Positive Re-enforcement

I have nothing in particular to say about it, but I'm glad McClatchy's Leila Fadel is in the newspaper business:

U.S. officials say the number of civilian casualties in the Iraqi capital is down 50 percent. But U.S. officials declined to provide specific numbers, and statistics gathered by McClatchy Newspapers don't support the claim.

Normally, a story would go on for grafs and grafs about the claims US officials make before noting that the claims, as best as the reporter can tell, are false. So, I dunno, maybe you want to send Leila Fadel a nice note? Suggest to the next editor of a more-prominent-than-McClatchy paper you read that they should hire Leila Fadel? Bloghers are good at complaining about sub-standard work, but should also get better at deploying carrots.

Comments

Would the editors at a more-prominent-than-McClatchy paper allow her to write a piece in this way, or would they bury the lede like they do for the reporters they already have?

Posted by Gabriel | August 15, 2007 6:35 PM

I understand what you are saying here, but wouldn't it be more apt and appropriate to send a note to other papers of record with a copy of this blurb to show them how it is done? Leila is doing what a good reporter is supposed to do - I appreciate it, but it's sad we have become that desperate that any instance of proper skepticism is met with huzzahs on our part ....

Posted by Nick | August 15, 2007 6:46 PM

Is McClatchy all that non-prominent? They own some pretty big papers, like the San Jose Mercury News, and just bought Knight-Ridder.

Posted by James F. Elliott | August 15, 2007 6:57 PM

Matt

you are half-praised half-criticized in today's daily howler. you should read it in full and respond.

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh081507.shtml

Posted by Roberto | August 15, 2007 7:22 PM

I really don't care about most of the typos in this blog, but the headline mistakes for some reason grate. Dude: it's reinforcement.

Posted by Pete McPedant | August 15, 2007 7:26 PM

McClatchy sold the Mercury News as soon as they bought it, along with all of the other Knight Ridder papers in the Bay Area. They also unloaded the Philly papers and the St Paul Pioneer Press, I think. They're still a pretty prominent chain, though. They still own the Miami Herald, for one.

Posted by too many steves | August 15, 2007 7:28 PM

Lord I hate the tone of postings such as most of those at The Daily Howler. How does it advance arguments to refer to Peter Baker as "a weak little man"? Sometimes I don't understand how the bloggers--both left and right--who specialize in outrage avoid massive strokes. They seem to be perpetually on the verge of exploding.

I would say this on the Howler website, but I didn't see a place to leave comments.

Posted by THS | August 15, 2007 7:37 PM

McClatchy has consistently excellent, thorough reporting. That Bachelet guy aces stuff all the time. We don't even live in a McClatchy catchment area. Thank Whomever for the internet!!!

Posted by harold | August 15, 2007 7:45 PM

For those wanting to follow up on Matt's suggestion:

Posted by mk | August 15, 2007 8:35 PM

Is "bloghers" a neologism similar to "herstory"?

Posted by blah | August 15, 2007 9:16 PM

THS--You could email him. I have on a few occasions and got a response back once.

My feeling about "The Daily Howler" is that it's valuable and the outrage is mostly justified. I think, though, that Somerby has a much higher opinion of the Democratic presidential candidates than I do.

Posted by Donald | August 15, 2007 9:28 PM

Thanks, mk... often I read a well-written article and want to thank the writer, but I have no contact information so it's hard to do.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | August 15, 2007 9:33 PM

Dude, this is *really* off topic, but your new stylesheet sucks dirty canal water out of a bent straw.

My $.02

Posted by justinb | August 15, 2007 10:44 PM

I knew I'd seen this story before

September 2006:

It turns out the official toll of violent deaths in August was just revised upwards to 1535 from 550, tripling the total. Now, we’re depressingly used to hearing about deaths here, so much so that the numbers can be numbing. But this means that a much-publicized drop-off in violence in August - heralded by both the Iraqi government and the US military as a sign that a new security effort in Baghdad was working - apparently didn’t exist. […] Violent deaths now appear roughly in line with the earlier trend: 1855 in July and 1595 in June.

Posted by Jinchi | August 15, 2007 11:00 PM

Yeah, I've already been trying to make a point of praising good work like this. Anne Kornblut (!) of all people received a nice email from me recently for bothering to investigate the substance of a political spat, rather than just doing the political-point-scoring thing. It amazed me. But reward good work where you see it, yeah?

Posted by mop | August 15, 2007 11:13 PM

Actually, this looks exactly like what they did last year:

In a distinction previously undisclosed, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Barry Johnson said Friday that the United States is including in its tabulations of sectarian violence only deaths of individuals killed in drive-by shootings or by torture and execution.

That has allowed U.S. officials to boast that the number of deaths from sectarian violence in Baghdad declined by more than 52 percent in August over July.

http://www.afsc.org/iraq/news/2006/09/civil-war-body-count-911.htm

Posted by Jinchi | August 15, 2007 11:47 PM

If we had any kind of real "journalism", practically every statement made by anyone in the US government would be tagged like a blog entry as "Lie", "Wrong". and "Bullshit" in parentheses, and the rest of the article would be the actual facts exposing said lies.

I suppose this article is as good as we're going to get.

I can't wait to see the Wikipedia entries for the Iraq and Iran wars twenty years from now.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | August 16, 2007 2:18 AM

Brad DeLong
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2007/08/leila-fadel-of-.html#comments
also singles Fadel out for praise. I have a problem. I think she pushed back against military spokesman spin a little too hard downplaying the execution style killings (as the military spokespeople seem to have chosen not to count deaths from explosions). I cut, paste (and edit adding 2 words in []) part of my comment at Brad's blog also available at my pathetic link begging blog

http://rjwaldmann.blogspot.com/2007/08/leila-fadel-of-mcclatchy-is-singled-out.html

Hmmmm I quote pargraph 27 ! (If I counted correctly (IICC)) of Fadel's article

"One bright spot has been the reduction in the number of bodies found on the streets, considered a sign of sectarian violence. That number was 44 percent lower in July, compared to December. In July, the average body count per day was 18.6, compared with 33.2 in December, two months before the surge."

[snip]

Such a large difference in the rate of [execution style] killings should have been mentioned before paragraph 27 (IICC).

Posted by Robert Waldmann | August 16, 2007 5:50 AM

McClatchy has done some great reporting over the past few years.

Unfortunately (and contrary to the stereotype where the big bad corporation overrules the crusading locals), a number of their local papers treat some of the best reporting (e.g., the US Attorney business) as radioactive. Won't carry it, almost boycott it.

From a bit of asking around, I've got a pretty good idea that the McClatchy reporters are aware of it, know it infects some of their papers but not others, and, obviously, don't like it. It's to McClatchy's credit that they allow a lot of local control, but in some cases it leads to timidity and 'caution' that really don't reflect the excellence of the work being done at their national level.

Posted by drinkof | August 16, 2007 10:52 AM

Someone should point out that the good reporting is from the former Knight-Ridder team, continuing the tradition.

Posted by bemused | August 16, 2007 11:49 AM

I *assume* Matthew's use of "Bloghers" is a reflection of his awareness of the organization BlogHer, which hosted a conference attended by 800 women bloggers in Chicago the week before YearlyKos.

Posted by Ish | August 16, 2007 1:01 PM