LA Times and That Dead Italian Reporter...

[Annie]

Really long and registration required. While no one appears to have been following this up til now, I hope this generates some interest, links at site:

http://patterico.com/2005/04/30/293...remove-critical-facts-supporting-us-position/

4/30/2005
Los Angeles Times Editors Edit Reuters Story to Remove Critical Facts Supporting U.S. Position
Filed under: Dog Trainer International— Patterico @ 4:40 pm
Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.

This morning’s L.A. Times publishes an article about the March 4 shooting by U.S. soldiers of a car bearing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena. The shooting killed Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari, and created an international controversy, which strained U.S.-Italian relations.

An important contested issue in the controversy was the speed of the car as it approached a U.S. checkpoint. Sgrena has maintained that the car was traveling at a “regular speed” – no more than 25-30 mph. Americans have said that the car was traveling at least 50 mph.

The L.A. Times story today portrays that critical issue as a still-unresolved queston:
WASHINGTON — The United States and Italy disagreed Friday in the conclusions of a joint investigation into the slaying of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq, further straining ties between the two allies.

. . . .

A U.S. Army official said this week that Italy was disputing two issues in the report: the car’s speed as it approached the checkpoint and the nature of communications between the Italians and American forces before the shooting.

Italy’s government has said the Italians were driving slowly, received no warning, and advised U.S. authorities of their mission to evacuate Sgrena from Iraq.

The Army says the car was speeding toward the checkpoint and that U.S. soldiers tried to get it to stop by using hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and firing warning shots, and then shot into its engine block when it did not stop.

As presented in the L.A. Times, the question of the car’s speed is a “he said, she said” issue, with no definitive evidence that would resolve the disagreement.

Here’s where it gets interesting.

The L.A. Times story is actually an edited version of a Reuters story that appeared on the news service yesterday afternoon. The Reuters story reported that investigators using satellite footage of the incident have conclusively determined that the car was speeding, just as the U.S. has always maintained. On page two of the story, the Reuters news service reported:

CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph per hour [sic] as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.

Thus, the Reuters story reported that there is definitive proof that the car was speeding towards the checkpoint – critical information that tends to justify U.S. soldiers’ decision to fire on the car. But in the version appearing in the L.A. Times, editors cut out the passage reporting that proof.

The evidence is conclusive that this cut was made by L.A. Times editors. We know this because the version of the Reuters story that was printed by the L.A. Times is unique to the L.A. Times. This can be seen by a simple comparison of the first sentences of the respective stories. The Reuters version opens with this sentence:

The United States and Italy on Friday disagreed on the conclusions of a joint investigation into the killing of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq, further straining ties between the two allies.

A Google search of that sentence reveals 58 hits, all of which are reprints of the story, using the same sentence worded in the same way.

The L.A. Times slightly alters that first sentence to read as follows:

The United States and Italy disagreed Friday in the conclusions of a joint investigation into the slaying of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq, further straining ties between the two allies.

In this edited version of the sentence, Times editors moved the word “Friday,” changed the word “killing” to “slaying,” and replaced the word “in” with “on,” making the sentence grammatically awkward. [UPDATE: In the comments, Dafydd ab Hugh notes that the use of the word “slaying” tells you something about where L.A. Times editors are coming from.]

As of the time of this post, a Google search of the first sentence of the Times version of the piece reveals only one hit – in the L.A. Times.

The evidence is incontrovertible: this edited version of the Reuters story is unique to the Los Angeles Times. Times editors removed the fact that there is proof, in the form of satellite footage, supporting the U.S. version of the event.

There is no excuse for the L.A. Times story not reporting this information.

P.S. Following up on that last point, I did a review of the The Times’s past reporting on the issue of the speeding car. The paper repeatedly trumpeted Sgrena’s contention that the Americans had no reason to shoot at the car, because it was only going 25-30 miles per hour. In the extended entry, I provide a detailed history of the paper’s reporting on this issue.

Extended entry:


On March 6, The Times ran a Page A3 story (response 6 in this thread) which said:

An Italian journalist freed from kidnappers in Iraq and then shot by American troops returned home Saturday and raised questions about the official U.S. explanation of the shooting, as outrage swept Italy.

