... caught my eye. It was ABC news presenting a story on the President's speech yesterday. Of course they led with the "30000 Iraqis" killed statement by the President. They ignored the context of the question, which included "insurgents" in the total. Mr. Bush didn't itemize. The MSM was then free to either misrepresent that as civilian deaths, or to present the total out of context without specifying that "insurgents" were included. They did so, in spades.
I first read about this late last evening at Generation Why?, where Jason Smith demonstrated the deception. The Mudville Gazette is on the case, citing the false headlines, and The Political Teen (go vote for Ian for a Weblog Award for Video Blog) has video.
So here's the question. Why would MSM outlets risk credibility further by rushing out such misleading and incorrect reports? They are all over Mr. Bush for misleading the nation into war, or misrepresenting facts to the American people. But this is their job, to get the facts right, and they can't even be relied upon for that. Did they think no one would notice?
The answer is to have the first impression be the worst impression. Politically astute people paying attention will not be fooled. That group, such as the people reading political blogs, is such a tiny proportion that to them the risk is worth it. If they have to issue a correction it's glossed over, their conscience is clear (though it shouldn't be), and most people will still have the incorrect first impression.
When ABC News ran the clip this morning they conveniently truncated the question, and ran Mr. Bush's answer. Then the correspondent failed to mention that the total included insurgents. The impression was that the 30,000 was civilians, and that's the one they intended to leave.
Plug: Be sure to cast a vote for 'Joust The Facts'. You know, for the children, once a day, every day.