Hundreds of women are murdered every year in the USA by their spouses. A significant percentage of those will be pregnant.
So, please, someone explain to me – why does the Scott Peterson trial merit any attention whatsoever outside of the Modesto, CA area? What can possibly be in the minds of the editors and news directors who choose this schlock to feed us day in and day out, at the expense of real news items?
You’ll notice, I have provided no link to any of the reports on the trial. It does not deserve one.

I listened to Rush Limbaugh on the drive home Monday, and he received an lengthy call from a US soldier back in the states after nearly a year in Iraq. He had put about 200 prisoners in Abu Graihb, and recounted some of the crimes that they had committed. He confirmed that the vast majority of Iraq is at peace and reconstruction efforts are going well.
There’s a brief transcript of part of the call up on his site. I don’t have audio capabilities, but I suspect at least part of the call is available for download there.

“You could sit here and you say you support the soldiers, but if you’re sitting here and saying you don’t support the president, you don’t support the administration, then I got news for you: you’re not supporting us.”

The caller echoed concerns about the media both in Iraq and at home – there are reporters on “every corner”, which interferes with the ability of the military to conduct operations without interference or second guessing. And despite surviving two roadside bombs, scores of missions and firefights in Baghdad, the first time he was truly “scared” was upon returning home to discover that the Iraq being reported was totally unlike the one he served in – and was afraid that the mission there would be lost in the media.

Martin A. Grove at the Hollywood Reporter chronicles the manipulation of events that led to Michael Moore’s film making it onto the pages of the New York Times, and from there through the world press, and to Cannes.

The “Fahrenheit” fracas first broke on the front page of The New York Times in a story with a Washington, D.C. dateline. Typically, stories about movies are covered from Los Angeles or New York, so the fact that this one was being reported on from Washington immediately suggested its origin was atypical. Its headline packed a powerful take-no-prisoners punch: “Disney Is Blocking Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush.” Whoever planted the story with the Times’ Washington bureau had a political agenda in mind beyond wanting to secure a movie distribution deal.

You think they might have checked their facts before running with a story supplied by the agent of a well known political flacktivist. But some stories are too juicy to pass up, and fact checking might deflate the balloon of enthusiasm. Instead, the Times followed this up with an editorial titled Disney’s Craven Behavior”.

Moore’s reference to the Times’ article on his Web site wound up being cited later on by AFP (and, presumably, by other media outlets around the world) without mentioning that Moore’s own agent was the person the Times had quoted about those claimed Florida tax breaks for Disney that would be supposedly be endangered if Disney dared to let Miramax release “Fahrenheit.”
After the Times’ article appeared, Florida officials denied that Disney was receiving any tax breaks from the state. In an Associated Press story May 5 Gov. Bush was quoted as saying, “What tax break? We don’t give tax breaks that I’m aware of to Disney. I appreciate the fact that Disney creates thousands and thousands of jobs in our state.” In another AP story the same day Eisner was quoted as stating, “None of that (Florida tax breaks) was ever discussed. It is totally not true.”
Nonetheless, in stories written over the course of the past few weeks journalists have continued to refer to those so-called Florida tax breaks as if there’s no question at all about them being reality. Indeed, without the tax breaks issue the whole argument falls apart as to why Disney didn’t, in Moore’s view, want to let Miramax release his movie. The importance of this issue was hammered home in a Times’ May 6 editorial attacking Disney. Under the headline “Disney’s Craven Behavior,” the Times said the company deserved “a gold medal for cowardice for blocking” the film’s distribution by Miramax. It then went on to say: “Mr. Moore’s agent said that Michael Eisner, Disney’s chief executive, had expressed concern that the film might jeopardize tax breaks granted to Disney for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Jeb Bush is governor. If that is the reason for Disney’s move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies.”

Perhaps the NYT should just start a “Mea Culpa” page to compliment their corrections column. “Correction” isn’t really the right word for what they’ve been up to lately – the word implies an honest error, and these aren’t honest errors.
“Agenda-mongering” seems more appropriate.

I was planning to write on the recent New York Times faux “correction”, but Paul has done a fine job.

The Times, like many in the media, made numerous mistakes in its coverage of Iraq. Perhaps the most (in)famous of all was the series of “Strategic Pause” stories. The stories, which ran only a few days after the start of the war, claimed that American forces were bogged down in Iraq and were forced to pause for a few weeks to regroup. “The war plan had failed” was a favorite quote of the day. Apparently the Pentagon missed the stories because just 2 weeks later, Iraqis were dancing in the streets and pulling down statues of Saddam as American tanks rolled thru Baghdad. The Times never did explain how it blew that story.
The fall of Baghdad lead to perhaps the second biggest gaff of the Iraq war reporting- that the Baghdad museum had been looted. The Times breathlessly reported that the museum had 170,000 items looted or destroyed. They also reported that the administration failed to put guards at the museum but had placed guards at the Oil Ministry’s office. None of those stories were true.

Nope. What the Times decided to “correct” was its reporting on evidence of weapons of mass destruction – information provided by Iraqi defectors and the Bush Administration. In fact, it’s not a correction at all, but an transparent attempt to focus blame – “They lied to us, and we fell for it. We won’t let that happen again!”
In keeping with the tone and quality of the piece, they can’t even get the facts straight now. Look at this;

The informant also claimed that Iraq had sent unconventional weapons to Syria and had been cooperating with al-Qaida — two claims that were then, and remain, highly controversial. But the tone of the article suggested that this Iraqi “scientist” — who in a later article described himself as an official of military intelligence — had provided the justification the Americans had been seeking for the invasion.

A full year and a half into this exercise, and the editors at the New York Times still haven’t heard of UN Resolution 1441, which mandated Iraq to prove it had destroyed known weapons stocks. No proof that they existed was necessary. Not a single defector, not a single spy plane photograph was required to “justify” anything. The “justification” was contained in the wording of the resolution.
That some member countries of the UN Security Council, now found to have been profiting from illegal kickback schemes in the Oil-For-Food program, refused to participate in military action, and efforts were made to demonstrate that Iraq was not only not complying, but continuing a clandestine operation, was merely tangential to that resolution.
The resolution is here.
But, hey – let’s take the Times at their word. Write the ombudsman, Daniel Orkent – demand they put their money where their correction is, and fire those editors responsible.
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