One of the interesting things that happens when you are a news aggregator is that you sometimes see how people - even mainstream media - try to edit themselves after a story has been released. This morning's example -- an obituary in the NY Times for Jeane Kirkpatrick. The original story lead read:
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick's staunch neoconservativism helped chart the course of U.S. military and diplomatic actions from 1981 to 1985.
But somewhere after it slipped into the RSS stream and before it hit the paper it was changed to read:
Jeane J. Kirkpatrick was a strong beacon of neoconservative thought, helping to chart foreign policy from 1981 to 1985.
The headline was changed also, removing the fact that Kirkpatrick died at the age of 80 though this fact is still in the lead paragraph.
What do we learn by pulling back the covers at the top newsroom in America? Here is my take -- the writer is a bit biased to the left and the editor is trying to remove that political drift and keep the paper in the middle... "strong beacon" is almost a positive statement as opposed to "staunch" which could be read as extremist. And the notion of "military actions" is watered down to "foreign policy."
And what were the military ambitions of the Reagen presidency during her term? Again the Times updated version:
Ms. Kirkpatrick weighed the risks and rewards of clandestine warfare in Central America, covert operations against Libya, the disastrous deployment of American marines in Lebanon, the invasion of Grenada and support for rebel forces in Afghanistan.
I wonder if the now missing version mentions that "rebel forces in Afghanistan" includes the folks we now battle today in George W.'s "War on Terror."
What do you think, is this watering down the news? Or serving a public interest by remaining non-partisan?
very interesting, but I don't agree with you
Idetrorce
Posted by: Idetrorce | December 15, 2007 at 07:19 PM