Sunday, April 08, 2007

The WP newsfaker: "What is his name? What is his name? His name is Charlie Kane..."

Atrios first spotted this, and others have picked it up. Yesterday, Reuters published the following account of fighting in Diwaniya, Iraq:
[U.S. military spokesman]Bleichwehl said troops, facing scattered resistance, discovered a factory that produced "explosively formed penetrators" (EFPs), a particularly deadly type of explosive that can destroy a main battle tank and several weapons caches.
(Emphasis added.) A factory? In Iraq? Producing EFPs? How embarrassing. Bush is trying to convince the world that the Iraqi insurgents get all their EFPs from those awful, awful Iranians.

So the Washington Post picked up the story and, er, well, sort of rewrote it. No more factory. Poof. It's gone; it never existed. In the revised version, EFPs are called "a particularly deadly type of device which Washington accuses Iran of supplying Iraqi militants.”

Is this the most blatant example of journalistic lying we've ever seen? No. But it's probably the most unforgivable example to appear in months.

We need a name. Just who is this Charles Foster Kane wannabe at the Post who decided to help launch a new war by rewriting the words of his journalistic betters? The American people despise George Bush. Why is the Post rewriting stories to conform with Bush's fantasies?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Because the WaPost is nothing more than a front for the Bushies and Robert Gates (CIA) and the radical right.

The WaPost must be getting alot of under the table $$ subsidies or other goodies from publishing the articles that the WH wants published.

this is nothing surprising, the WaPost has been publicizing stuff like this on and off since the 90's. Newspaper publishing has been a business racking up all kinds of losses especially after the growth of the internet and cable TV news so it takes someone with deep pockets to keep these publishing companies afloat.

I think that the WaPost also takes a leading role in armtwisting other media to follow their lead, their spin. The WaPost stopped being "independent" media news source after owner Katherine Graham made deals with George Bush when he was director of the CIA and then VP in the eighties and finally president in the nineties.

Anonymous said...

That line really deserves a merit badge. It tells exactly the truth will giving exactly the opposite impression.

Sheer poetry.

Anonymous said...

That's 'while giving'.

Anonymous said...

B at this link says it was Reuters and not WaPo that changed the story:

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/04/atrios_is_wrong.html