Narco-censorship : silencing the Mexican media

A new word has been written into the lexicon of Mexico's drug war: narco-censorship, writes Tracy Wilkinson of the Los Angeles Times in a chilling piece today.

It's when reporters and editors, out of fear or caution, are forced to write what the traffickers want them to write, or to simply refrain from publishing the whole truth in a country where members of the press have been intimidated, kidnapped and killed.

That big shootout the other day near a Reynosa shopping mall? Convoys of gunmen whizzed through the streets and fired on each other for hours, paralyzing the city. But you won't read about it here in this border city.

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Those recent battles between the army and cartel henchmen in Ciudad Juarez? Soldiers engaged "armed civilians," newspapers told their readers.

As the drug war scales new heights of savagery, one of the devastating byproducts of the carnage is the drug traffickers' chilling ability to co-opt underpaid and under-protected journalists — who are haunted by the knowledge that they are failing in their journalistic mission of informing society.

"You love journalism, you love the pursuit of truth, you love to perform a civic service and inform your community. But you love your life more," said an editor here in Reynosa, in Tamaulipas state, who, like most journalists interviewed, did not want to be named for fear of antagonizing the cartels.

"We don't like the silence. But it's survival."

An estimated 30 reporters have been killed or have disappeared since President Felipe Calderon launched a military-led offensive against powerful drug cartels in December 2006, making Mexico one of the deadliest countries for journalists in the world.

But a ferocious increase in violence, including the July 26 kidnapping of four reporters, has pushed the profession into a crisis never before seen, drawn renewed international attention and spurred fresh activism on the part of Mexican newsmen and women.

The United Nations sent its first such mission to Mexico last week to examine dangers to freedom of expression. On Aug. 7, in an unprecedented display of unity from a normally fractious, competitive bunch, hundreds of Mexican reporters demonstrated throughout the country to demand an end to the killings of their colleagues, and more secure working conditions.

Few killings are ever investigated, and the climate of impunity leads to more bloodshed, says an upcoming report from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

"It is not a lack of valor on the part of the journalists. It is a lack of backing," said broadcaster Jaime Aguirre. "If they kill me, nothing happens."

On the popular radio talk show he hosts in Reynosa, Aguirre chooses his words carefully. He often finds himself issuing warnings to the public on which areas of the city to avoid. Listeners don't have to be told why.

It is in Mexico's far-flung states where narco-censorship is most severe.

From the border states of Tamaulipas and Chihuahua and into the central and southern states of Durango and Guerrero, reporters say they are acutely aware that traffickers do not want the local news to "heat the plaza" — to draw attention to their drug production and smuggling and efforts to subjugate the population. Such attention would invite the government to send troops and curtail their business.

And so the journalists pull their punches.

When convoys of narco hit men brazenly turned their guns on army garrisons in Reynosa, trapping soldiers inside, it was front- page news in the Los Angeles Times in April. It went unreported in Reynosa.

After two of his reporters were briefly detained by Zetas paramilitaries later that month in the same region, Ciro Gomez Leyva, head of Milenio television, announced he was imposing a blackout on events in Tamaulipas. "Journalism is dead" in the region, he wrote. The bruised, strangled body of Durango reporter Bladimir Antuna was recovered late last year with a scrawled note attached: "This happened to me for … writing too much."

Contacting reporters in the region can seem a scene out of "The Third Man," with meetings in discreet locations and discussions that involve code: The Zetas are referred to as "the last letter" (of the alphabet), while the Gulf cartel is the "three letters" (CDG — Cartel del Golfo).

Reporters and editors in Tamaulipas and Durango say they routinely receive telephoned warnings when they publish something the traffickers don't like. More often, knowing their publications are being watched and their newsrooms infiltrated, they avoid publishing anything that risks falling into a questionable category.

Or they stick to just-the-facts government bulletins that may confirm an incident but won't offer details.

"If there's nothing official, we don't print it," said an editor from a northern newspaper. "It makes me very angry. How can I bend to the demands of those people? But I have to calculate the risk."

The journalists also keep an eye on certain websites known to have affiliation with drug cartels: If they see that a shootout or a grenade attack is being reported, they know it's OK to publish the same information.

That's why the Reynosa shootout two weeks ago wasn't reported. But a car bomb at police headquarters in the Tamaulipas state capital, Ciudad Victoria, two days later got front-page play because, editors say, the dominant Gulf wanted the rival Zetas paramilitaries (presumed authors of the bomb) to look bad.

