The Guardian Pulls a "Dowd" - Falsely Attributes War for Oil Claim to Wolfowitz w/ Misquote

6 June 2003

[Stultis]

BTW, thanks to "stck" and "Vox" for coming up with the links to the German stories over on the original thread. (I can't read a word of the stuff.)

[rwfromkansas]

If it hits the U.S. press, some damage control may be warranted. But not if the Guardian says something.

[adam_az]

I stand corrected, he writes for the Indeterminate.

[Stultis]

Ping!

[Stultis]

Misc Ping-ey-wing-ey

[stop_fascism]

I hope you're right, but the last misquote got a lot of US press.

What did Goldfinger say? "Once is happenstance, Twice is Coincidence, but three times is enemy action."

I'm expecting a third time.

[Wolfstar]

As a writer and former media insider, I can't caution people often enough: The media lies. It lies often (not always, but far more often than people realize). It lies by commission. It lies by omission. It lies by using questionable or outright false information as "fact." It lies by using weak or non-existent anonymous sources, and mischaracterizing those sources as "close to...," or "a senior...," or "an official...," etc. It lies through misuse of polls.

The Jayson Blair form of media lying is bad enough, but what's worse is the subtle way people's words are twisted and used against them, or used to start a controversy. This is the most common form of media lies. It's insidious, very difficult to catch, and extremely difficult to rebut once the lie is out in the public "bloodstream."

I urge everyone to cultivate a healthy skepticism whenever the media goes into overdrive on any story and tries to get you to believe they tale they tell.

[alnick]

Thank you for posting this. The side-by-side comparison of the actual quote with the the reworded adaptation by the Guardian is stunning.

[LurkerNoMore!]

Nice job, fella.

[AnnaZ]

You hit the bullseye with this one. (Repugnant, ain't they all?)

 

BUMPTTT!

[MattAMiller]

A tip of the hat to the folks who figured this out. Good detective work guys, you've put the professional Journos to shame. This is what I love about the Internet.

[NonValueAdded]

Great work!!! BTTT

[tictoc]

Terrible, egregious mistranslations both. Evidently both Tagesspiegel and Die Welt ran with the dpa wire copy and merely reworded it for style.

Conclusion: The dpa reporter was incompetent, malicious or both.

No one will be fired, there will be some mutual pointing of fingers, and the readers will continue to be treated as dirt.

[Stultis]

Hey, I thought you'd been (self) prescribed pool-side therapy!

[Jorge]

Incredible!
The dishonesty of the left, and their shameless manipulation of quotes in order to support their false accusations, is just unbelievable.

It was these sorts of smears against Reagan that finally woke me up to what the Democrats were really about and caused me to switch from Democrat to Republican.

I hope these clearly dishonest attempts to smear this administration will also backfire and win more GOP converts.

[LurkerNoMore!]

Yeah, but 5 hours is my limit.

[Jorge]

Incredible!
The dishonesty of the left, and their shameless manipulation of quotes in order to support their false accusations, is just unbelievable.

It was these sorts of smears against Reagan that finally woke me up to what the Democrats were really about and caused me to switch from Democrat to Republican.

I hope these clearly dishonest attempts to smear this administration will also backfire and win more GOP converts.

[L.N. Smithee]

In the words of Prince in "Batdance", KEEP BUSTIN'!

[Stultis]

Wolfowitz was merely noting that North Korea is on the verge of economic collapse, that this would present a large and possibly intolerable problem for South Korea if the regime were to suddenly implode, and that the same problem did not apply to Iraq since it had plenty of hard currency producing oil.

Correction, or rather extension: Wolfowitz also noted that North Korea's precarious economic situation provides a means of leverage against its regime (likewise absent, or less applicable, in the case of Saddam's Iraq due to Iraq's oil).

[tictoc]

Just to be clear about this:

al-Guardian got burnt by Tagesspiegel and Die Welt, which in turn had gotten burnt by dpa. (dpa is a German equivalent of Reuters or the Associated Press.)

Since neither Tagesspiegel nor Die Welt are lefty newspapers, the Guardian might even be called a victim in this mess.