July 13, 2004

CREDIBILITY FAREWELLED

John Leo on Paul Bremer’s forgotten farewell:

The Washington Post said Bremer left without giving a talk. The Los Angeles Times did worse. It missed the speech, then insulted Bremer for not giving it. A July 4 Times "news analysis" said: "L. Paul Bremer III, the civilian administrator for Iraq, left without even giving a final speech to the country--almost as if he were afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year." This is a good one-sentence example of what readers object to in much Iraq reporting -- dubious or wrong information combined with a heavy load of attitude from the reporter.

The Washington Post’s Rajiv Chandrasekaran has his say here.

Posted by Tim Blair at July 13, 2004 02:00 AM
Comments

The blog ate my homework.

Posted by: chandrasekaran at July 13, 2004 at 02:25 PM

There is a contradiction in the alibi the press offers for missing the speech. Rajiv Chandrasekaran complains that the speech was not publicized to the Western Press, but the press criticized Bremer for not giving a farewell address to the Iraqi People.
I suppose that if the speech had been better publicized to Western media that would have used as evidence to prove that Bremer's address was not really addressed to the Iraqis at all, but was cynically intended to play to the West.

Posted by: RonAA at July 13, 2004 at 09:55 PM

An event of this nature and none of the "reporters" are around to report on it, not even from "Mahogany Ridge."

How lazy are you when you can't even watch CNN in the hotel bar?

Posted by: Mike at July 13, 2004 at 10:26 PM

Well, I know most MSM probably think Leo is a crank as he has been publicizing PC gone wild and flubs for years, but US News & World report is one of the big 3 (albeit #3), so I would hope this "breaks" the Bremer speech issue into the MSM...

Posted by: Ted at July 14, 2004 at 04:12 AM

Chandrasekaran's lame respnse can best be countered by asking why he reported, as a positive fact, that Bremer did NOT give an address. It isn't enough to say "no one told me." He could have found this information out with a single inquiry. This is classic journalistic narcissism: whatever I didn't see could never have happened.

Posted by: Sage McLaughlin at July 14, 2004 at 08:29 AM