EDIT: Old entry in strike-through is below for future reference. Revised entry follows:
From Yahoo, Jailers splashed Koran with urine – Pentagon.
The third paragraph: “In the incident involving urine, which took place this past March, Southern Command said a guard left his post and urinated near an air vent and ‘the wind blew his urine through the vent’ and into a cell block.” [emphasis mine]
The headline says “jailers.” The news article says “a guard.” Hmm… Almost makes you wonder if the guys who made the headline even actually read the news story? Or did they just disregard the truth for the sake of good copy? Thus, I don’t blame the Bush administration for “accusing […] the media of blowing ‘isolated incidents’ out of proportion.“
Yahoo News Lies about Koran Mishandling
From Yahoo, Jailers splashed Koran with urine – Pentagon.
You gotta love the pyramid style of news article writing. A quick summary at the top can easily bury any clarifications within the middle of the article. Case in point:
The first paragraph: “American jailers at the Guantanamo prison for foreign terrorism suspects splashed a Koran with urine, kicked and stepped on the Islamic holy book and soaked it with water…” [emphasis mine]
The third paragraph: “In the incident involving urine, which took place this past March, Southern Command said a guard left his post and urinated near an air vent and ‘the wind blew his urine through the vent’ and into a cell block.” [emphasis mine]
Wait a second, why did I go so far as to say Yahoo is lying, if I merely mention misdirection in the beginning of my entry. Well, if you’ve the attention span to get this far, fear not, you will be rewarded.
Luckily, my attention-grabbing title, unlike Yahoo’s, is not a lie. Did you catch where I added emphasis in quoting the third paragraph? It says, “a guard.” Yahoo’s headline says, “Jailers.” Hmm… I would forgive this slight transgression if it didn’t seem indicative of greater MSM and leftist unjustified hullabaloo.
I found this gem from the blogosphere, commenting on the Koran mishandling: From the “Friday Night Newshole” Files. She’s one to talk about a “burying job,” when her ellipsis so conveniently cuts out: “The statement said the detainee was given a new prison uniform and Koran, and that the guard was reprimanded and given duty in which he had no contact with prisoners.” No, the Bush administration does not need to “issu[e] an apology to Newsweek for accusing them of erroneous reporting”.
At least the BBC doesn’t outright lie, like Yahoo, but it’s still misleading. After its less inflamatory “US Guantanamo guard kicked Koran” headline, the bold first paragraph reads: “The US has given details of how guards mishandled copies of the Koran at its Guantanamo Bay prison, including a case of one copy being deliberately kicked.”
However, by the time we get to the fourth paragraph, we find out: “The report said most of the cases were accidental or unintentional.” Yeah, that’s the line that should’ve been in bold.
Despite this, Reuters decides to play the quotes game: “White House blames ‘few’ jailers in Koran uproar.”
Oh no, it gets better, read on: “The White House sought on Saturday to minimize damage from new revelations about U.S. personnel mishandling the Koran at the Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, prison, accusing a few people of violating policy and the media of blowing ‘isolated incidents’ out of proportion.”
Or maybe, just maybe, Mr. MSM, you can consider that maybe just once, the Bush administration is right? The media is blowing isolated incidents out of proportion! Just look at those misleading headlines! It’s not damage control; it’s trying to show the truth. No wonder people are so disillusioned by the media.
And, before you read anything else about “Quranic abuse,” please read this excellent article by Christopher Hitchens: Stop the Masochistic Insanity.
UPDATE: Goodness, it gets even better! Turns out the BBC article does get some facts wrong!
Read: “It was part of an inquiry sparked by a magazine report, later retracted, that a Koran was flushed down a toilet.”
Wait a second… the Newsweek article was about “a forthcoming report by the U.S. Southern Command in Miami was ‘expected’ to contain the finding that Guantanamo interrogators had flushed a Quran down a toilet to break detainees.” (Quote from Down the Toilet at Newsweek via Slate.)
Wow, so we’re set up with the impression that this report came out as a response to the Newsweek article. It’s almost like they want us to believe the administration is making things up as part of a cover up. Unfortunately, this report was already in the works.
Despite what the MSM wants us to believe, the US is not that stupid. There is no systematic Koran mishandling going on. Quite the contrary, in fact, “A January 2003 Pentagon memo for ‘handling and inspecting of detainee Korans’ said U.S. personnel must ‘ensure that the Koran is not placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas.'” (Again from Slate, Quranic Etiquette.) Even if the urination incident was intentional, it doesn’t indicate systematic abuse. It’s no Abu Ghraib.
Dude… It’s called journalism. See, if you actually “studied” journalism, like “real” journalists do, you would understand “journalism.”
That’s why people listen to and read “journalistic” reports from actual “journalists”… not the half-witted, stream of consciousness, dribbling of words on an electronic screen that you put out in your “blogs.”
Do you fancy yourself to be more informative… more truthful than actual “journalists?” Do you wish that you, too, had studied “journalism?” Are you not a wannabe “journalist?”
Get a life… get a point.
Ah, so apparently they teach you how to write misleading headlines in J-school.
Maybe if they’re mistrustful of the Bush administration’s information, they can bring up their own facts instead of writing misleading headlines and first paragraphs. This is what’s true: “The report said most of the cases were accidental or unintentional.” If they’ve got evidence to the contrary, they should show it.
That’s my point. I have multiple links that try to prove my point instead of launching a sarcastic ad hominem attack. If you’ve got an issue with any of my statements, by all means, contradict me.
