Facts? In the Lede? Shocking!

Via Brian Beutler, the AFP tries a revolutionary experiment in writing their story in such a way as to make readers better informed about the issue at hand rather than more familiar with the president's propaganda. Here's the lede:

US President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons -- an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Oh, my! Imagine the world we might live in if this were the standard way to open a newspaper story about the president making a false or misleading claim.

Comments

AFP stands for "Agence France Press", n'est pas? Of course they refuse to catapult the propaganda - they're a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys!

Posted by r€nato | August 8, 2007 10:39 AM

Gitmo him.

Posted by Douglas Watts | August 8, 2007 10:39 AM

Between AFP, McClatchy, and the forthcoming Guardian America, we may actually be able to read some actual, boney-fied nooooz every now and then.

Posted by El Cid | August 8, 2007 10:55 AM

The even more accurate version:

US President and lying sack of shit George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons -- an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran and an obvious attempt to expand the Iraq war for the enrichment of his cronies in the oil and defense sectors, and to distract attention from the crushing incompetence of his administration.

Posted by Dr. Wu | August 8, 2007 10:57 AM

The Agence France Press political reporter has consistently written great pieces on the Bush Administration. I've started following his reports but they are pretty hard to find links to without using LexisNexis. You should look up some of his pieces for the kind of reporting that Americans only *wish* we were reading.

Posted by James, Los Angeles | August 8, 2007 10:58 AM

AFP? Wake me up when it's the AP. Anyone in the US reading AFP is probably already pretty well-informed.

Posted by thelonious | August 8, 2007 11:00 AM

Yes, journalism survives outside of the United States where it was outsourced to Pravda and Izvestia.

That is probably why the rest of the world is so much better informed than the jingos, and jamooks walking the streets of America.

Posted by c4logic | August 8, 2007 11:34 AM

You should really try Pravda.ru some time.

Puts newspapers in their proper perspective.

Posted by mdhatter | August 8, 2007 11:42 AM

Pravda and Izvestia.

Old Brezhnev-era Moscow joke: "There's no truth in Pravda[truth]and no news in Izvestia[news].

Substitute "Fox News" and, as the cheese-eaters say, voila!

Posted by Hedley Lamarr | August 8, 2007 11:46 AM

I was told this joke by my Russian teacher as

" There's no truth in The News (Izvestia), and no news in The Truth (Pravda)".

Posted by Alan de Bristol | August 8, 2007 11:53 AM

I'm waiting for Howie Kurtz to tell us how unfair and biased AFP is -- that is, if he can manage to unwedge his tongue from Michelle Malkin's asshole.

Posted by Peter Principle | August 8, 2007 12:21 PM

.

And then....

An "incident" occurs in the gulf off the Iranian coast involving an American carrier and an unidentified form of attack.

Fearing retaliation, Iran stops all oil shipments.

Fearing for their safety, oil tankers no longer enter (or exit) the gulf.

Oil prices shoot to $200 barrel.

By the millions, Americans fearing for their beloved SUVs, sign loyalty oaths that A.G. Gonzales makes available on line.

The loyalty oaths give Duhhbya dictatorial power.

The MSM stops covering the skirmish in Iraq.

All eyes are focused on Iran.

The November 2008 elections are postponed.

Indefinitely...

.

Posted by draftedin68 | August 8, 2007 12:33 PM

Meh. It's nice to see a good lead for once, but I've seen too much bad reporting from AFP over the last few years to start gushing. It's been better than AP, but that's not saying much.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | August 8, 2007 12:37 PM

By the millions, Americans fearing for their beloved SUVs, sign loyalty oaths that A.G. Gonzales makes available on line
draftedin68,

That is a brilliant method of using the Internet to enhance the political process! They just have to make sure, if they care, that the total number of signed (signed, hell... just click here to signify assent) loyalty oaths doesn't exceed the total population of the US. That might look suspicious

Posted by Mooser | August 8, 2007 12:38 PM

Y'all just don't understand that thanks to the new FISA rule Bush was able to listen in on a phone call the other day from Iran to someone in the U.S. in which someone said "We've got tons of nuclear weapons and we're going to drop them on the Crawford, Texas." If you knew what Bush knew, you'd shut up and just do what he says. You pinko defeatist sushi-eating latte-sipping liberal homo traitors!

Posted by tinisoli | August 8, 2007 1:22 PM

They just have to make sure, if they care, that the total number of signed ... loyalty oaths doesn't exceed the total population of the US.

