Al-Qaeda in Iraq

If you assume that people are reading the entire article rather than just scanning the headlines and reading a few graphs, then Jim Ruttenberg and Mark Mazzetti have an excellent piece about the administration's claims about Al-Qaeda in Iraq's relationship to the terrorist group that attacked us on 9/11 and how those claims significantly distort our best understanding of the issue. On the other hand, a person who just read the headline and then got bored after four or five grafs is going to walk away having missed all the excellent analysis.

I don't blame the reporters for this, as such. They've taken the relevant facts and properly assembled them into inverted pyramid format -- and that's their job. But canny politicians have just gotten way too good at manipulating the media's conventions. There needs to be a way of writing this kind of story such that the incentives actually work against making these kind of misleading claims.

Comments

Well, YOU weren't mislead. And because of that, nor was I. See? Done and done.

Posted by MP | July 25, 2007 1:36 PM

One word: McClatchy. To wit:

WASHINGTON — Facing eroding support for his Iraq policy, even among Republicans, President Bush on Thursday called al Qaida "the main enemy" in Iraq, an assertion rejected by his administration's senior intelligence analysts.

The reference, in a major speech at the Naval War College that referred to al Qaida at least 27 times, seemed calculated to use lingering outrage over the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, to bolster support for the current buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq, despite evidence that sending more troops hasn't reduced the violence or sped Iraqi government action on key issues.

Bush called al Qaida in Iraq the perpetrator of the worst violence racking that country and said it was the same group that had carried out the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.

"Al Qaida is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike," Bush asserted. "Al Qaida's responsible for the most sensational killings in Iraq. They're responsible for the sensational killings on U.S. soil."

U.S. military and intelligence officials, however, say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops. The group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn't exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn't pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn't controlled by bin Laden or his top aides.

Posted by mary | July 25, 2007 1:36 PM

Matt,,

It's been more than eight hours. Why are you keeping us in suspense? A day without approving citations of Marty's Minions from MY is like a day without sunshine.

Zengerle cites his pals at Drudgico, Orr discusses fellow travellers at the New York Sun, Chait doing whatever it is faux liberals do these days, and Racist In Chief Marty hawking books. I suppose (to use that most TNR of catchphrases) that you'll find something useful to cite this afternoon?

Please don't keep us waiting any longer.

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | July 25, 2007 1:37 PM

I harp on this all the time, but it gets no traction or resonance. Don't think I'll stop, though.

My first point is that Sulzberger and Graham, for whatever motive, are actively involved in what's happening (i.e., deliberately bad and misleading coverage, with or without plausible deniability). It isn't incompetent, lazy, silly staffers or "shit happens". It's a consistent long-term management policy. (As for motives, I'd suggest some neocon / neoliberl mix. Scattered liberalism on golf course desegregation and affirmative action is not an argument against this.)

My second point is that part of the problem is what you mentioned today: rewriting of stories to bury the lede, adding fact-free balancing qualifications to strong stories, burying stories on page 16, writing misleading headlines, etc. Occasionally stories are just not published -- they say that the authors of the excellent Cheney series had to politic ferociously to get the story printed. (Awhile back Lara Logan of CBS went online to beg people to pressure CBS to air footage that CBS had paid her to get, at risk of her life. No one but me seemed to realize how odd that was).

This method allows it to be said that the truth is there for anyone who's willing to dig for it. That's just a copout though. Many liberals suck at the bait: "Of course, the Times isn't responsible for the fact that lazy, ignorant people fail to read carefully". Bullshit. The Times has a responsibility for skimmers, too, and they aren't necessarily lazy and ignorant -- they might be wrking 80 hour weeks, or they might be single parents working full time, or they might be working and going to school too. (But regardless. The Times has a responsibility to skimmers, period.)

Last, this approaches the authoritarian condition, under the Czars, for example:

Under the Czars, journalists learned cunning, coded ways of writing the news which, without directly telling the truth, allowed clever readers to figure out what the truth was. But only the clever readers; the average readers (as well as the non-readers, of course -- a big factor in Russia) were left in the dark.

It's often assumed that the Russian censors were stupid and that journalists cleverly evaded them, but it seems equally possible to me that the censors didn't really care about these coded messages, and only wanted to suppress clear, direct statements which could be understood (and orally repeated and disseminated) by the uneducated.

Russia had censors and sent many journalists to Siberia, but in America Aesopian writing "for discerning readers" does not have that excuse. There's no offical censorship, but the editorial boards of the major media have narrow standards on what's politically allowable, and if journalists don't learn these standards, their editors impose them. (I have no solid evidence, but I suspect that most news bureaus coordinate their reporting with the White House at least to a degree -- we know that Karl Rove frequently does phone editors, and that his calls are not refused.)

