How journalists mindlessly repeat claims from government officials
Glenn Greenwald and others have noticed that in the past few weeks, more and more journalists have begun to refer to Iraq insurgents as “al-Qaida,” despite the fact that Qaida only makes up a small minority of the fighters in that country. He notes the correlation between rhetoric from top government officials who use the term switch and the sudden term switch in newspaper accounts. He makes a good case, I think, that journalists aren’t writing with a critical eye. I’m surprised that fact checkers at the New York Times allowed such blatant unfounded facts to be printed on the front page.
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