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Saturday, April 05, 2003

Fire the scoundrels!

Andrew Sullivan writes on 3 April 2003: (our emphasis)

RAINES WATCH I: A jaw-dropping correction in the New York Times today:
A front-page article on Tuesday about criticism voiced by American military officers in Iraq over war plans omitted two words from an earlier comment by Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, commander of V Corps. General Wallace had said (with the omission indicated by uppercasing), "The enemy we're fighting is A BIT different from the one we war-gamed against."
One simple question: why are the reporters who used that critical quote to exaggerate the difficulties of the allies still working for the NYT? The reporters in question are Bernard Weinraub, formerly of the Hollywood beat, and Thom Shanker.


Let's see who used the "critical quote", and in what way:

Correctly quoted Wallace Should not "still be working" according to Sullivan
"The enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against." "The enemy we're fighting is different than the one we war-gamed against."
Boston Globe FOX News
Maureen Dowd (30 March) St. Petersburg Times
The Nation BBC
. Malay Mail
. United Press International
. The Hindu, India
. Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX
. Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
. San Francisco Chronicle
. CBS MarketWatch
. CNN International
. Cleveland Plain Dealer
. The Age, Australia
. TIME
. Daily Times, Pakistan
. Sunday Mirror, UK
. Guardian, UK
. Sunday Times, Australia
. Independent, UK
. Dallas Morning News
. Rediff, India
. Tacoma News Tribune
. Knoxville News Sentinel
. Financial Times (subscription), UK
. Scripps Howard News Service
. ABC Online, Australia
. New Vision, Uganda
. Straits Times, Singapore
. The Globe and Mail, Canada
. Chicago Tribune (subscription), IL
. Bru Direct, Brunei
. Belfast Telegraph, UK
. London Times, UK


NOTES:
  • The initial misquote came from the Washington Post.

  • On the day the story broke (28 March 2003), many newspapers misquoted Wallace, but did say that it was "reported by The Washington Post". Newspapers that identified the quote as being "reported by the Washington Post" are not included in the right hand column above.
Sullivan sure has his work cut out for him. Imagine - getting all those reporters fired.


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