“But, you know, I don’t know if I should say that on record, because it could be like, ‘Oh, look, he’s complaining and he’s trying to play this.’ And I’m not doing that.” ![]() But yes, we’ve gotten, you know, it’s just - you would be amazed.” Then he catches himself, and I feel the weird hall-of-mirrors effect of interviewing someone who is very experienced at interviewing others and therefore very aware of how his words sound and how they might be used. “Folks were making death threats,” Urbina tells me. When Input magazine reached out to him, Urbina declined to answer questions, nor did he respond when Rolling Stone asked for comment. He posted a statement on Medium calling Jordan’s video a “mass trolling.” And he shut down journalists trying to report out the story. Instead of engaging with the charges, he tried to crush them, blocking Jordan on Twitter along with anyone else who criticized him. It was at this juncture that Urbina made a questionable tactical decision. The case laid out by Jordan was strange, outrageous, and not entirely accurate -and triggered a swift Twitter pile-on. Urbina was signing up artists to make music for a side project by promising them huge exposure that never materialized in exchange for collecting half the revenue. A musician and YouTuber named Benn Jordan posted a 20-minute video entitled “How A NYTimes Reporter Collects Royalties From Hundreds of Musicians” that accused him of engineering an elaborate swindle in an entirely different line of business. But then, on Thursday, came something unexpected. ![]() On Sunday, November 28, the New Yorker published his 10,000-word opus about Libya’s renegade coast guard militias, a piece that landed him a spot on MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes and NPR’s All Things Considered. The week before had started out actually quite well for Urbina. It’s a distinctly 2021 scandal, and one he’s figuring out how to navigate on the fly. To be fair, his particular crisis is one that a Pulitzer Prize–winning former New York Times reporter could scarcely have imagined unfolding even a few years ago. ![]() It’s not hard to hear the edge of unease in his voice, the anxiety of a veteran newspaperman who has had a hand in crafting many narratives and has spent the last five days watching his own spin decisively out of control. “So, if it’s okay with you,” he says, “my inkling would be to start with kind of its origin story? You’re welcome to record.” Sure, I say, and away he goes. He picks up on the first ring and makes quick work of the pleasantries. Photo-Illustration: Intelligencer Photo: Dave Benett/Getty Imagesīy the time I get Ian Urbina on the phone Wednesday afternoon, he’s ready to tell his story.
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