Not that regional Mexican papers are squeamish. They will publish any number of grisly photographs of severed heads and battered corpses dangling from bridges. But not information that will offend the cartel in charge.

Social media networks such as Twitter have filled some of the breach, with residents frantically sending danger alerts. And a secretive "narco blog" has started posting numerous videos of henchmen and their victims, no matter how gruesome. But, residents say, the social media too have been usurped by traffickers, who use the system to spread rumors and stoke panic.

In Durango, where more newsmen were killed in 2009 than in any other state, broadcast reporter Ruben Cardenas said journalists could no longer do their job. "It is disinformation. It is a disservice to society," Cardenas told The Times late last year.

A few weeks later, when The Times ventured into the Durango city of Gomez Palacio to report on the kidnapping and slaying of Los Angeles civic leader Bobby Salcedo, local Mexican reporters initially shared enthusiasm for the story. But after a couple of days of publishing reports, employees at one newspaper said they were ordered, presumably by Salcedo's killers, to cease. The news, attracting attention in Los Angeles and Washington, was "heating the plaza."

Durango was also the scenario of the July 26 abductions. Four journalists were covering disturbances at a Gomez Palacio prison where it had just been revealed that the warden was allowing inmates to go out at night on killing rampages.

The reporters' employers received instructions to broadcast homemade videos from one cartel that linked its rival to corrupt cops. The videos showed police who had apparently been abducted and were "confessing" at gunpoint.

Journalists around Mexico mobilized like never before, spreading the word, demanding action from authorities and staging demonstrations. Eventually the reporters were freed. Blood still seeping from his scalp, a bruised Alejandro Hernandez spoke of the ordeal: five days of torture, beatings with a plank, threats of an ugly death.

A happy ending? The men were rescued or released only after their news outlets met the traffickers' demands and aired the cartel videos. It was the latest twist: news coverage as ransom.

Body of Viet-era cameraman Flynn mat have been found

Photojournalist missing in action for four decades in Cambodia may soon be laid to rest. Reader Supported News brings us the tale of Sean Flynn, the movie-star's son, via the LA Times.

Sean Flynn, son of Hollywood film legend Errol Flynn, and colleague Dana Stone were Vietnam War photojournalists. On a spring day in 1970 they headed down a dirt road towards a VC checkpoint on two red motorcycles. Forty years later, Sean Flynn's remains may have been found near the border.

Freelance becomes almost free, says LA Times

This is a cold look at the current freelance scene by those in the know at the Los Angeles Times. Read it here and weep.

Boudreaux to Go

Another outstanding journalist is leaving the Los Angeles Times, which continues to whittle coverage down so much that it is becoming unrecognizable. Richard Boudreaux, the energetic foreign correspondent who reported from more than 50 countries, winds down his two-decade career at the LA Times this month. His take on the news will be sorely missed in LA. The Louisiana-born newshound was admired by colleagues the worl round.

Convention on unconventional news in Silicon Valley

New media and old school hacks mingled at a conference sponsored by UC Berkeley over the hill in Silicon Valley. They sized each other up and attempted to sort out what lies ahead, acc to the Los Angeles Times columnist James Rainey, who was on the scene.

John Temple, the former editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, which closed in February after 150 years in business. "I feel like a cadaver being asked by the funeral director, 'How did you like the flowers?' " Temple said, before offering his autopsy on the paper.

Temple said the much-celebrated Rocky and other papers have been so worried about their printed product (which brings in the vast majority of the ad revenue) they've given short shrift to expanding Web opportunities.

The favorite buzzwords at this convention: aggregated mega-data, the whuffie factor, and the social stream. Some old pros walked away puzzled, convinced that reporters were needed ould have to cut through the blizzard of factoids and news babble out in cyberspace

Hack hostages released by North Korea tell why they risked imprisonment

In today's Los Angeles Times, read true tales from the Hermit Kingdom on the perils of chasing human traffickers, and why readers need to pay more attention to the story journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee were chasing than the story in which they unwittingly took part. To protect their sources before Bubba Clinton came to their rescue, these reporters swallowed their notes and ruined their tapes.
One conservative talk jock got their names mixed up with a pair of breeding pandas in the zoo. The indignities of hackdom!

Breaking News, Breaking Down

Sometimes the news reporters can become the focus, without a whiff of self indulgence. A new doco explores what happens when the reporters get caught up in events. Click here.

Whacko Obit watch - I'll be there!

