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Me#1You#10
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Joined: 06 May 2004
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 Posted: Mon Jun 12, 2006 7:02 pm Post subject: Mary Katherine Ham: Setting the record straight on Haditha |
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Mary Katharine Ham with a not-so-gentle reminder to the MSM on their Haditha coverage to date...
| Quote: | Setting the record straight on Haditha
By Mary Katharine Ham
Townhall.com
Jun 12, 2006
When I worked at a newspaper, my fellow reporters and I made mistakes.
Sometimes those mistakes were on the front page of the paper; sometimes tucked away on B7 between the obits and the county's largest legume. Sometimes they were mispelled names and misplaced box scores; sometimes misused facts and mishandled reputations.
But no matter the nature of the mistake-- its size or its import-- the correction always went in the same place. Second page of the A section, bottom right-hand corner. It was policy, and the policy had the unfortunate consequence of usually making the correction of a mistake less prominent than the mistake itself.
Such is the nature of news coverage on all levels, and one of the most valuable contributions the new media and blogs can make to that news coverage is to highlight corrections that would otherwise be overlooked in their little corner of A2.
A couple of weeks ago, spurred by Congressman John Murtha's assertion that Marines in Haditha had killed civilians "in cold blood," the media promptly rushed to judgement, topping every story with Murtha's cold-blooded soundbite. When word leaked from Pentagon sources that there might be murder charges in the case, the media ran with the "maybe murder" story.
Because no one had yet been charged, and no one was leaking the Marines' side of the story, many became concerned that the slanted coverage might affect the fair treatment and presumption of innocence to which American servicemen are entitled. One of those people was Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, a former Marine lawyer who the Washington Post quoted out of context in its eagerness to get an Abu Ghraib reference into the story.
This week, the media is backing off of its original tone, and it's time to highlight corrections so they don't end up being relegated to the back of the paper and the back of people's minds. So, I give you the Top 3 things to remember about Haditha that the press would like you to forget.
<snip>
We do not know what happened in Haditha on November 19, 2005. When two military investigations and any trials that result are complete, it will become more clear. If Marines are guilty of atrocities, they will be punished severely.
In the meantime, rely on alternative media and bloggers like Mudville Gazette , Sweetness and Light , California Conservative , and this bunch of informed milbloggers to keep level heads about the accusations.
The mainstream media spent a couple of weeks throwing around the "cold blood" and "maybe murder" stories. Now that they're backtracking, it's our job to make sure new corrections and less damning facts don't get lost in the corner of page two.
Mary Katharine Ham is the former Senior Writer and Associate Editor for Townhall.com.
Townhall.com - cont'd |
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kate
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Joined: 14 May 2004
Posts: 1891
Location: Upstate, New York
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| Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 5:24 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | In the meantime, rely on alternative media and bloggers like Mudville Gazette , Sweetness and Light , California Conservative , and this bunch of informed milbloggers to keep level heads about the accusations. |
Blogs, especially Sweetness & Light have been a leader in this.
Brit Hume has picked up on this one issue, that (I believe) 1st appeared on that S&L blog
| Quote: |
Questions Surround Source of Videotape of Haditha Aftermath
Monday, June 12, 2006
By Brit Hume
Suspect Source?
Time Magazine has said it obtained videotape, shot by a "budding journalism student" at the scene of the alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians in Haditha, from an Iraqi affiliate of the international group Human Rights Watch.
But in a subsequent online correction, Time admits that the organization that gave them the tape, the Hammurabi Human Rights Group, has no ties to Human Rights Watch whatsoever.
What the magazine did not acknowledge is that the man behind the video is not a budding journalism student, but 43-year-old, Thaer Thabit al-Hadithi, who created the Hammurabi group last year and serves as one of its two employees.
Hadithi says he made the tape the day after witnessing part of the incident last November, but did not say why he waited four months before handing telling anyone about it.
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