From the WSJ Opinion Archives

by JAMES TARANTO
Thursday, July 24, 2003 2:38 P.M. EDT

A Mugging in Reuterville
On Tuesday we noted that Reuters had published an anti-American screed about the Jessica Lynch story:

Jessica Lynch, the wounded Army private whose ordeal in Iraq was hyped into a media fiction of U.S. heroism, was set for an emotional homecoming on Tuesday in a rural West Virginia community bristling with flags, yellow ribbons and TV news trucks.

But when the 20-year-old supply clerk arrives by Blackhawk helicopter to the embrace of family and friends, media critics say the TV cameras will not show the return of an injured soldier so much as a reality-TV drama co-produced by U.S. government propaganda and credulous reporters.

It turns out even the byline was a lie. Reuters attributed the story to Deanna Wrenn, who we later learned is a reporter for the Daily Mail, an afternoon paper in Charleston, W.Va. Out of curiosity, we went to the Daily Mail's Web site and read Wrenn's account of Pfc. Lynch's homecoming. It reads nothing at all like the Reuters piece:

Jessica Lynch looked and sounded great, residents and visitors said after she rode through town on a Mustang convertible.

But many wanted to get a longer glimpse of the 20-year-old Army private they consider a hero.

"She looked absolutely beautiful," said Angie Kinder, who came from Huntington with her two girls, Grace, 4, and Caroline, 1. "I expected her to look worse."

The piece continues in this vein, without a hint of Reuterian anti-Americanism. In a column in today's Daily Mail, which the paper generously permitted us to reprint, Deanna Wrenn explains what happened. She submitted a story for Reuters that was quite different from the one the "news" agency actually printed. The lead sentence: "In this small county seat with just 995 residents, the girl everyone calls Jessi is a true heroine--even if reports vary about Pfc. Jessica Lynch and her ordeal in Iraq."

Some unknown writer or editor simply created an entirely new story, reflecting Reuters' anti-American views, and stuck Wrenn's name on it. According to Wrenn, the only similarly between the Reuters dispatch and what she filed was a single quote, which disappeared entirely in later versions of the story--though those still carried Wrenn's byline.

"Apparently, when Reuters asked me last week if they could use my byline, they weren't talking about the story I wrote for them last week. They were talking about a story I never wrote," writes Wrenn. "By the way, I asked Reuters to remove my byline. They didn't."

Now, wire-service stories often are collaborations between many reporters and writers; a single byline doesn't necessarily mean the putative author is responsible for every word of the story. If Reuters had stuck to simply reporting the news, this would not be a scandal. The problem is that, especially since Sept. 11, Reuters has been practicing opinion journalism, imbuing much of its reporting with a strong anti-American slant.

Well, it's a free country. If Reuters wants to publish anti-American propaganda, that's its right. But doing so under the guise of news is dishonest, and attributing it to a reporter who does not share Reuters' views is outrageous. At the very least, Reuters owes Deanna Wrenn an apology.

AP: Assassination Poppycock
The byline on this Associated Press piece seems genuine, and it seems pretty clear that this is an opinion piece by the AP's George Gedda. But boy is it ever wrongheaded:

In theory, pursuing with intent to kill violates a long-standing policy banning political assassination. It was the misfortune of Saddam Hussein's sons, Odai and Qusai, that the Bush administration has not bothered to enforce the prohibition. . . .

Officials said people inside the villa opened fire first--but left little doubt what the U.S. troops hoped to accomplish.

"We remain focused on finding, fixing, killing or capturing all members of the high-value target list," Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of coalition troops in Iraq, announcing the deaths of Odai and Qusai.

That "or capturing" in the Sanchez quote would seem pertinent, would it not? The coalition has now captured a majority of the Iraqi fugitives on the famous "deck of cards"; aside from Uday, Qusay and possibly "Chemical Ali," we can't think of any who've been killed. Besides, here's the AP's own account of the raid that killed Uday and Qusay:

It was 10 a.m. when the four Humvees pulled up outside the handsome villa on Shalalat Street and disgorged a party of U.S. soldiers. Over a bullhorn, they told the occupants to come out with their hands up.

What followed was a firefight from the ground and air that reduced the comfortable villa to a smoking hulk. And only then did the troops find out how high the stakes had been: Their targets, they discovered, were Saddam Hussein's sons Odai and Qusai, second in power only to their father.

The troops gave the house's occupants an opportunity to surrender and opened fire only in self-defense. They didn't even know exactly who was firing on them. The AP's own reporting thus makes clear that Gedda was wrong. This was a battle, not an assassination.

'The Evil Crow'
The Washington Post has more reactions from Baghdad to Uday and Qusay's death:

Esam Saadi, a human rights lawyer, said the killings were both a political victory for the United States and an example of divine justice. After the U.S. invasion, he said, "people were afraid Saddam would come back, but now they have less to fear. The evil crow's two wings have been cut off. He can still cry, but he cannot fly anymore."

It seems Iraqi human-rights lawyers are a lot more sensible than their Western counterparts. Meanwhile, the New York Times has a series of letters on the topic, most of them unbelievably clueless. Our favorite is the second, from one Andy Cox of San Francisco:

To my knowledge, Saddam Hussein's sons had not been found guilty of any offense by an international court of law. Their killing by United States troops (front page, July 23) is therefore extrajudicial.

