Vodkapundit - We Have Met the Enemy...

We Have Met the Enemy...

Posted by Stephen Green · 23 July 2005

Clear, unbiased reporting from The New York Times on the London Police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes:

When Mr. Menezes began to enter the station, witnesses said, he was surrounded by plainclothes officers who shouted at him to stop.
According to the police accounts, the officers identified themselves and were suspicious partly because he was wearing a bulky jacket in the summer weather, suggesting that he was concealing something.

Mr. Menezes ran. He jumped over the turnstile, ran down an escalator and stumbled into a train, where he fell face down. Witnesses said the police then shot him five times in the head and neck, killing him.

Of course, you had to read down to the eighth graf to get to the part I quoted. Before that, you get lines like:

...Friday morning, Jean Charles de Menezes became another innocent casualty of London's terrorist wars...
...the incident brought fresh horror to Londoners who look at Mr. Menezes and see their sons, their brothers or themselves.

"We are not safe here."

Mr. Pereira described his cousin as friendly, open, fluent in English, hopeful about life in London and busy with work.

"He would never have done anything to anyone."

And how does the story end? Like so:

"I feel it's unfair if a person is nervous and feels unsafe and sees so many police with guns and stuff," she said. "Something can happen just because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Well, no. "Something can happen" if you run from the police, just days after a terror bombing, right towards the terrorist's favorite target.

Nowhere does reporter Sarah Lyall talk to the police, not even to tell us if they refused to comment. Instead, they're painted as faceless killers, silent except to institutionally "express regret" for the "tragedy."

Indeed, this is a tragic story. But Lyall chose to tell only one side of it - and that as virtual hagiography. Lyall sandwiched a dry version of what "police accounts" say happened, in between lurid quotes from the victim's friends and family.

Of course, Lyall got help from two other reporters (one in London, one in Rio de Janeiro) and an untold number of editors. Best guess? At least five people were involved in putting together one seriously flawed story. Maybe it's time for the NYT to fire a few editors, and put a single blogger on the payroll.

There's a larger point here, and it's this: the press takes stories like this one, and reports them like this, and then wonders why we don't think they're on board with this war. They wonder why we're watching Fox News. Say what you will about Fox's many faults, but at least FNC acts like an American company during wartime. Meanwhile, the NYT is doing its damnedest to paint Tony Blair's Britain as a fascist police state.

Thanks for the help, fellas.

Comments

The bottom line is: the New York Times no longer deserves to be designated the "newspaper of record." Even in subjects outside of politics and current events, such as the behavioral sciences, its reporting can be so erratic that I have to confirm the information from 2 or 3 more reliable sources. Why can't it be supplanted by VodkaPundit?:)

Posted by: Bloodthirsty Warmonger at July 24, 2005 10:13 PM

And you know what's almost funny, "Tony Blair's Britain as a fascist police state" is almost the country the NYT wants America to be.

Posted by: William Young at July 25, 2005 06:23 AM

I'm still waiting for the MSM to connect BusHitler with the shooting.

Perhaps they're too busy scraping the bottom of the Plame barrel for Rove samples.

Posted by: pianoman at July 25, 2005 08:05 AM

I'm starting to wonder why anyone continues to read, quote or criticize the Times. It's like al Jazeera. It's the enemy's newspaper. It pays no heed to criticism because it has no interest in being an American newspaper. Piss on 'em.

Posted by: ss at July 25, 2005 10:17 AM

The World Press cheerleaders for terrorists are encouraging them.
Either the press has no effect, or it has an effect.
If there's an effect, it's either fewer Coalition & civilian casualties, or it's more.

The support for the terrorists in the press means there are more murders.

This is the Moral Hazard of a Free Press.

Posted by: Tom Grey - Liberty Dad at July 25, 2005 11:01 AM

I don't think that in today's world of mass media, that you can read any one paper, or watch any one news program and get the true story of something. It just doesn't happen in the world we live in of various agendas and viewpoints. Unfortunately, there seems to no longer be any real "this is the story, true and unbiased" any more. You have to comb through all sorts of newspapers and blogs and viewpoints, just to try to piece together what is really happening and even then, you may or may not have enough information to actually know what really happened in any given situation. I think that is just the world we live in. If you want to be informed on any subject, you have to actually work to be informed.

Posted by: Shar at July 25, 2005 11:21 AM

I used to enjoy reading the NYTimes.

Now I don't read it at all.

Don't miss it. Don't care.

Posted by: John at July 25, 2005 04:35 PM

"Something can happen just because you're in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Yeah, you could...oh, say, get blown up by a suicide bomber.

Had that been Menezes' fate, one wonders what Pereira would have to say...and if Lyall would have bothered to talk to him, or if she would have gone after a more colorful source, like a Salafist imam.

Posted by: John "Akatsukami" Braue at July 25, 2005 07:09 PM

Why don't you explain it to his mother?

Posted by: buddyhackett at July 25, 2005 09:11 PM

Fluent in English they say? I wonder what part of 'stop' or 'halt' or 'freeze' or whatever the British colliquial term for 'don't fookin move' he didn't understand?

Methinks there is more to this story then they're talking about.

Posted by: Billy Fish at July 25, 2005 09:30 PM

Oh and Buddy, I would be happy to explain to his mother that his son was killed because he fled from police who had to make a split second choice as to whether he was an innocent or a suicide bomber.

Had it been the latter and another 50 some people or more had been murdered, I wonder if you would be willing to explain anything to their mothers.

Again, I am wondering what part of 'stop' he didn't understand.

Posted by: Billy Fish at July 25, 2005 09:36 PM

Unfortunately you won't be able to ask him. What part of pinned down on the ground don't you understand?

Why should he stop for people who weren't in uniform?

Posted by: buddyhackett at July 25, 2005 09:54 PM

uh buddy are you purposefully being obtuse or are you just stupid? he came out of a house that was being watched, he was bundled up like a suicide bomber, England had just suffered a terrorist attack, he was told stop by people who identified themselves as police, and yes they shot him while he was down because IF he was strapped with bombs he still cd have triggered the explosives.

some people are so f-ing stupid it is hard to fathom. buddy i AM referring to you.

Posted by: doit at July 25, 2005 10:05 PM

Did you just ask me if I was stupid?

Posted by: buddyhackett at July 25, 2005 10:09 PM

rhetorical question buddy - go back to your sock puppets and your blow up Michael Moore doll.

Posted by: doit at July 26, 2005 12:31 AM

okiedoke!

Posted by: buddyhackett at July 26, 2005 01:37 PM

Here is a photo of the Brazilian you are referring to
http://www0.bbc.co.uk/portuguese/especial/129_jean/index.shtml

Posted by: me at July 27, 2005 06:24 AM

"...an American paper..."

"...the enemy's newspaper..."

Way to out yourself as being no better than the reporter from The Times. What you're really saying is that "Hey, I don't like that you wrote a story that leans one way. But, if you'd written it the way I lean, I'd be ok with you're reporting." Hypocrite. Reporters are not supposed to be mouthpieces that pick sides(Fox News). They are supposed to report. And they are supposed to stick to the facts. Otherwise, they are columnists.

Posted by: The SpinMD at July 28, 2005 10:31 AM