. . . .

The U.S. military said the shooting had been an accident and that the vehicle had been speeding toward an American checkpoint outside the airport and failed to heed warnings to stop.

But Sgrena told Italian state television Saturday that her car “was not going especially fast for a situation of that type.”

. . . .

Later, speaking to Italian prosecutors who are trying to determine whether criminal charges can be brought against the Americans, she said the “regular” speed of her car did not justify the shooting, according to the Italian news agency ANSA.

On March 8, a Page A5 story about the funeral of the Italian intelligence officer slain in the shooting said:

The U.S. military said the Italians had been speeding toward a checkpoint and had ignored warnings to stop.

Since her return to Rome on Saturday, however, Sgrena has disputed the U.S. version of events from her hospital bed. She said their car had not been speeding, her group was not near a checkpoint and they had not seen warning signals.

A March 9 story on Page A3 (no Internet link available) made it clear that the speed of the car was a critical difference between Italian and American versions of the incident. The story was titled: “Italian View of Iraq Shooting at Odds With U.S.” The sub-head read: “Foreign minister says ex-hostage’s car was not speeding or warned to stop before American troops fired, killing an intelligence agent.”

Italy and the United States clashed Tuesday over the slaying by American forces of an Italian intelligence officer in Iraq, with officials offering sharply contradictory accounts.

Italy has demanded a full investigation into the incident, and the U.S. military said Tuesday that it was broadening its inquiry to examine numerous shootings at checkpoints in Iraq.

Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, appearing before Parliament, said the car that U.S. forces opened fire on Friday night was neither speeding nor was it warned to stop, as the U.S. military has said. The car was carrying Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had just been freed from Iraqi kidnappers, and Nicola Calipari, the intelligence agent who secured her release, to the Baghdad airport. He was killed and Sgrena was wounded.

Fini said he was basing his account on interviews with the driver, another Italian intelligence agent who survived the shooting. It supports the version given by Sgrena.

. . . .

In Italy, the government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi found itself having to respond to public anger over the shooting.

The U.S. Army has said the Italians’ car was speeding toward a checkpoint and failed to heed the Americans’ hand signals and other warnings telling it to stop. Fini said there was no checkpoint and no signals, and the car was traveling about 25 mph. It had slowed to that speed, he said, because of puddles in the road and a sharp curve, and the Italians had left on the lights inside the car to better identify them.

A March 11 AP story, printed by the L.A. Times on Page A11 (no Internet link available), stated:

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Sgrena have disputed the Army’s version of events, including a claim that the car was speeding and ignored signals to stop.

. . . .

Berlusconi said the car had been traveling slowly and stopped immediately when a light was flashed at a checkpoint, before troops opened fire.

The top U.S. military officer in Iraq, Army Gen. George W. Casey, has said he had no indication that Italian officials gave notice of the route the Italians were taking. In a statement released after the shooting, the 3rd Infantry Division said the vehicle had been speeding and refused to stop.

More recently, an April 26 story on Page A5 reported on the continuing disagreement of American and Italian officials in light of the completion of a military investigation. The speed of the car was once again reported as a critical area of difference:

A U.S. military investigation has cleared American troops of wrongdoing in the killing of an Italian intelligence agent at a U.S. checkpoint in Iraq, officials said Monday, a conclusion that is likely to stoke the anger simmering throughout Italy since the shooting last month.

. . . .

A senior military official in Washington identified two potential areas of disagreement: whether the Italians were speeding and whether they had radioed their whereabouts to the U.S. military headquarters in Baghdad.

. . . .

The soldiers at the checkpoint told investigators that the car had been speeding and that the driver ignored had repeated warnings, including shots fired in the air, to stop the vehicle.

However, the Italian officer driving the car and Sgrena dispute the troops’ version of events. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, appearing before Parliament last month, said the vehicle was not speeding, nor were its occupants warned to stop.

And a Page A3 article the next day detailed Sgrena’s response to the results of the investigation:

An Italian journalist shot by U.S. soldiers in Iraq said Tuesday she was dismayed that a Pentagon report had cleared the troops of any wrongdoing in the incident, branding the investigation a “slap in the face” to her country.

