In A Word Media Watchdog services has uncovered some disturbing creative writing at the Knight Ridder newspapers. In an article picked up by other national newspapers, a couple of Knight Ridder reports had a little too much freedom in trying show the White House lied last week while firing back at its' opponents concerning the Iraq war.
Knight Ridder claims Bush lied when he said, "critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs." The reporters James Kuhnhenn and Jonathan S. Landay kind of fumble over themselves, because they actually agree with Bush, but they claim it wasn't bipartisan. The Senate committee concluded that none of the analysts where pressured. However, after the committee released its' findings, amazingly Democrats released a counter-statement saying just the opposite. The Democrats' statements unfortunately didn't go through the same scrutiny as the Senate committee (or even show show any evidence to support their claims), however Knight Ridder will take it as fact anyway. Typical.
Knight Ridder's second claim of Bush deception was :"more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate - who had access to the same intelligence - voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Just like the Democrats, Kuhnhenn and Landay believe there most be some nugget of information contained the President's Daily Brief, which members of congress do not get to see. Those briefs are not public information, nor do the Democrats or Knight Ridder know what is in them. They just believe it contains the proof Bush lied, however they have no clue or evidence to support their claims. Typical.
On Veterans Day, Kuhnhenn and Landay believe Bush further distorted the facts when he said "intelligence agencies around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein." Bush makes a pretty general statement and is a little vague. However, Knight Ridder reporters have a knack for taking nothing and turning it into something. While Bush doesn't say the rest of the world believed everything US said about Saddam, for the purpose of their article Kuhnhenn and Landay imply Bush said they did. I've got news for Kuhnhenn and Landay, just because the rest of world didn't believe the same intelligence as Bush, they did agree with the overarching statement that Saddam was hiding weapons of mass destruction and intended to use them. We also have countless U.N. resolutions to support that belief.
To further dig deeper into the article would be a waste of time. The reporters, Kuhnhenn and Landay, clearly have a very long leash by Knight Ridder News. This is front page opinion presented as a news. More and more these days newspaper editors can't wait for the reader to get to the back of the paper to read their editorials, so they have devised creative ways to disguise their opinions on the front page. Ever seen bylines like: "news analysis," "investigative news," "insider news," or "news editorial?"
The nation's media outlets continue to blur the lines between fact and fiction. Unlike Bush who has to answer to the media and the American public, who does the media have to answer too?
2 comments:
If I am not mistaken our very own Des Moines Register picked this up and ran it front page in the Sunday edition this week.
Yes, I hear it ran it place of "Bush is a baby eating Devil."
Apparently, the DSM Register's insider with Satan couldn't confirm some of the facts, so they ran a "Bush is Lying Warmonger" instead. Typical.
Post a Comment