Shouldn't take more than a few lines of code in the tabulating program...

That might look suspicious

If there were anyone left on the Outside who was willing to question Shrubbus Maximus.

By that point, there won't be.

Posted by stormkite | August 8, 2007 1:24 PM

I'm waiting for Howie Kurtz to tell us how unfair and biased AFP is -- that is, if he can manage to unwedge his tongue from Michelle Malkin's asshole.

Um, hello? A little warning, please? Trying to eat my lunch here, not toss it.

Posted by Glenn | August 8, 2007 2:00 PM

McClatchy's been edging around the propaganda drain lately too. I've seen a few stories lately that sure smelled plant like to me.

Posted by baba durag | August 8, 2007 2:02 PM

OK--a serious question here. I don't support military action against Iran, and I think Bush is an awful president.

BUT...isn't it more important what Iran does than what it says? Doesn't the fact that the very responsible international institutions that anti-Iraq war folks like to say we needed to listen to before (and I am anti-Iraq war) are worried about Iran's actions mean more than whether Bush should have said "their behavior has made clear that" rather than "they have proclaimed"?

I mean, I take it that you don't take Bush's proclamations at face value; fine. But do you really take Iran's?

That's not to let the President off for a sloppy formulation--he has time and staff to be accurate--but to say that this is a pretty unimportant flub in the scheme of things.

Posted by Bill | August 8, 2007 2:05 PM

That's not to let the President off for a sloppy formulation--he has time and staff to be accurate--but to say that this is a pretty unimportant flub in the scheme of things.

Couldn't disagree more. Look, the question of just what is Iran's intent is still an open one. And for rather obvious (I think) reasons, the credibility of the Bush administration when it says "we know they want nuclear weapons" based on our own intelligence is about as close to zero as one can get. But, hey, if Iran admits they want nuclear weapons, then you don't have to trust what Bush says, right? Don't tell me that's not a deliberate statement on Bush's part.

It's like Cheney saying, pre-Iraq war, that "we know Saddam has reconstituted nuclear weapons." Yeah, after he says it, he can come along later and say, oh I meant programs. But the statement is out there, and it carries (because the US press is too chickenshit to correct him), and no one will ever convince me that he didn't mean to say exactly what he said. Good for AFP, at least, for trying to nip this in the bud.

Posted by Glenn | August 8, 2007 2:13 PM

Glenn,

I don't disagree that that's the President's intent. But it's not as if people can't judge Iran's intentions better by its behavior.

I also don't mind that the President is corrected in a news column about it--but my reaction upon reading the correction is to say, well, of course the Iranians have denied this--but who believes them?

Does the IAEA? Do the Europeans? Do you?

Again, I don't believe there is a military option with Iran that makes any sense, and I would oppose any such proposal by the President. But I won't be terribly upset if he misdescribes what they have said so long as he accurately describes what they have done (which distinguishes the importance of this case from the Cheney one quite a lot to me--and I agree with you about the calculated mendacity of the VP's prewar statements).

Posted by Bill | August 8, 2007 2:22 PM

I don't necessarily believe what Iran says on this, no. But that doesn't mean I'm convinced that Iran is sufficiently bent on obtaining nuclear weapons that military action is advisable. I understand, and accept, that you don't favor military action either. But Bush does. (Or, at least Cheney does.) And you and I, indeed probably anyone reading this blog, are not the intended audience for this prevarication. I'm sorry if this sounds elitist, but that lie was for the great majority of the American public who, through little fault of their own and the great fault of our news media, are not as well-informed on the topic as we are.

So here's how it plays out: As Bush beats the war drums ever more strongly, there will be a significant portion of the US public that says, "well, y'know, Iran has even said that they're gonna get nukes, and we can't let that happen." Let's set aside for the moment the question of whether it's ever acceptable for the US President to tell a blatant lie in the supposed furtherance of a "larger truth." This lie is being done to whip up fear and support for military action that will be such a disaster as to, by comparison, make the neocons' vision of rose-petal parades in Iraq finally come true. And that's just unacceptable, no matter what you may think about Iran's intentions.

Posted by Glenn | August 8, 2007 2:39 PM

Glenn,

Here's my problem with the elitist argument. It's not that I'm anti-elitist, it's that elites voted for the Iraq war. John Edwards, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, to name but three elites from the party now controlling both Houses of Congress.

Was it their confusion about V.P. Cheney's "misstatement" on MTP that made them do it? Was it their fealty to Fox News Viewers?