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 1:49 PM

Last two paragraphs italicized too. I'm just quoting myself elsewhere.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 1:52 PM

Actually, the funny thing about the NYT article is that it seems to replace the bizarre article turned in by Brian Knowleton at the NYT yesterday. That was a rightwing fiesta, including a graf coming after the summary of the Democrats response to the Prez that was an almost perfect piece of punditland dreamery, with intimations of Broder marvelously woven into it:

"Still, judging by recent opinion polls, the president has had some recent success in making a case to voters for continuing the war in Iraq. He has insisted both that success is possible and that failure would be catastrophic, in part because Al Qaeda in Iraq might then turn its attentions elsewhere."

Those recent, magic, unreferenced opinion polls showing a great leap of support for Bush! I think they are found right behind the evident synergy between Obama's plan for Iraq and the Presidents. Or under Fred Hiatt's pillow.

Posted by roger | July 25, 2007 1:54 PM

I agree with John Emerson. The Times continues its pattern of credulously printing Administration spin (looking at you, Michael Gordon!) while burying the lede and downplaying anything that contradicts the spin. They know what the truth is but don't have the balls to call bullshit. By doing it this way, they get the best of all possible worlds - they don't draw the full Administration onslaught by downplaying things while being able to claim, like MP, that they did TOO tell the truth, see, it's in paragraph 7! What horseshit!

Posted by scott | July 25, 2007 1:59 PM

Michael Moore could (should) have a field day with this stuff.

Posted by judson | July 25, 2007 2:08 PM

Scott, sorry, but it is just as much a problem of people not being able to read an article as it is people not being able to write one.

Posted by MP | July 25, 2007 2:17 PM

Who's paying who here, MP? If I subscribe to the paper, I expect them to present the information so that I can get it as quickly as possible. If the Times were paying me to read, then it would be my job to read carefully.

Posted by walt | July 25, 2007 2:21 PM

MP:

Hey, if you want to discuss the short attention span and limited reading comprehension of the general public, we'll need a lot more time, and I'll certainly need more beer. Cheers! (i.e., I agree with you, but the freaking Times has its share of responsibility too.....)

Posted by scott | July 25, 2007 2:22 PM

I don't think Matt is cut out to be a media critic. Froomkin today has a roundup of stories about Bush's speech and it looks to me like every other paper/newservice is doing a better job of conveying Bush's strategery (aka mendacity) than did the Times. Not surprising. This NYT tendency seems to go back a ways. I have a vague memory of an anecdote in the Caro biography of Robert Moses about a group of tenants about to be evicted to make way for yet another expressway who went to the Times with their story and the Times turned them away, telling them that it didn't do investigative journalism . . .

Posted by mary | July 25, 2007 2:33 PM

Walt, this is the seventh paragragh:

"The Iraqi group is a homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group with some foreign operatives that has claimed a loose affiliation to Mr. bin Laden’s network, although the precise links are unclear."

It takes about, oh, 20 seconds to get there since the first six paragraphs are 1-2 sentences each. I really don't it is that burdensome to comprehend. Its not the CNN ticker, but still. If this article is misleading, we've got bigger problems.

Posted by MP | July 25, 2007 2:42 PM

Mary:

"We don't do investigative journalism?" Classic back-to-the-future stuff. Sounds like something Judy Miller would have said! Kudos for digging that one up - the more things change, the more they stay the same............

Posted by scott | July 25, 2007 2:42 PM

MP, the point is that it gets drilled into you as a trainee journalist that the majority of readers do not read the majority of articles beyond the first paragraph. That's why you have the inverted pyramid in the first place. Headlines and leads are enormously important, and they are written the way they are written for a reason.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | July 25, 2007 3:30 PM

I wish that we'd stop financing such a fruitless war. We have already spent over 340 billion dollars [Borgen Project] and have not gotten anywhere really. We need to focus on real issues, like global poverty, that can be solved.

Posted by Erica | July 25, 2007 3:47 PM

Mp, you're a fucking moron. No wonder the goddamn Democrats never can win. They have idiots like you in the party making decisions. You are exactly the kind of creep I was talking about. Go to hell. Fuck off and die.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 4:10 PM

And yes, MP, you are tremendously smarter than a lot of other fucking voters. Good for you!

This issue has been out there for years already, and there still are people who brag about their intelligence who have no understanding of what's going on at all.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 4:14 PM

Right, Ginger, they are written that way for a reason. The reason being...people don't read. So you've got two problems there: the way things are written, and the way things are read.

It seems Yglesias' complaint is a related but differt one, "canny politicians" that exploit the two-sided problem. The canny politicians could be foiled in three ways: 1) they stop trying to exploit the system; 2) journalists stop doing what they are trained to do; or 3) readers do a better job of ingesting the information.

