Dean Barnett blogs about some bad reporting from ABC.
The lead story was that six whole days after the President announced his plans for a surge, things remain miserable in Baghdad. There were two reasons why ABC led with this dog-bites man story, even though yesterday’s other big events included Barack Obama entering the presidential race: One was a horrific bombing at a Baghdad university, and the other was a just-released United Nations report that said things were awful in Baghdad.
Half of ABC’s segment on Iraq was dedicated to summarizing the U.N.’s report. A word of explanation regarding the report is in order: The U.N. releases one of these things every two months. The U.N., as probably everyone not drawing a paycheck from the mainstream media is aware, has not exactly cultivated a reputation for fair and balanced reporting on matters pertaining to the Middle East in general and the Iraq war in particular. In short, ABC’s editorial decision to rely on a U.N. report as unquestionably authoritative was highly suspect. He goes on to point out additional problems with the report.
