The New York Times article on the Army’s investigation into the “mishandling” of the Koran proves that when the media tries to insert a little perspective, a story can actually be factually correct as well as free from overt bias.
WASHINGTON, May 26 – An American military inquiry has uncovered five instances in which guards or interrogators at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in Cuba mishandled the Koran, but found “no credible evidence” to substantiate claims that it was ever flushed down a toilet, the chief of the investigation said on Thursday.All but one of the five incidents appear to have taken place before January 2003. In three cases, the mishandling of the Koran appears to have been deliberate, and in two it was accidental or unintentional, the commander said, adding that four cases involved guards, and one an interrogator. Two service members have been punished for their conduct, one recently.
It’s all there, right up front with no spin and no editorializing. In the first two paragraphs we get the who, what, when, and where that’s usually missing from articles about military abuse stories. The fact that the perpetrators of the deliberate mishandling of the Koran have already been disciplined is also right up front where it should be,
And the article also handles the retraction of the Koran in the toilet scam by the inmate in question:
General Hood said his investigators asked the detainee whether he personally had seen any incidents of Koran abuse, “and he allowed as how he hadn’t, but he had heard guards – that guards at some other point in time had done this.”The general said he could offer no explanation for any contradiction between the detainee’s statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in July 2002 and the interview conducted by his team on May 14.
Speculation by the reporter, Mr. Shanker, is kept to a minimum.
I wonder if the Times coverage of this issue could have been affected by the Newsweek story? Ya Think?
UPDATE
Michelle Malkin points to the same story in the Washington Post and what happens to the meaning of a story when context is lost:
In this morning’s coverage of Koran abuse allegations at Gitmo, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Boston Globe, Reuters, and Associated Press all mention in their lead paragraph that the Pentagon found no credible evidence that a guard flushed the Koran down a toilet. The Washington Post, on the other hand, does not bother to mention the Koran-flushing incident until its fourth paragraph and does not note until the thirteenth paragraph that the detainee who made that allegation has retracted it.
Follow the link to Michelle’s site for the Post story and then read the Times story. This is a textbook example of how bias can color the perception of a story by the reader.
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The ACLU Rides to the Defense of Killer Terrorists
As if the ACLU continued defense of American criminals and degenerates is not enough the ACLU has now taken their unholy cause to the very terrorists that have swore to kill or convert every man, women, and child in the United States. The ACLU has no…
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Excellent post! Make sure to flush a Koran today! I’ve got a post up on this too.
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Bonfire of the Vanities #100
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