USA Today's front page looked like a poster for the now-cancelled Jacko comeback concerts in London. Comedian Rob Corddry, the former Daily Show correspondent, joked: "I wish it had been Michael Jackson that broke the story of TMZ dying." So did alot of hacks. The AOL-owned TMZ claims a Demerol overdose caused the singer's heart to fail, quoting his family.
Despite the twitterati fest, it took the LA Times to do the "heavy lifting" and get a confirmation of details of the death, followed by the Associated Press, before many people believed it. "The last piece of Michael Jackson has expired!" the Onion headlined; Meanwhile, meanspirited blogger Perez Hilton, known for the premature announcement of Fidel Castro's demise, initially labelled the 911 call a "dubious stunt" and had to pull his snarky blogpost (of which a screen-capture is posted here. Magazines are "crashing" commemorative issues of the weird and tragic life of the otherwordly pop star, with images and tributes from celeb friends.

Jackson was 50, and had been in the public eye for four decades, ever since the Jackson 5 released their first hit I Want You Back. USA Today said

Jackson died after going into cardiac arrest at his rented home in Los Angeles, where he was preparing for 50 sold-out concerts at London's O2 Arena. When paramedics arrived at his home, Jackson's personal physician was performing CPR. They treated him for almost 45 minutes at his house but was in a coma when he arrived at the UCLA Medical Center. He was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. The Los Angeles Police Department said it would launch an investigation into the death, but cautioned that this is simply standard procedure for someone who was so famous and they have no reason to believe any foul play was involved.

Slate noted:

so many people turned to the Internet to confirm rumors of his death that Google's computers interpreted all the simultaneous searches for "Michael Jackson" as an automated attack. In a story inside, the LAT notes that the first to report the star's death was the gossip site TMZ, which announced it at 2:44 p.m. But it became clear that many outlets around the world weren't comfortable taking the site's word for such an important piece of news and, instead, credited the LAT, which bannered the death at 2:51 p.m. Interestingly enough, even though TMZ and CNN are both owned by Time Warner, the news channel didn't confirm the death until almost two hours later.

Jackson's death overshadows the passing of 70s icon, Farrah Fawcett. The LAT is alone in fronting the news that the Charlie's Angels star died yesterday of anal cancer, which she had been fighting since 2006. She was 62.

Zell axes LA Times editor O'Shea

The Los Angeles Times has fired its editor in a dispute over budget cuts, just one month after the sale of the newspaper's parent company. According to the the Associated Press, the Times fired its top editor after he rejected a management order to cut $4 million from the newsroom budget, 14 months after his predecessor was also ousted in a budget dispute, the newspaper said Sunday.

James O'Shea was fired following a confrontation with Publisher David D. Hiller, the Times reported on its Web site. The story didn't say when the confrontation took place.

Times spokeswoman Nancy Sullivan said the newspaper would have no comment.

O'Shea's departure comes just a month after the Times' parent, Chicago-based Tribune Co., was taken private in an $8.2 billion buyout by real estate magnate Sam Zell.

The departure also follows that of his predecessor, Dean Baquet, who was forced to resign after he opposed further cuts to the newsroom budget in 2006.

O'Shea, then the Chicago Tribune's managing editor, was brought in to replace him.

At the time, he asked the news staff not to see him as "the hatchet man from Chicago" and promised to fight to ensure the Times would "remain a major force in American journalism."

"If I think there is too much staff I will say so," O'Shea told the paper's editors and reporters in 2006. "And if I think there is not enough I will say that, too."

O'Shea is the third Times editor to leave the newspaper since 2005, all of them departing in disputes with management over how much to cut the news budget.

When Editor John Carroll left in 2005 he was replaced by Baquet, who was then the Times managing editor. Hiller, former publisher of the Tribune who had worked with O'Shea in Chicago, then brought him out to replace Baquet.

Hiller had joined the Times in 2006 after former Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson was ousted for refusing to carry out budget cuts ordered by corporate headquarters in Chicago.

A month later, Hiller dismissed Baquet and brought in O'Shea to replace him.

Before coming to the Times, O'Shea had been managing editor of the Tribune since February 2001 and had worked at the newspaper in various capacities since 1979.

Before joining the Tribune he had been a reporter, editor and Washington correspondent for the Des Moines Register.

The Times is just one of many newspapers plagued by circulation and revenue losses to new media.

Last April, the Times announced it was cutting up to 150 jobs, including 70 newsroom positions, as a result of declining revenue. Times officials said at the time they hoped to accomplish most of those cuts through voluntary employee buyouts.