Which of these is most likely to occur so as to improve the public's understanding? Seems to me, those with a strong grasp of information usually owe it to (3). For that reason, maybe the best solution is developing (3), not praying for (1) or (2) to magically happen.

Besides, if you didn't get through the first paragraph of that article without the bullshit meter going off, how would a perfectly written article help you? How could you ever spot a bad one?

Posted by MP | July 25, 2007 4:16 PM

MP, was that supposed to be a response to me? I don't see any "Ginger" above.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 4:22 PM

Emerson, please decide if I am a moron or really smart.

Or, perhaps, just engaging in a fun conversation.

Or, perhaps, waiting for some damn basketblogging.

Posted by MP | July 25, 2007 4:28 PM

MP, first of all, I explained exactly what was wrong with your post before you posted it. Perhaps you're a lazy reader yourself. As of now, I'd say that you're a clever, lazy, smart-ass moron who is willing to be on the losing side politically forever, as long as you can blame the problem on stupider people than you.

Matt said that the way the post was written, someone who only skimmed it would get the wrong idea. I went on to say that a.) newspapers have a responsibility not to mislead readers who skim but b.) because of their agendas, they deliberately do mislead such readers.

You didn't respond to or develop either point. You just cockily explained that you were smarter than the average reader. But I had already pointed out the problem with that response.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 4:35 PM

Emerson.

Isn't there an unstated presumption that we are "smarter" than the average reader in the post itself and running throughout this entire thread? I don't think you would have a problem with the inverted pyramid if everybody were super-smart, right? Am I missing something?

And in the tradition of quoting one's self, I do think that my point that "for that reason, maybe the best solution is developing (3)..." essentially puts the burden of the solution on me (or us), without placing blame.

I also think I made it clear that in my opinion there are about three causes, with one best solution. Under those circumstances, solving the one is not based upon it being the greatest contributing cause, but most solvable. Even if it is the greatest contributing cause I don't see how you understood an assignment of culpability.

And thank you for wishing me death. That was sweet.

Posted by MP | July 25, 2007 4:57 PM

Matt pointed to a problem and I developed his idea further. Your first three posts simply dismissed the problem: "Done and done." Only your fourth post, after I lost my temper, "made it clear" that what you were really talking about all along was "how is this problem best solved?"

That was basically changing the subject, since we hadn't really talked about solutions and since you were minimizing the original problem anyway, and I don't actually believe that that was your original intent, and I also don't think that your proposed solution is the best one. I think that with the deceptive media we have we are in serious trouble, and that we should face the fact.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 5:19 PM

And yeah, you are missing something. In my original comment I pointed out that a lot of intelligent, hurried readers have to skim.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 5:22 PM

Sorry Erica of "We need to focus on real issues, like global poverty, that can be solved. "

Don't waste our money trying to "solve" global poverty.

We should kill al-quaidis in iraq, afghanistan, somalia, sudan, pakistan instead. We are better off killing islamists one by one. I'd rather we stopped funding USAID, IMF and the World Bank and used the money to kill Jihadi ($10,000 a head?)

And, the leaders of these groups (and boldest terrorists) have not suffered from poverty, they are educated and at least middle class. (Che, Usama, Carlos anyone?) Actually, they are a lot like Washington liberals. Best to eradicate the jihadis than waste our time foolishly trying to eradicate "poverty" Poverty has been the natural state of humans for millenia except for the last 200 or so years when some of us have been fortunate enough to live in industrialized countries.

Posted by Jozef | July 25, 2007 6:22 PM

Terrorists are middle-class like liberals, and are completely unlike Josef -- a poor but honest dirt farmer from Tennessee. Josef understands that his poverty and stupidity are part of God's plan.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 6:26 PM

Emerson - Jozef does not belief in god's plan, the hand of evolution is working for some of us at least. How can humans progress if we don't do things like kill suicide bombers?

We would never have progressed to where we are today buy sitting on our asses in the faces of evil. You washington lunatics!

How did you know I was a farmer though?

Posted by Jozef | July 25, 2007 6:33 PM

Farmers often leap to conclusions and make wild accusations.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 6:36 PM

Are you smarter than most readers, or do you already know what you think before you read a newspaper article?

Are you smart? Are you rich? Do you get laid a lot? (oh, sorry)

What wild accusations do farmers make? Corn gotta be high as an elephant's eye by end of July. Is that a Tennessee saying? Not a wild accusation? You are obviously a DC Dweeb. Ahh such a clever boy you are...

Posted by Jozef | July 25, 2007 6:54 PM

I live in a farm town 100 miles from anywhere you've ever heard of. Smart, not rich at all, seldom get laid. If an article brings forward new facts or arguments, it can change my mind, but I don't start from zero when I begin reading.

Posted by John Emerson | July 25, 2007 7:10 PM