thedrifter
07-30-07, 11:04 AM
Reuters Gets on Marine Sergeant's Bad Side
Posted By Grim
Our old friend, a Marine Sergeant, emailed to mention a recent Reuters article from his AO. It begins:
Three U.S. soldiers were killed during combat operations on Thursday in western Anbar province, an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday.
Now, that suggests that "the U.S. military said" that Anbar was "an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq." the Marine Sergeant notes:
Anbar is an AQ stronghold in Iraq? *Really*? That's funny because Reuters, AP, NYT, WSJ and WaPo have all done reporting that Al Qaeda is shattered in Anbar via the "tribal awakening." They certainly haven't made their "stronghold" in the entire fricking province.
This is just bad reporting all around. It's an al Qaeda stronghold? Who says? Certainly not the duty expert: the military. And since there's no attribution we don't know if anyone whose opinion or assessment of such things actually said this. No, it's one reporter and his editorial chain not giving a [deleted] and preferring to advance an OpEd lede.
This isn't the first example of a news service writing its lede to suggest that the United States endorsed a proposition that really belongs to the writer. My favorite example was this one:
A US navy carrier battlegroup is to launch a 'show of force' in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea off west Africa as part of an unprecedented global operation to demonstrate America's command of the high seas, a US diplomatic source told AFP on Friday.
I'm sure that's just what our diplomat said: "A US navy carrier battlegroup will be holding an exercise in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea."
Apparently the news wires need to revise their stylebooks a little bit. It matters whether the US military or the State Department was the source for these claims. By constructing their ledes in this way, they're conveying a false impression of the facts to their readers.
Three U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq's Anbar: military
Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:30AM EDT
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers were killed during combat operations on Thursday in western Anbar province, an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday.
No other details were available about the deaths, which took to 3,651 the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.
U.S. forces have been working this year with Sunni Arab tribal leaders, tired of the indiscriminate killings by al Qaeda, to recruit local police units to combat the Sunni Islamist group.
Al Qaeda is blamed for stoking sectarian hatred and violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam.
Separately, the U.S. military said it had killed eight suspected insurgents and detained 40 others in operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar and neighboring Salahuddin province on Sunday and Monday.
An extra 9,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops were sent to Anbar earlier in July in a new operation targeting militants in the Sunni Arab province.
Violence had ebbed since the plan to use local tribes in the fight against al Qaeda forced insurgents to move to other provinces, particularly Diyala north of Baghdad.
Ellie
Posted By Grim
Our old friend, a Marine Sergeant, emailed to mention a recent Reuters article from his AO. It begins:
Three U.S. soldiers were killed during combat operations on Thursday in western Anbar province, an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday.
Now, that suggests that "the U.S. military said" that Anbar was "an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq." the Marine Sergeant notes:
Anbar is an AQ stronghold in Iraq? *Really*? That's funny because Reuters, AP, NYT, WSJ and WaPo have all done reporting that Al Qaeda is shattered in Anbar via the "tribal awakening." They certainly haven't made their "stronghold" in the entire fricking province.
This is just bad reporting all around. It's an al Qaeda stronghold? Who says? Certainly not the duty expert: the military. And since there's no attribution we don't know if anyone whose opinion or assessment of such things actually said this. No, it's one reporter and his editorial chain not giving a [deleted] and preferring to advance an OpEd lede.
This isn't the first example of a news service writing its lede to suggest that the United States endorsed a proposition that really belongs to the writer. My favorite example was this one:
A US navy carrier battlegroup is to launch a 'show of force' in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea off west Africa as part of an unprecedented global operation to demonstrate America's command of the high seas, a US diplomatic source told AFP on Friday.
I'm sure that's just what our diplomat said: "A US navy carrier battlegroup will be holding an exercise in the oil-rich Gulf of Guinea."
Apparently the news wires need to revise their stylebooks a little bit. It matters whether the US military or the State Department was the source for these claims. By constructing their ledes in this way, they're conveying a false impression of the facts to their readers.
Three U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq's Anbar: military
Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:30AM EDT
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Three U.S. soldiers were killed during combat operations on Thursday in western Anbar province, an al Qaeda stronghold in Iraq, the U.S. military said on Monday.
No other details were available about the deaths, which took to 3,651 the number of U.S. soldiers killed since the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein in 2003.
U.S. forces have been working this year with Sunni Arab tribal leaders, tired of the indiscriminate killings by al Qaeda, to recruit local police units to combat the Sunni Islamist group.
Al Qaeda is blamed for stoking sectarian hatred and violence between majority Shi'ites and minority Sunni Arabs, who were dominant under Saddam.
Separately, the U.S. military said it had killed eight suspected insurgents and detained 40 others in operations targeting al Qaeda in Iraq in Anbar and neighboring Salahuddin province on Sunday and Monday.
An extra 9,000 U.S. and Iraqi troops were sent to Anbar earlier in July in a new operation targeting militants in the Sunni Arab province.
Violence had ebbed since the plan to use local tribes in the fight against al Qaeda forced insurgents to move to other provinces, particularly Diyala north of Baghdad.
Ellie