New York Times Still Falsely Describing September Assessment As "Petraeus-Crocker Report"
August 21, 2007 -- 1:43 PM EST // //
A couple months ago, the New York Times's public editor, Clark Hoyt, published a laudable piece criticizing the paper's reporters and editors for being overly gullible in reproducing the White House spin that the primary enemy in Iraq was Al Qaeda. The paper dialed back its use of that characterization and subsequently published a follow-up piece directly refuting the White House's line. Good stuff.
But now the paper seems like it's heading down a similar path to "journamalism country" on another front: The question of how to accurately describe the September Iraq assessment that the White House will present to the American people next month.
As you know, the White House has for weeks tried to persuade the American people that the report will represent the Gospel According To Petraeus. This was shown to be a sham when the Los Angeles Times reported last week that the report will in fact be written by the White House, with "input" from Petraeus and Crocker. This was also basically confirmed by The Washington Post, and indeed hasn't been denied by the Bush administration.
Nonetheless, in a very bizarre turn of events, The New York Times has repeatedly -- and falsely -- described the forthcoming report as representing the sole word of Petraeus, or that of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, in the days since we learned that it will represent the last word of the White House.
The New York Times yesterday:
The heavily promoted Guardian program was presented weeks before General Petraeus is to issue a report on progress in Iraq, which will have to deal with the failure of the Iraqi police to keep peace in Baghdad.The Times, today:
Mr. Levin and Mr. Warner are among their respective parties’ most esteemed legislators on national security issues. Their committee will be among those hearing directly from Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker when the two men deliver their report measuring military and political progress in Iraq next month.The Times, also today:
The new N.I.E. should play a significant role in the upcoming Congressional debate about the course of the Iraq war, as it is likely to be used by both sides as a more independent assessment of the security situation than the Petraeus-Crocker report.Just to restate Atrios' framing of the situation, "a major test of our media right now is whether this bait and switch enters the basic narrative or not." Sure seems like The Times is failing this test pretty miserably right about now.
In response to this, Times editors would probably point to the fact that two things are happening in September: Petraeus and Crocker are giving input to the White House to help it produce its report; and Petraeus and Crocker are also testifying to Congress about the situation in Iraq. The Times editors might try to argue that when they use the term "report," they are referring to Petraeus' and Crocker's appearances before Congress.
But here's the thing: In this situation, more clarity is required, not less clarity. The scheduled appearances before Congress are known as "testimony." The written report to be produced by the White House is known as a "report." Yet The Times claimed yesterday that Petraeus and Crocker are going to "issue a report." This appears to be, you know, false.
This is no small thing, by the way. The White House and supporters of the war are pushing all their chips onto this written report in particular, since its message can be largely controlled. Hence their carefully orchestrated effort to build credibility for it in advance by describing it endlessly as the "Petraeus report."
And yet, in addition to repeatedly describing the forthcoming report in the administration's false terms, The Times -- unlike the LA Times and WaPo -- hasn't even made a serious effort to inform its readers as to who's writing this thing, as best as I can determine. How about showing some more precision on this? Readers really, really, really need to understand what the hell's going on here. And they're gonna need that even more in September. But if this kind of reporting continues, you can bet that they'll find themselves helplessly swamped by the coming avalanche of White House spin.