraq for The Boston Globe, described the risk of "being carjacked, murdered, kidnapped or blown up."
Chicago Tribune reporter Colin McMahon, also in Baghdad, said, "I spoke with a woman yesterday and I wanted to go to her house and interview her, and she said, 'No, I don't want an American seen coming to my house.'"
Halloran also asked what the reporters thought of charges that they were ignoring the "good news" from Iraq. "To write about a re-painting of a school when three car bombs go off killing how many dozens would be irresponsible journalism, I think," Cambanis said.
Asked the Times' Berenson: "What good news are we supposed to be repoting when the murder rate in Baghdad has gone up 20-fold or more since we entered the city last year, and when we can't even walk the streets?"
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Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is the editor of E&P and author of seven books on politics and history.
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