Hey Cox, you sure your name is Andy and not Sherlock? As blogger Mike Needham points out: "We acted extrajudicially because we are not involved in a judicial procedure, we are involved in a war. The storming of the beaches of Normandy, for example, was also extrajudicial because we didn't have a search warrant. So what?"

Weasel Watch
"One-third of Germans under age 30 believe the U.S. government may have sponsored the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, according to a poll published Wednesday," Reuters reports from Berlin. "And about 20 percent of Germans in all age groups hold this view, according to a survey of 1,000 people conducted for the weekly Die Zeit." Well, why don't we ask Kenny what he thinks:

Die Zeit said widespread disbelief about the reasons given by the United States for going to war in Iraq and suspicion about media coverage of the conflict had fostered a climate in which conspiracy theories flourished.

"The news is controlled," 17-year-old Kenny Donaubaur was quoted as saying. "You could see that in the Iraq war. It doesn't seem to me that you get the full truth."

Americans responded to Sept. 11 by seeking urgently to learn more about the Islamic and Arab worlds. Much of Europe, in contrast, seems to have responded by spinning a cocoon of ignorance about America.

October Surprise
It's a date: California voters will cast ballots Oct. 7 on whether to turn Gov. Gray Davis out of office. Secretary of State Kevin Shelley has certified that supporters gathered enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot.

"In a strange way, this has got my juices flowing," Davis tells the Associated Press in one of the more nauseating quotes of recent memory. The AP also quotes the governor as saying: "Remember, there's a lot more people willing to vote against the recall than there are who think I'm doing a good job." That's certainly a good reason to keep him around.

CNN, meanwhile, offers this Davis quote: "I wasn't thrilled about serving my country in Vietnam in '68 and '69, but I did it. It was my duty, and I'm proud I did it. I'm not thrilled about this. It's not a lot of fun. But I don't shirk from a fight."

Who does this guy think he is, John Kerry?

What Would We Do Without Professors?
"Liberal Bias Permeates College Texts, Professor Warns"--headline, CNSNews.com, July 23

He Was Going Out With an Ad?
"James Brown Announces Breakup With Full-Page Ad"--headline, FoxNews.com, July 23

For What, Melting It?
"Chicago Police Apologize to Ice Cube"--headline, Associated Press, July 23

Who Knew?
"Ice Cream 'Isn't Health Food'-Study"--headline, Reuters, July 24

Think and Grow Thin
"Study Shows Ice Cream More Fattening Than Thought"--headline, Yahoo! News, July 24

What Would We Do Without Experts?
"Experts Say Family Disputes Have Impact on Children"--headline, Guam Pacific Daily News, July 24

Is Reuters Monkeyfishing?
"Hundreds of hungry monkeys have invaded a sprawling tea garden in eastern India, chasing petrified workers and damaging machinery," Reuters reports from Calcutta. OK, at least this isn't another anti-American opinion piece, but there's something about this story that doesn't add up: Why do the monkeys have to chase the workers if they're petrified?

Dude, Where's My Regime?
A linguistic debate has broken out over the meaning of Uday Hussein's first name. Everyone agrees that it comes from Latin--not proper Latin, but Pig Latin. "Each time I hear his name uttered by a television news announcer, I think: That's 'do' in Pig Latin," writes Kathy Kelly in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This raises the intriguing possibility that Uday was distantly related to the 1982 videogame character Mr. Do.

But not so fast. The COPS Consultants Web site insists that "Uday" actually translates as dude. "It gives the discussion of Saddam's brutal son Odai a whole new dimension. Dude got blown up, Dude was shot by freed Iraqis, you get the drift. Then my son reminded me of the movie, 'Dude, where's my car?' It fits so well don't you think?" Is it possible that Uday was simply mistaken for The Big Lebowski?

(Elizabeth Crowley helps compile Best of the Web Today. Thanks to Albert Gibson, Kevin Thomson, Henry Hanks, Robert Fredericks, J. Vawter, Michael Harlow, Colleen Kelly, Aaron Spetner, Glenn Patterson, Frank Russo, Bob Sherrod, Darren Gold, Kevin Kennedy, Christopher Marciano, Marc Bielec, Jim Hogue, Johnny Lanctot, Garrett Jones, Tom Burson, Darryl May, Patrick Thomas, Mara Gold, Rosanne Klass, Jennifer Ray, Michael Simons, Natalie Cohen, Tom Elia, Mark Freiberg, Nick Eckert, Vito Maria, S.E. Brenner, T. Norton, Michael Hopkovitz, Neal West, Joel Goldberg, Edward Tannen, Barak Moore, Janice Lyons, Robert LeChevalier, Matt Drance, Brian Pleshek, Dan Tracy, Robert Koslover, Raghu Desikan, Edward Schulze, Gadi Niram, David McMahon, Matthew Beck, Edward Himmelfarb, John Mullahy, Matt Lebovitch, Yehuda Hilewitz, Ben Filippini, David Baylor, Ray Burnham, Craig Werner, Steve Roberts, Linda Hoff and Paul Dyck. If you have a tip, write us at opinionjournal@wsj.com, and please include the URL.)

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