When he took over Tribune, Zell said he hoped to find ways to increase the company's revenue, calling continued budget cuts a "dead end." At the same time, he said he was giving greater authority to regional executives to manage the company's assets in ways they saw best.

New London Times editor next week? Step up, James Harding??

All change for Mr Murdoch, says Stephen Brook, press correspondent for Guardian Unlimited:

The Times board, which approves the appointment of a new editor, is set to meet next week - fuelling speculation that James Harding is about to replace Robert Thomson in the top editorial job at the paper.

News International has refused to comment on the agenda for the meeting of the Times Newspapers Holdings Board, which is set to meet on Tuesday, December 11.

The meeting is two days before News International's parent company, News Corporation, completes its takeover of the Wall Street Journal's parent firm, Dow Jones.

As MediaGuardian.co.uk has previously reported, Thomson is strongly tipped to leave the Times to take up a senior job at Dow Jones after the acquisition is completed, although News Corp has not commented on this.

However, all the talk in News International's Wapping HQ is of an imminent new arrival in the Times editor's office, with one executive saying the appointment would be made "by the end of next week".

Harding, the Times business editor, whom Thomson recruited from the Financial Times 18 months ago, is still regarded as the favoured candidate to replace him as editor.

Other candidates are said to be deputy editor Ben Preston, Sunday Times editor John Witherow and Sun editor Rebekah Wade.

Next week's TNHB meeting is one of its four scheduled each year. Board members include News Corp chairman and chief executive Rupert Murdoch and News International executive chairman Les Hinton.

Independent directors currently on the board are Sarah Bagnall, Baroness Eccles of Moulton, John Gross, Baron Marlesford, Sir Robin Mountfield and Rupert Pennant-Rea.

Murdoch gave evidence about the Times board to a House of Lords select committee on media ownership in September.

According to the minutes, Murdoch said the Times board was there to make sure he did not interfere in the running of the Times and Sunday Times.

The minutes recorded: "He never says 'Do this or that', although he often asks 'What are you doing?'.

"He explained that he 'nominates' the editors of these two papers, but that the nominations are subject to approval of the independent board.

"His first appointment of an editor of the Times split the board but was not rejected."

This is thought to be a reference to Harold Evans, whom Murdoch switched from the Sunday Times to the Times after he bought both papers in 1981. Evans lasted less than a year in the Times job and was replaced by Charles Douglas-Home.

After 106 days in coma, Alexandra Boulat passed away today

Friends, family and photography buffs are grieving at the loss of Alexandra Boulat, the sensitive and brave conflict photographer who shot the photo below in Afghanistan. (A young female burn patient undergoing treatment at Herat Hospital. Shahima, 25, whose face is covered with a veil to protect her from flying insects, set herself alight to escape domestic violence and complete submission to her new stepfamily.) Alex was not afraid to look at death, and she embraced the complexities of life.

Alexandra was an elegant and vibrant woman, who had an exacting eye for lighting and detail and a passion for the truth. Our deepest condolences go out to Issa Freij, her partner in Ramallah, and Annie and Antoinette Boulat, her mother and sister in Paris. After suffering her brain aneurysm last June, Alex never regained consciousness. She was strong physically and held on for more than three months, first in Israel's Haddasah hospital and then was medi-vaced to Lariboisière in Paris. She died at noon today, age 45.

Gaza became an obsession for this exceptional photojournalist, who co-founded the renowned photo agency VII, and her friends will go through Erez crossing and make a donation in Alex's memory for the women and families whose lives are blighted by that conflict. Alex used to record the border guards' commands and the whirrs and dehumanized inspections every time she crossed this checkpoint and use them for background in podcasts.
Rest in Peace, Alexandra.
(Will post more details about funeral service and obituaries as they become clearer.) It is indeed a sad day.

UPDATE: A memorial service will be held on Friday, 12 October in the chapel at Jacqueville, outside Paris. Alexandra will be laid to rest beside her photographer father, Pierre Boulat.

The family would like to announce that a Foundation to continue Alexandra's and Pierre's legacy will be established in the coming weeks. The Foundation will support the ideals and issues that Alexandra and Pierre were concerned with. If you would like to contribute to this Foundation please contact: boulat_foundation@viiphoto.com

If you prefer to send flowers please send them to:
Cimetière de Jacqueville
77 760 Amponville, France

Click here to see the VII archive portraits of (not by) Alexandra.

