General Petraeus: collection

[SWJED]

Hat Tip PrairiePundit (Merv Benson) - Paper Backs Off Maliki-Petraeus Row

I think they are admitting that the earlier report was based on a rumor.

General Petraeus Rebuts Iraq Row Claim - London Daily Telegraph (Damien McElroy)

America's top general in Iraq yesterday quashed reports of a breakdown in his relationship with Iraq's prime minister over American support for Sunni Muslim fighters battling al-Qa'eda.

General David Petraeus poured scorn on a claim by an Iraqi politician that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki requested his dismissal after bitter rows. "I don't know where that is coming from," Gen Petraeus said. "He and I have truly had frank conversations but he has never yelled or stood up. This is really, really hard stuff, and occasionally people agree to disagree."...

Col Boylan said Mr Maliki had embraced the policy but dissidents were trying to throw "sand in the gearbox" with claims the two were at loggerheads.
While exchanges between the two had been "direct," the discussions fell a long way short of Mr Maliki telling Gen Petraeus he could no longer work with him...

[Uboat509]

My experience is that the British print media tends to be more overt with their partisanship. I have seen some things printed in Brit newspappers that make the New York Times look like the Weekly Standard. Articles like the one that started this thread seem to be par for the course for some Brit media outlets.


SFC W

[tequila]

Uboat's correct about British media partisanship. Note, however, that the Telegraph is a Tory paper.

[marct]

Hi Tequila,

Uboat's correct about British media partisanship. Note, however, that the Telegraph is a Tory paper.

So? Blair and the current government in the UK are Labour, not Tory. The war in Iaq isn't popular with large segments of the British voters, and this may be seen as a chance to stick it to Labour and win the next election, especially now that Blair is gone.

[tequila]

Hi Tequila,



So? Blair and the current government in the UK are Labour, not Tory. The war in Iaq isn't popular with large segments of the British voters, and this may be seen as a chance to stick it to Labour and win the next election, especially now that Blair is gone.

Except that the Tories are also prowar.

Most likely is that the reporter chose to report gossip as news.

[Nat Wilcox]

Is it true that Brit media are quicker on the draw with rumor and relatively unsubstantiated material?

It would be interesting (and puzzling) if in fact true, because British libel and slander laws are apparently much more friendly to plaintifs than defendants, relative to what we find in the U.S....or at least so Geoffrey K. Pullum, a (very funny) linguist argued in a short but amazing article called The Linguistics of Defamation in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 3, 371-377.

[tequila]

My experience reading the Brit news media is absolutely, yes. This goes even for better publications as for the national tabloids like the Daily Mail or the Sun.

Even the best British publications like the Financial Times and the Economist are quite open about inserting editorial slant into their news stories. That being said, the FT is still among the best papers in the world.