. . . .

From the beginning, Italian officials disputed the U.S. military’s account of what happened. The Americans said the Italian vehicle had been speeding and they had warned it to stop. The Italian government, citing testimony from Sgrena and the surviving agent, denied that the car had been speeding and said no warning was issued before the shooting started.

The Americans said the car had been traveling about 50 mph; the Italians put the speed at about 30 mph. Sgrena said the road was full of puddles, which slowed the car.

It is truly astounding that the paper’s editors now see fit to hide from their readers the fact that satellite footage proves the car was speeding. The paper in the past understood that this is a critical issue in the controversy. What possible justification is there for the suppression of proof resolving that issue?

Times editors? What do you have to say?

 

[freeandfun1]

A few days ago an article came out on CNN.com about a completed investigation into whether or not WMD's were or were not smuggled from Iraq into Syria before the war. The CNN headline was "U.S. study: Iraq likely didn't ship WMD to Syria". If one actually read the report, that is not at all what they would conclude.

Now here is a headline on the same story from another news outlet:

CIA can't rule out WMD move to Syria

I read the report and subsequenty, other news outlets have run stories with a more accurate version of the report.

Also, here is a good op-ed from the Washington Times about how the MSM has been perverting the story to fit their political agenda!

Misreporting the Duelfer report, again

The mainstream media is playing another misbegotten round of "gotcha" with President Bush on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. This week, the CIA issued a follow-up to its October 2004 Iraqi Survey Group report, saying its investigations into possible WMD transfers from Iraq to Syria before the war were inconclusive and warranted further investigation. Predictably, the media did not convey that message. Instead, it cherry-picked the findings.
"Report Finds No Evidence Syria Hid Arms," The Washington Post's headline blared. Actually, the report, by the CIA's chief weapons inspector, Charles A. Duelfer, made no such claim. Here's what the CIA said: It is "unable to rule out the possibility that WMD was evacuated to Syria before the war"; it was "unlikely that an official transfer of WMD material from Iraq to Syria took place"; and it found "no senior policy, program, or intelligence officials who admitted any direct knowledge of such movement of WMD."
But it said nothing about what Syria did or did not do, as The Post claimed. Instead, the report held out the possibility that an "unofficial" transfer -- that is, a secret one that the Iraqi officials the CIA interviewed didn't know about -- may have taken place.
In fact, the report says, "there was evidence of a discussion of possible WMD collaboration initiated by a Syrian security officer," and the CIA "received information about movement of material out of Iraq, including the possibility that WMD was involved." These reports "were sufficiently credible to merit further investigation" -- especially "given the insular and compartmented nature of the [Saddam Hussein] regime." But in the end, since the CIA was unable to complete its investigation owing to the situation in Iraq, it is unable to say whether illicit weapons were moved to Syria. It held out the possibility of reopening the investigation once security in Iraq improves. It declines to rule out the possibility that WMD were shipped across the border.
Clearly, the media needs an object lesson in an old truth: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That was true back in October, and it is true now. Back then, The Post was so eager to declare the Bush administration wrong that it shoved someone else's words into the chief weapons inspector's mouth. The Post was forced to issue a correction when the headline of its above-the-fold story on the initial report erroneously claimed that Mr. Duelfer said the United States was "almost all wrong." Mr. Duelfer said no such thing; his predecessor, David Kay, did.
The fact is this: We still don't know whether illicit weapons were secreted out of Iraq in the months before the war. That doesn't make for catchy anti-Bush headlines. But then, the truth is sometimes like that.

 

[Annie]

A few days ago an article came out on CNN.com about a completed investigation into whether or not WMD's were or were not smuggled from Iraq into Syria before the war. The CNN headline was "U.S. study: Iraq likely didn't ship WMD to Syria". If one actually read the report, that is not at all what they would conclude.

Now here is a headline on the same story from another news outlet:

CIA can't rule out WMD move to Syria

I read the report and subsequenty, other news outlets have run stories with a more accurate version of the report.

Also, here is a good op-ed from the Washington Times about how the MSM has been perverting the story to fit their political agenda!

Misreporting the Duelfer report, again

I said so at the time, I read the report and it was not an 'all clear.'