Thursday, April 12, 2007

Is this really reporting?

Bombings raise questions about `surge'

By STEVEN R. HURST, Associated Press Writer 21 minutes ago

BAGHDAD - U.S. and Iraqi officials have voiced cautious optimism that the 2-month-old security operation in Iraq might be working. A suicide bombing at parliament and another that sent a Baghdad bridge crashing into the Tigris River delivered a powerful message that the American-led crackdown may be too late.

Why is a "reporter" using terms like "may be" or "might be"? Is his job to accurately identify and communicate events as they transpire to the public, or is it to speculate? In what universe is this considered a reflection of good journalistic standards for objective reporting?

4 comments:

Mark said...

Stick to the narrative and don't spoil the plan, man.

These media people have degrees you know.

Anonymous said...

The might be part may have been the governments words. The maybe part seems the more speculative part.

Anonymous said...

Rob I haven't posted here in awhile, so I forgot my username, etc. Based on what I am reading on this site, I can recommend this site for you.

http://www.glumbert.com/media/irack

tom

Lips Mahoney said...

Thomas, I got a funny video about Apple computers and Steve Jobs but otherwise no dice on info/analysis about Iraq.

Good news, though: Harry Reid just announced that the war is lost. This of course is the same Harry Reid that originally voted for the war. The same Reid that also claimed that he wouldn't seek to cut funding for our troops in the field and yet just recently endorsed such legislation.

If the Democrats were sincere about wanting to fully fund the troops they would divorce the “withdraw from Iraq” issue from the funding issue. They would appropriate the money our military needs to continue operations in Iraq while debating whether or not to continue those operations separately. But they aren’t sincere at all. They’re trying to force a loss in Iraq to embarrass the President and Republicans, and they’ll do whatever they can to achieve that goal.