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GOOD NEWS IS NO NEWS

The Washington Post’s Robin Wright explains why her newspaper and other media outlets haven’t given much space to the welcome decline in Iraq casualties:

The fact is we’re at the beginning of a trend - and it’s not even sure that it is a trend yet. There is also an enormous dispute over how to count the numbers. There are different kinds of deaths in Iraq ... So the numbers themselves are tricky.

By contrast, the Washington Post ran Lancet’s “tricky numbers” on the front page.

(Via LGF)

Posted by Tim B. on 10/10/2007 at 07:47 AM

  1. If the trend was up, no doubt that would make the news…

    Posted by anthony_r on 2007 10 10 at 07:53 AM • permalink

  2. Now that’s to be expected from the MSM, isn’t it?

    Posted by kae on 2007 10 10 at 08:07 AM • permalink

  3. There is also an enormous dispute over how to count the numbers.

    No such equivocation in blindly accepting the Lancet’s fantastic figures. They suited the mindset quite nicely. Now, they’re stumped. How to spin this into another “Bush’s fault” story…? But, but, but… if this is Bush’s fault, then that’s a good thing. Nuh! That won’t do.

    Just hang about a bit. I’m sure they’ll come up with something.

    Posted by SandiM on 2007 10 10 at 08:14 AM • permalink

  4. would you describe robin’s comments as ‘mealy mouthed’? sure sounds like it.

    Posted by CB on 2007 10 10 at 08:30 AM • permalink

  5. Great list of media skullduggery. Although probably the least important item, #3 made me laugh: “In 1990 the ABC program 20/20 was hoaxed into believing that Billy ‘Buckwheat’ Thomas was alive and working as a grocery bagger in Tempe, Arizona. (Thomas actually died in 1980.) A segment broadcast October 5 with narrator Hugh Downs featured an impostor.”

    Posted by paco on 2007 10 10 at 08:45 AM • permalink

  6. Shameless maggots.

    Posted by Penguin on 2007 10 10 at 08:56 AM • permalink

  7. Well of course the numbers are tricky.

    If the rate of deaths per month is going up, you multiply them by a random number between 5 and 50.

    If they are going down, you divide by 1.  Or perhaps divide by 0.5.  This divide by a fraction stuff is just way too tricky for me.  Anyone got a slide rule?

    Posted by mr creosote on 2007 10 10 at 09:01 AM • permalink

  8. An unexpected decline in casualties is surely evidence of a worsening security climate, right?

    Posted by flying pigs over mecca on 2007 10 10 at 09:07 AM • permalink

  9. “different kinds of deaths in Iraq…so the numbers themselves are tricky”

    Yawn, more relativism. Death is death. It’s absolute, final. The only difference in a death is whether there’s intent behind it, and whether the intent is malign.

    Posted by mareeS on 2007 10 10 at 09:08 AM • permalink

  10. I suspect that the only reason they’re not printing the numbers on the front page is not because they’re not sure of the methodology of counting the numbers, but that they’re just not sure how to count.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 10 10 at 09:16 AM • permalink

  11. The decrease in deaths is simply due to George Bush and John HoWARd already having either killed or imprisoned the entire Iraqi population.

    Posted by Ubique on 2007 10 10 at 09:28 AM • permalink

  12. #8 Radius, it is evidence of a worsening security climate change and therefore bad and can all be Bush’s fault.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 10 at 10:18 AM • permalink

  13. The stupid dishonest bitch didn’t have such trouble counting when she was trumpeting deaths.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 10 10 at 10:25 AM • permalink

  14. How to spin this into another “Bush’s fault” story…?

    Bush is SO EEEEEEVIL he made the Muslims use up all their explosives!

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 10 10 at 10:25 AM • permalink

  15. But, but math is hard.

    Posted by tabitharuth on 2007 10 10 at 10:47 AM • permalink

  16. OT, but I got the quarterly statement for my 401(k) yesterday. In the first nine months of this year, it’s grown by nearly 20%.

    Damn that George Bush! Damn him!

    Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2007 10 10 at 11:08 AM • permalink

  17. #16 Urbs

    The numbers in this foul capitalist world keep on stacking up.

    Posted by mareeS on 2007 10 10 at 11:30 AM • permalink

  18. There are different kinds of deaths in Iraq ... So the numbers themselves are tricky.

    Odd that the “different kinds of deaths” didn’t matter when they were bleating about the millions of Iraqis murdered by our blood-drinking babykillers in uniform.

    These people are shameless moral cowards.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 10 10 at 01:38 PM • permalink

  19. You have to sort of the death from the D’eath.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2007 10 10 at 04:41 PM • permalink

  20. And there is always the question of whether tinned salmon was used.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2007 10 10 at 04:44 PM • permalink

  21. Jeez, you have to ‘sort out’ not “sort of”.

    Need more coffee.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2007 10 10 at 04:55 PM • permalink

  22. Shi-ite!

    Time for one of my favourite words: Obfuscation (“the activity of obscuring people’s understanding”).

    Posted by ann j on 2007 10 10 at 05:59 PM • permalink

  23. Ann
    Exacerbation just makes things worse.

    Cheers

    Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 10 11 at 03:30 PM • permalink

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