- "All the people in town today are asking for revenge.
They want to kill the Americans like they killed our civilians. Give me
a gun, and I will also fight." -Iraqi ER worker
-
- NEW YORK -- One week after
newspapers were forced to correct front-page reports that two U.S. soldiers
killed in Iraq had been "mutilated," coverage of a weekend firefight
between U.S. soldiers and guerrillas in Samarra is being questioned as
Iraq officials and witnesses claim the U.S. military vastly overestimated
the number of Iraqis killed by American troops.
-
- Numerous newspapers on Monday played up as front page
news the Sunday clash between rebel forces and U.S. soldiers in the city
of Samarra, with most declaring that between 46 and 54 Iraqis had been
killed and using only U.S. military officials as their sources. After a
run of bad news for the U.S. in Iraq -- including a record monthly death
toll of U.S. soldiers -- the military portrayed this as a major victory,
and the press seemed to accept it.
-
- Neither The New York Times, New York Post, The Boston
Globe, USA Today, The Washington Post, or Knight Ridder included any civilian
witnesses or Iraqi hospital accounts in their initial reports Monday. Many
flatly reported the death tally and account of the battle without noting
this was "according to military officials." The Times topped
its front page with the declarative headline: "46 Iraqis Die in Fierce
Fight Between Rebels and GIs," and this was common treatment. The
Los Angeles Times account, however, noted that the 54 deaths had yet to
be confirmed and included hospital officials' contentions that only nine
people had died.
-
- On Tuesday, nearly every major newspaper was forced to
report that the death toll and, indeed much of the original account of
the "battle," were in dispute. The New York Times declared that
"while American commanders said the Iraqi body count had come from
precise reports filed immediately after a close-range battle, hospital
officials said Monday that they could account for, at most, eight dead,
with most of those probably civilians."
-
- The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and Los Angeles
Times published similar follow-ups reporting the disputed death count and
claims of indiscriminate firing on civilians, although the Post and L.A.
Times did not lead with the new discrepancy. "American forces and
Iraqi residents of this loyalist stronghold sharply disagreed Monday over
the death toll," the Tribune said in its lead.
-
- The San Francisco Chronicle quoted an emergency room
worker at Samarra General Hospital: "All the people in town today
are asking for revenge. They want to kill the Americans like they killed
our civilians. Give me a gun, and I will also fight."
-
- The backpedaling came one week after incorrect reports
on the Nov. 23 deaths of two U.S. soldiers in Iraq initially stated that
the victims' throats were cut. A number of newspapers based their coverage
on an initial Associated Press report that emphasized the reported brutality
in the case.
-
- U.S. military officials later said there was no evidence
that the soldiers' bodies had been mutilated, and a Coalition spokesman
blamed the AP for spreading the disputed report. The AP issued a statement
to E&P Wednesday in which it explained that a correction had been sent
to AP members later on Nov. 23 saying that the initial reports had been
wrong and the soldiers had been shot, but not all of the news organizations
had used it.
-
- Source: Editor & Publisher Online
-
- Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is associate
editor for E&P.
-
- http://www.mediainfo.com/editorandpublisher/he
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