Character-building Pine Crest Preparatory School, from which 16-year-old Farris Hassan cut classes for 15 minutes of andy Warhol fame in Iraq, is still fielding media calls from all over the world.
You can tell it's been a long 15 minutes when you talk to the polite school spokesperson who gets to field these calls.
"The story is not going to die away very quickly," the spokesperson told canadafreepress.com yesterday.
almost three months after the Schoolboy Prank That Wasn't, Farris Hassan is back in class none the worse for wear after undisclosed penalties meted out by a conduct review committee.
a Pine Crest School Fact Page could always be had for the asking. Some 20 network outlets and other media flocked a conference held by the exclusive prep school shortly after the return of its prodigal son.
But no network bothered to sort the truth from fiction in the Iraq trip that lionized the amazing moxie of one Farris Hassan.
"NewsBuster.org bloggers have done a good job of exposing duplicity, but the mainstream media seems immune to the disinfectant qualities of sunlight," wrote Geoff Metcalf of accuracy in Media (aIM).
as a frenzied mainline media reported on the original story, a brave but naïve Hassan left for Iraq as a student of Pine Crest's immersion journalism class, choosing faraway Iraq purely out of humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people who are his forbears.
With shades of the blockbuster movie Home alone, Farris as the hero of media hype left his parents--until they received an email from him in Kuwait--in the worrisome dark.
From what mainstream media would call a "privileged background", Farris is the youngest of four children of a South Florida physician, divorced from a psychologist wife. Farris's father, Redha Hassan is Iraqi-born, but both he and his ex-wife have lived in the United States for more than 30 years.
Reporters who took the trouble to call Pine Crest School, when the story broke could easily have discovered that there is no journalism immersion class taught at Pine Crest.
Reality check number two for media types is that Farris did not strike out for Baghdad on his own. Daddy helped arrange the trip and even jotted off a note to Pine Crest regarding his son's imminent absence.
Without the digging of Cinamon Stillwell and Tom Blumer at NewsBusters.org, the romantic version of a runaway schoolboy "trying to help my fellow man" would have continued to dupe television viewers and readers the world over.
Closer investigation found a number of other inconsistencies in public statements made by Dr. Redha Hassan, who admitted that he arranged for his son's flight into Baghdad through his political connections, even though he knew the grave risks to foreigners wandering the streets of Baghdad.
according to a January 2, 2006 news story, Hassan's father said that he had helped his son get a visa into Iraq from Beirut. The elder Hassan said he was leaving Iraq himself when the teen called, unable to get into the country from Kuwait. He told him to go to Lebanon and said he spoke with him almost daily.
So much for the Home alone mainline media version of events.
"Perhaps most importantly, research and investigation into Dr. Redha Hassan found that he was arrested by the FBI in 1985 for forging 2000 Iraqi passports and military I.D. cards and seeking to forge 2000 more. Dr. Hassan asked his next-door neighbor and print store owner Joel Feinstein to make the passports and IDs. according to Feinstein, Dr. Hassan claimed the documents were for his family in Iraq. Feinstein reported the request to the FBI, and became an operational asset for the federal government, leading to Hassan's arrest. also arrested were two of Farris's uncles and a "pro-Khomeini" activist identified as Salah Jawad Shubber. Interestingly, Dr. Hassan, who also went by the name Redha K. alsawaf, was also the president of the now defunct Florida non-profit organization World Orphanage & Refugee Relief Foundation at the time of his arrest. authorities dropped the charges against Hassan, and Shubber ultimately pled guilty to conspiracy charges." (Tom Blummer: NewsBusters.org)
abroad, Farris Hassan's initial stop was amsterdam, Netherlands, where he claims that he bought a ticket on KLM airlines. From amsterdam, he headed to Kuwait City, where he alleges that he tried to cross the Kuwait-Iraq border twice by taxi, but was turned away due to Iraqi elections. at that point, it appears that Hassan sought assistance from his father, who told Farris to travel to Beirut and stay with family friends. Obligingly, Farris spent 10 days in Beirut, and while there, met with a media relation's officer of the terrorist group Hezbollah at their Central Press Office. This meeting was arranged through the assistance of his hosts the family friends.
although recognized by countries like Canada, Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim organization based in Lebanon with the kind of ties that bind to Iran. among other things, Hezbollah, which is resolved to drive the americans out of Iraq, collects money to fund terrorism.
Described by school president, Dr. Lourdes Cowgill as "a talented and dedicated student", Farris seems slick beyond his years.
In a MSNBC interview with Rita Cosby, who asked, "How does a guy from a private school in Florida have the guts or the chutzpah to go over there?" Farris responded in the spirit of your typical, well-versed anti-war crusader.
"Well, I don't know about guts. I've always felt life is not worth living without taking great risks in order to achieve things. I've always felt that we will all die someday, whether it's at 66 years old or at 16 years old, and that if I am to die, I'd rather have it happen in trying to do something good, trying to help my fellow man."
Radha Hassan, aka Redha K. alsawaf, told his local paper, the Sun-Sentinel that he gave his son the choice of coming home or going to Beirut for a week to stay with family friends, and then head to Baghdad once the border opened and private security could be arranged.
"I felt it would leave a scar, disappointing him in his young life," Hassan said of shipping his son home. "I learned a long time ago that if you say no, they stick to the point and insist on doing it. Nothing fazed him."
"The serial lying plus a dubious family history `should' have put this kid under the microscope, not in the limelight," concludes aIM's Geoff Metcalf.
Meanwhile, Farris Hassan and the mainline media that lionized him as the hero of a simple schoolboy prank should both be grounded.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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