Editor(s) at the Salt Lake Tribune did their best imitation of Douglas Feith and the OSP in the Saturday, Feb 10, 2007 paper edition. In a front page article dealing with Iran, unsubstantiated information is presented as fact in the headlines, dissenting viewpoints disappear, and caveats and nuances are minimized and hidden.
Catch the war fever being propogated by the selective use of disinformation.
Come on in and watch propoganda being created - Salt Lake Tribune style.
[Update: 2-11-07, by shadowplayer]:
"The headline is too strong for the story."
Gates: We have proof Iran aids insurgents
This is the conclusion stated by SLTrib Readers Advocate, Connie Coyne, in a telephone conversation with me this afternoon.
After reading thru the Tribune's article while listening to me make some of the points in my analysis below, she found that the information in the Tribune's version of the story could not support that headline.
I was also given the assurance that there is no grand conspiracy among the copy editors. This is a claim I did not make to her.
However, in this specific article, I think I amply show the cherry picking of the most damning information and the exclusion of any dissenting or skeptical viewpoints which appear in the ABC version of the wire story.
And even with that spin to the story, it still wasn't enough to support the headline.
Story:
First of all though, a disclaimer/apology. I am unable to link to the Salt Lake Tribune story, as it appeared on Saturday and appears under the AP by-line of Lolita C. Baldor. According to the SLTrib website (sltrib.com) :
Please note the archive does not contain wire service stories, ...
This is problematic, as you will have to trust me to accurately quote from the paper copy I have sitting in front of me.
With that in mind let me quote the headline for the only national news story to appear on the front page of Saturday's Trib:
Gates: We have proof Iran aids insurgents
emphasis mine
A bald assertion of fact. No doubts. The Iranian government is in collusion with the insurgents and therefore we are justified in taking military action against them.
This article must present some pretty compelling information to demand such a strong headline. Well, before we get to that, lets take a look at a slightly different headline
Gates: U.S. Can Prove Iran's Iraq Role
And under each headline appears the by-line of Associated Press reporter, Lolita C. Baldor. The first two paragraphs of each version of the story are identical. So they must have been prepared from the same series of wire reports filed by Ms. Baldor.
At no place in either version of the article is Sec of Def Gates quoted as saying "We have proof Iran aids the insurgents." The headline in the Tribune is a lie.
The third paragraph is where the two versions of Ms. Baldor'sdiverge. The (I'll call it) ABC version reads:
The assertions have been met with skepticism by some lawmakers still fuming over intelligence reports used by the administration to propel the country to war with Iraq in 2003. Gates' comments came as a new Pentagon inspector general's report criticized prewar Defense Department assertions of al-Qaida connections to Iraq.
The Tribune version drops this paragraph out of the story completely. In fact, the only reference they provide as dissenting views from their presentation occurs later in the story and reads thus:
Yet government officials say there is some disagreement about how much to make public to support the administration's case. Intelligence officials worry the sources of their information could dry up.
As it turns out, the only sentence they have in common after the first two paragraphs is the one that states:
Gates told reporters Friday that markings on explosives provide "pretty good" evidence that Iranians are supplying either weapons or technology for Iraqi extremists.
But in the ABC version, Ms Baldor continues on to report what that "pretty good" evidence consists of according to Sec of Def Gates:
"I think there's some serial numbers, there may be some markings on some of the projectile fragments that we found" that point to Iran, he said.
There is too much conjecture in that quote to justify the Tribune's headline, so this too ended up on the editor's cutting room floor.
So what did the rest of the Tribune's version of the article contain? Every bit of inuendo the editor could wring out of Ms Baldor's wire reports.
Three paragraphs were spent discussing the "evidence". Evidence which according to the Tribune:
...the administration will present...
But the article does present a nice description of how nicely packaged that evidence is:
...which in their classified form include slides and about 2 inches of documents...
The Trib's version goes on to provide the sketchy information from the Irbil raid, such that it sounds more conclusive than it is. It also spends plenty of space discussing the lethality of the weapons the Iranians are supposed to be supplying.
Then it turns again to Gates. Now we are to be comforted that Gates is dealing with us honestly, to wit:
Last week, Gates said U.S. military officers in Baghdad had planned to brief reporters on what was known about Iranian involvement in Iraq but that he delayed the briefing to assure the information was accurate.
And it ends with additional assurance from Gates that despite all the provication Iran is throwing our way:
...the Bush administration has no intention of attacking Iran.
Now, I have no doubt that everything which appeared in the Tribune version of Ms Baldor's reporting appeared in her wire service stories. However, the editor at the Tribune has hacked, manipulate and twisted the information into a coherent story which almost supports the headline.
It is the Salt Lake Tribune's readership which is disserved by this. A casual glance at the headline and there it is Proof . A little more thorough look at the story and damn if it isn't an AP story so it must be true. The article mentions evidence repeatedly, so we better prepare ourselves for war with Iran.
There is one more person worth thinking about and that is AP reporter, Lolita C. Baldor. I wonder how she would react to learning how her reporting had been transformed into such a misleading article to beat the drums of war. I hope it would be similar to how CIA officials felt when the OSP turned their information on its head to help send us into Iraq.