I very much enjoyed the diary from October 8th:
CNN sucks: irresponsible journalism deconstrusted. Here is something I might add to that from today's news.
Why not take a look at the exact same "breaking" story (where the term "breaking" is primarily in the sense its everyday meaning "to break something") on CNN and BCC?
Title:
CNN: Iraq forces kill 70 insurgents
BBC: US strikes kill '70 Iraq rebels'
These titles alone say much about the modus operandi of each news organization. The quotation around '70 Iraq rebels' does the reader a favor by letting him or her know that the story is to involve a claim that someone or group of people have made.
Furthermore, each title begins
* Iraq forces kill ...
(does that mean the Iraqi army, the US Army, rival insurgent gangs, or perhaps one of the two or three other countries left in the famed Coalition of the Willing?
* BBC: US strikes kill ...
A-ha...!
UPDATE: CNN has apparently changed its headline (same link)... thanks!
Story continues...
First parapraph CNN:
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Coalition forces in Iraq killed an estimated 70 insurgents in separate operations near Ramadi in the Al Anbar Province, a U.S. military statement said.
In one operation Sunday, as many as 20 insurgents were killed in a strike by a precision-guided bomb east of Ramadi after the crew of an F-15 observed them planting an improvised explosive device at the same site where an IED explosion Saturday killed five U.S. and two Iraqi soldiers, the statement said.
First parapraph BBC:
Helicopters and warplanes bombed two villages near Ramadi in western Iraq on Sunday, killing about 70 people, the US military says.
It said all the dead were militants, although eyewitnesses are quoted saying that many were civilians.
One of the air strikes hit the same spot where five US soldiers had died on Saturday in a roadside bombing.
The US statement said a group of insurgents was about to place another bomb, although local people deny this.
Why is CNN using the euphemisms "operations" and "strikes" where BBC plainly states: "villages were bombed"?
Why in the hell does CNN not regard eye-witness accounts as important as statements by the military? (If you are thinking "What about the rest of the story?- well, try to find the civilian comments in the rest of CNN's story.) Especially when this was so obviously a matter of life and death for some?
I could go on, but I'd rather read your comments...