What’s a Q or an N?

Posted on July 13, 2004 in Journalists & Pundits Occupation of Iraq

It’s politics Tuesday!

Ah gee. What’s a typo between friends? The war’s over, right? We won. (Um, we will win, won’t we?) So what if some reporter saw a Q where there was actually an N and wrote “Iraq” for “Iran”. We got Hussein out, right?:

A July 10 story on a new Senate report on intelligence failures said that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV told his contacts at the CIA that Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from the African nation of Niger in 1998. In fact, it was Iran that was interested in making that purchase, but no contract was signed, according to the report.

This typo indicates the depth of expectations which have developed within journalism. Credibility depends on fact-checking. This story blazed across the world as yet more evidence that it was the right thing to put Hussein out of power. It made front page news. As such it deserves more than just a little mention on a back page. It should receive the same coverage as the original story. This is one hell of an OOOPS.

HEADLINE: THE WASHINGTON POST GOT IT WRONG AND PLAYED INTO WAR MACHINE PROPAGANDA.

First observed through Lizard Queen.