If we were to declar war on Iran, it would take the Democratic Congress to do it. Would they, too, be able to claim confusion about whether Iran had actually proclaimed in speech or writing its intention to acquire nuclear weapons?

So I don't reject the elitist conclusion that many Americans are confused about who was responsible for 9/11, whether Iran has proclaimed anything, or whatnot. I do reject the notion that such Americans bear primary responsibilty for the votes cast by their Senators, and therefore I reject the significance (though not the suspect intentions) of these misstatements.

You and I may have fundamentally different views, I guess, about who was to blame for the Congress's vote on the Iraq war.

Posted by Bill | August 8, 2007 2:59 PM

what's the differnce between a jingo and a jamook?

male female?

Posted by judson | August 8, 2007 3:09 PM

You and I may have fundamentally different views, I guess, about who was to blame for the Congress's vote on the Iraq war.

No, I'd bet we agree on that: Congress was. But where we may disagree is why Congress voted the way it did (and I assume we're both referring to the October 2002 AUMF). I don't think it was because they actually believed the bullshit Bush was peddling -- well, I'm sure many did -- rather, I think it was because their constituents did and they feared the political repercussions of voting otherwise.

Now, one can have a great debate about whether and to what extent our representatives should reflect their constitutents' wishes or should vote their conscience -- i.e., whether, if Congress had the motivation I ascribe to it, that was an act of craven cowardice or democratic responsiveness. But that's beside the point. I'm pretty sure that, if the American public are led, or misled, into favoring war with Iran, Congress will follow suit. You run a country with the Congress you have, as Rumsfeld might say. So I think it's first and foremost an imperative that the American people not be misinformed on this critical topic.

Besides,I just don't think the President should lie to us. Crazy, I know.

Posted by Glenn | August 8, 2007 3:58 PM

"You pinko defeatist sushi-eating latte-sipping liberal homo traitors!" Hey, I resemble that and a lot of other things also. Such as, an Army Vet and an educated patriot.

Posted by Danno | August 8, 2007 4:40 PM

Glenn,

I disagree. I think Saddam's guilty behavior (his in-retrospect-what-was-he-thinking lying declaration to the UN about how he had destroyed the weapons--Blix thought it was bogus, AND Blix wasn't sure there were weapons)and the impending (seemingly) breakdown of the sanctions regime made many members of Congress actually believe that Saddam had WMD. That made them support the war. I did support the war, and now I recognize it was a mistake. I think lots of members of Congress are like me in this regard (like lots of members of the media).

I think the only way Bush can get to war with Iran is to take a first strike (perhaps under some claim of provocation), but there just won't be the Congressional support for another war resolution. Even then, I don't see how we can really get embroiled in a long term conflict with lots of troops on the ground. Where would they come from? We can't have a draft before W. is out of the White House.

Hence my sunny optimism at what we both agree was a deceptive misstatement that should not have been made.

Posted by Glenn | August 8, 2007 5:02 PM

"You pinko defeatist sushi-eating latte-sipping liberal homo hippie traitors!"

Fixed.

Posted by The Golux | August 8, 2007 5:04 PM

Glenn,

Oops--I typed your name twice rather than my own--above, and mistakenly stole your identity. Anyway, thanks for the exchange.

Posted by Bill | August 8, 2007 5:47 PM

AFP always loads on Yahoo as one of the news sources tabbed on their, well, News page.

Who knew that Yahoo was a french loving surrender elitist?

Posted by Duckman GR | August 8, 2007 7:11 PM

I agree with the idea that the best way to gauge Iran's intentions is to pay attention to Iran's actions, rather than Iran's statements.

This same standard, applied to the Bush 43 administration, produces a political measurement of "Fascism: It Can Happen Here".

I guess we'll all have to adapt. Fortunately I look pretty good in a brown shirt and jackboots.

Posted by joel hanes | August 8, 2007 9:33 PM

Yes, Joel, your life is just as awful as those of people living under Baathist/Fascist Saddam, or under Mussolini or Franco, or under Hitler.

It's gotten to be JUST like that here, really.

People who liken their distaste (which I share) for the Bush administration, because of their paranoia (which I do not share) about things like the NSA program to the suffering endured by people under the very worst regimes in history really need a reality check.

Posted by Bill | August 8, 2007 10:32 PM

A summary of how the media that's actually read in the United States (as opposed to AFP) did in this case is here. It's not a pretty picture.

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