The problem is, people do listen to these “journalists” — these people who write stories based off one unreliable anonymous source who speculates about what may be in a future government report, these people who swallow up fake memos in order to bash a presidential candidate, these people who put stories about corrections facilities in the Corrections page.
Skepticism is essential for democracy.
Here’s my point – clearly spelled out for you to understand. You have engaged in an ad hominem… or what would it be… ad mediam… attack on Yahoo’s headlines, without the faintest understanding of the thing about which you are speaking.
You say Yahoo has “lied” (then retract, then reintroduce the idea) because it intentionally wrote a misleading (or false) headline. Well, have you noticed that Yahoo did not write the story? Have you noticed Yahoo just reposted a REUTERS story? If you really want to get steamed… check out ABC News, which actually left out the supporting, explanatory portion of the story: Jailers splashed Koran with urine – Pentagon
Hmm… same headline… same words… wow… Yahoo AND ABC have it in for… what was it you said… The BUSH adminstration? (We’ll get back to that in a bit.)
Next… if you had ANY idea about journalism… you’d know that the headlines are NOT written by the writers… but by a group of editors whose job it is to make things “fit” on a screen. They use shorthand, to-the-point, attention-grabbing words that fit across the top of the columns.
So… let’s say YOU were this editor. You’d be fired. Because YOUR headline would say: “Guard at American Facility Pisses into Air Vent, Accidentally Allowing Trace Amounts of Urine to Make Contact with Inmate’s Koran, According Only to that Inmate.”
Journalism doesn’t exist for the betterment of mankind… journalism is a business. They have to get their point across in the best way possible.. short and attention-grabbing. They want people to become interested in… and then pay for the news item.
Your “issue” with this headline is less about its veracity, and more about your perception that it is aimed at (going back to my previous point) the Bush administration. I’m sure you would have no problem with the headline “Clinton Lies About Lewinsky Relationship,” which would only be partially true.
So in the end… your lonely diatribe resounds only as the bitter squawking of an ignorant conservative hell-bent on proving that the mainstream media is out to get your Commander in Chief.
Good luck with that.
There we go! See, you should’ve said that in the first place. Now, I can listen.
Alright, so I’m still working on this weblogging game. Still trying to work on building a cogent argument. And you know what? I’ll retract everything after the first “Hmm…”
See, you’ve just provided a great service to the internets. I’m wrong, and I won’t do that again. In fact, I will probably re-write this entry.
However, you’re wrong about my assumptions. I don’t like the headline because it is misleading. A misleading headline is a misleading headline. You’ll have to forgive me about not railing against what the media did to the Clinton administration because I was too young to know what was going on then. (Had I been old enough, though, I would’ve voted for Kerry.) Of course, you are correct that this was the impression that I gave, and so, my retraction stands, and I do not blame you for having that impression. I was also reading too much into things. It still stands, though, that the headline is misleading.
You learn by imitation, and I’m just imitating bad examples. Although, I wonder what good example “journalism” is setting, as well.
You see, there is one thing I will not capitulate to. So what if “journalism” is all about the bottom line? Does that justify leaving out relevant information? Does the fact that editors, not writers, make headlines justify those headlines?
The people ultimately decide to buy the papers. If they’re mistrustful of those papers, they will not buy it. That’s why circulation of the LA Times is down. That’s why 60 Minutes II was cancelled. For a paper’s long term interest, the truth should be part of the bottom line.
That’s not my point though. My point is, can you forgive a young person for being wrong?
Well, I must say I am impressed by your willingness to reevaluate your position based on careful, cogent debate. That alone, to me, reflects that you are a person of integrity and values. I must therefore apologize myself for jumping to conclusions about your motives for writing your blog.
Your point I see now is simple, and straightforward: Some headlines, when written poorly, can cross the line editorially and detract from the accuracy of the story.
Fair enough.
You point to your youthful age as a possible source of your naiveté about news headlines. While I will not accept that prima fascia as a necessary cause-and-effect pairing, I will agree that the ability to read headlines (or doing many other things in life) is a learned attribute.
Headlines are “teasers,” intentionally meant to draw you in and to leave out relevant parts of the story. That causes the reader to push deeper into the article to get at the heart of the reported event. Similarly, the “inverted pyramid style” you write about is meant to grab and hold the reader as long as possible. Studies show if a passerby reads beyond the first two paragraphs, he is 80% more likely to purchase the entire paper.
So where does this leave us? How do news publishers resolve the seemingly contradictory goals of both “confounding” and “informing” their public?
They do so by using universally accepted, sometimes cryptic, “code” passed along over the years by publishing tradition.
Look at your original headline. It reads http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050603/ts_nm/security_guantanamo_koran_dc_2 ” rel=”nofollow”> Jailers splashed Koran with urine – Pentagon.
That last part… the “- Pentagon” means this is what the Pentagon “says” is happening. Here’s another example: Laos frees four American ‘troublemakers’. In this case, Reuters is not calling the Americans troublemakers, but it is instead saying Laos is calling them troublemakers, and commenting on the seeming irony of the moniker.
OK – That’s Headline Reading 101. So when do these “tags,†“codes,†and shorthand cross the line? Let’s look at a final example: Court Rules Against Pot for Sick People. Now, is this completely accurate? Did the court really take away pot from sick people? NO. It ruled that the government constitutionally could pursue federal cases now against people (not living in California) who have previously been granted by their states the right to use medical marijuana.
Misleading? Perhaps. Intentional? Kind of. However, it’s forgivable in the sense that the headline writer knows we understand there’s more to the story.
He knows that we know, you can’t judge a book by its cover.