The media outlet, known for faux photography, crossed the line again this week with false and biased reporting of the testimony in the Article 32 Hearing for one of the Marines charged in the Haditha incident. Marty Graham is covering Capt Randy Stone's hearing for Reuters. Graham filed two separate stories with Reuters with patently false claims about the testimony of Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz.
In both articles, Graham claimed Sgt. Dela Cruz testified that the 5 Iraqi men, who jumped out of a white car immediately after the IED explosion, were standing with their hands tied behind their backs when they were shot by Sgt. Wuterich. Here's Graham's exact words...
Dela Cruz also said he watched squad leader Sgt. Frank Wuterich shoot five men whose hands were tied up near a car.
Graham repeated the claim in an article the following day...
In testimony on Wednesday, another Marine said he saw Wuterich shoot and kill five Iraqis whose hands were tied.
Today Reuters issued a correction to Graham's article...
Corrects 5th paragraph to delete word "tied" to make clear hands were held up in the air.
While Reuters deserves credit for issuing the correction, it cannot take back what has already been put into the minds of the public. With their history for bias in their reporting about the Haditha incident, the reporting of the testimony should have been thoroughly vetted. There is no excuse for shoddy journalism or for exaggerating claims against our Marines. It is a tragedy that our soldiers must fight an enemy armed with guns and one armed with words.
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Corrections are nice, but...
May 12, 2007 - 22:52 ET by nkviking75In the age of the internet, erroneous reports live on long after the corrections are issued. That's because the original incorrect report lingers in a number of computers' memories and are often retrieved by search engines, Lexis/Nexis, and more. Also, with so many bloggers out there, there could be lots of blog entries based on the error and not adjusted when the correction comes out. Not all bloggers are thorough. The moral of the story: It's more important than ever to get it right the first time.
When you put the clowns in charge, don't be surprised when a circus breaks out.
It's more important than ever
May 13, 2007 - 01:01 ET by SouthernRootsIt's more important than ever to get it right the first time.
John Murtha was probably the shadow editor that reviewed the "facts" for Graham.
In all fairness to them, th
May 13, 2007 - 00:02 ET by Right2thePointIn all fairness to them, they do a massive amount of news articles in a given day.
Having said that a high profile story should be assigned to a high profile editor.
I don't have a Lexis account, do they note existance of corrections when a search turns up a story?
If not they should.
Give me a break!
May 13, 2007 - 00:21 ET by Sonny LykosI don't care if 1000 articles are done each day. Those articles are done by individual people, not 1000 articles done by one or two people.
So how does "tied up" accidentally get into a story, or a sentence, a sentence that is created by typing words in a computer?
"The women were raped."
Whoops! I meant to type "The women were married."
My computer must have a virus that just places random words in my report as I type.
Unfortunatly that viris has y
May 13, 2007 - 10:32 ET by general companyThese are not accidents. Make believe has gone mainstream.
Al Reuters strikes again
May 13, 2007 - 09:51 ET by c5thenThe correct method would be to re-issue the story with the correction. Issueing a "correction" which says change eighth word in 5th paragraph to raised is disingenuous.
But, then again, they never would have issued the correction at all except for having been caught again via the blog world. The "mistake" was obviously on purpose.
The day that "politician" became a career choice is the day we started losing the Republic.