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Or, "things that make you go hmmmmm..."
In case one was to, like I do, rely on a broad range of press sources including many major international outlets, from BBC to Radio Netherlands, and from the Guardian, Economist, and Times (London), to Agence France... one might want to take *everything* with a very skeptical grain of salt.
For example, while I am sure major raids in civilian areas can and do cause civilian casualties, when a press outlet prints as evidence of civilian casualties, this picture (grokked from a number of places this AM):
...one has to wonder how flipping stupid the editors are, or how stupid they think their readers are. Here's the picture in context: from Yahoo News's archive, with this caption: An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.
Take a look at the picture. Those are in no way "bullets which... hit her house". They are complete, shiny, new, unfired rounds. If they hit her house, someone THREW them at it. The press might have wanted to ask why this woman has a little stash of new ammo, maybe? Or, assuming those are NATO 5.56mm rounds (which they sort of look like - looks like too small a bullet for 7.62x39, the common AK-47 round), why she is claiming they hit her house, or why the reporter or editor is claiming that's what she said.
After that, all I am left with as a reader is knowing that I still have no idea what happened, because clearly the reporters or editors have no idea or aren't telling the truth as they find it. Makes for an unhappy reader and a (rightly) distrustful one.
In case one was to, like I do, rely on a broad range of press sources including many major international outlets, from BBC to Radio Netherlands, and from the Guardian, Economist, and Times (London), to Agence France... one might want to take *everything* with a very skeptical grain of salt.
For example, while I am sure major raids in civilian areas can and do cause civilian casualties, when a press outlet prints as evidence of civilian casualties, this picture (grokked from a number of places this AM):
...one has to wonder how flipping stupid the editors are, or how stupid they think their readers are. Here's the picture in context: from Yahoo News's archive, with this caption: An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City.
Take a look at the picture. Those are in no way "bullets which... hit her house". They are complete, shiny, new, unfired rounds. If they hit her house, someone THREW them at it. The press might have wanted to ask why this woman has a little stash of new ammo, maybe? Or, assuming those are NATO 5.56mm rounds (which they sort of look like - looks like too small a bullet for 7.62x39, the common AK-47 round), why she is claiming they hit her house, or why the reporter or editor is claiming that's what she said.
After that, all I am left with as a reader is knowing that I still have no idea what happened, because clearly the reporters or editors have no idea or aren't telling the truth as they find it. Makes for an unhappy reader and a (rightly) distrustful one.
