[Peace-discuss] HuffPo: NYT Editors, Contradicting Own Reporting, Assume Iraq Oil Law is "Reconciliation"?

[Robert Naiman]

Links and formatting in original:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/nyt-editors-contradictin_b_57399.html

NYT Editors, Contradicting Own Reporting, Assume Iraq Oil Law is
"Reconciliation"?
Robert Naiman, Huffington Post, July 23, 2007

Frequently, a careful reader of foreign policy coverage in the New
York Times finds oneself confronted by a headline or lead paragraph
which seems to be clearly contradicted by the article that follows.
And, in such cases, it often appears that the contradicted claim bears
a remarkable resemblance to the State Department line. Such examples
would seem to be clear evidence of an editorial bias in favor of
current U.S. government policies.

Case in point: an article below the byline of Alissa Rubin, "Oil Law
Stalls in Iraq as Bomb Aims at Sheiks," in Monday's New York Times.

The lead paragraph cites the delay as a blow to "efforts to achieve
national reconciliation." But as the article reports, the draft oil
law in question is not about revenue-sharing, as many seem to believe,
but about the "system for managing and developing Iraq's oil
resources," including the very controversial question of the role of
multinational oil companies.

Indeed, the sixth paragraph of the article reports,

    "The oil law, which would set up a system for managing and
developing Iraq's oil resources and would have a companion
revenue-sharing law that would apportion oil income among the various
groups, had been considered the most likely to be passed before the
September report to Congress. But by the time the Iraqis return to
Parliament in September, it is highly unlikely that they could meet
the midmonth deadline in the United States."

So - according to the article - the law that is being delayed is not
the "companion revenue-sharing law" but a law which would "set up a
system for managing and developing Iraq's oil resources."

It's far from obvious why Iraqis opposed to provisions of this law for
managing Iraq's oil resources should be portrayed as being against
national reconciliation, as is implied by the lead paragraph. Indeed,
as many Iraqis have argued, it may well be the case that the rushed
passage under foreign pressure of a law that could dramatically expand
the role of foreign corporations in Iraq's oil sector could greatly
exacerbate sectarian tensions.

My own headline above - suggesting that the lead paragraph of this
article was written by an NYT editor and not by Alissa Rubin - is an
inference, which is why I terminated it with a question mark. Having
read many articles under Alissa Rubin's byline about Iraq, I think she
would not have written a lead paragraph that was contradicted by her
own reporting.

My inference about this is informed by a story that the actor and
activist Ed Asner told when he was doing public speaking about U.S.
policy in El Salvador in the 1980s. He would explain to reporters that
the opposition FMLN-FDR was a coalition of the center-left. It
included marxists, but it also included social democrats. Invariably,
the newspaper article that followed referred to the "Marxist-Leninist
FMLN." When he followed up with a reporter, he was told: "I didn't
write that - the editor put that in."

To send a letter to the editor at the New York Times:
letters at nytimes.com

To contact the Public Editor at the New York Times about the Times' reporting:
public at nytimes.com