BIOGRAPHY OF ALEXANDRA BOULAT, from VII

Alexandra Boulat was born in Paris, France, in 1962. She trained in graphic art and art history, at the Beaux Arts in Paris. She was represented by Sipa Press for 10 years until 2000. In 2001 she co-founded VII photo agency. Her news and features stories are published in many international magazines, above all Time, Newsweek, National Geographic Magazine and Paris-Match. She has recieved many International Awards for the quality of her work.

Boulat covered news, conflicts and social issues as well as making extensive reportages on countries and people. Among her many varied assignments, she has reported on the wars in former Yugoslavia, the Israeli and Palestinian conflict, the war in Iraq, Afghanistan at the fall of the Taliban, and the Women condition in the Islamic world. Other large assignments published in National Geographic include country stories on Indonesia Albania, and Morroco.


AWARDS

Best Women Photographer, Bevento Oscars, Italy 2006
Overseas Press Club 2003 - Afghanistan
World Press Photo / Art 2003 - Yves Saint Laurent Last Show
Infinity Award, International Center of Photography, New York, 1999 - Kosovo
USA Photo Magazine's photographer of the year, 1998
Perpignan, Visa d'Or pour l'Image, 1998 - Kosovo
Prix Paris-Match 1998 - Kosovo
The Harry Chapin Media Awards 1994 - Besieged Sarajevo

BOOKS

PARIS -National Geographic France 2002
ECLATS DE GUERRE (lights of war).
Les Syrtes Image, 2002
EXHIBITIONS

Wars in Former Yugoslavia, Visa Pour l'Image, Perpignan 1995
Wars in Former Yugoslavia, Gallerie Debelleyme, Paris 2002




See also obituary in the Times of London, as well as the Independent, the Guardian, and a tribute in Time.

Smells like Teen Spirit...smells like consumerism...just smells

The Los Angeles Times has an implicit message for dedicated blackberry bashers and dedicated cyber-surfers in its weekend edition: Bite Me. Er, let's rephrase that to Sniff It.
The West Coast newspaper is experimenting with a vanilla-wafting scratch'n'sniff advert for an upcoming kiddie movie, called Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. The cost is double a normal ad insert for their movie supplement (which is a big deal in La-la-land, where everyone obsesses about the film-industry.) It is aimed specifically for consumers of print media.
Next comes Mojito-laced "Peel and Lick" (without the kick) ads in Rolling Stone.
This is the latest wheeze in a stinking saga of magazines laden with clashing fragrance ads. Maybe not as innovative and edgy as the promoters want us to think...but the consumer is supposed to activate the ad before the stink is released.

shrink-wrapped coverage cuts foreign bureaus, bilks readers

A democracy needs reporters, writes Rosa Brooks in the Los Angeles Times. True, journalism hasn't entirely covered itself with glory lately (think the New York Times' Judith Miller and her misleading prewar reports on WMD in Iraq). But for every Judith Miller, there have been reporters such as the Los Angeles Times' Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling, who, with photographer Rick Loomis, won a 2007 Pulitzer Prize for a series on the world's distressed oceans, or the Washington Post's Barton Gellman, whose recent reporting brought out previously unknown details on how Vice President Dick Cheney acquired unprecedented power within the Bush administration.

That's old-fashioned reporting, the kind that independent bloggers mostly lack the funds and training to do. If newspapers shrink their budgets and stop funding that kind of journalism, the blogs and television outlets that feed off newspaper reporting will have little hard news to sink their teeth into.

In this age of globalization, terrorism and war, we particularly need good reporting on the rest of the world. But as newspapers shed column inches and reporters, it's foreign news reporting that has suffered most. Budget cuts have forced many once proud newspapers, including the Boston Globe and the Baltimore Sun, to close their foreign bureaus. Only America's largest dailies -- the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times -- still maintain overseas bureaus, but even they have had to cut back.

You might argue that the decline of foreign reporting doesn't matter because, thanks to the Internet, you could go directly to the websites of many excellent foreign newspapers. But few of us have the time (or linguistic skills) to scour the world's newspapers.

Whether we read them in print or online, good newspapers do the work for us. But when the shrinkage of print editions is accompanied by shrinking coverage of world news, the world around us gets smaller and smaller until it contains little more than local scandals and the latest celebrity gossip.

Beast of Baghdad

The Jerusalem press corps notes the departure of a familiar Farrell Beast, specifically Stephen Farrell, former Middle East correspondent for the London Times, who has just joined the New York Times as a veteran reinforcement for their Baghdad bureau. It recently underwent a major overhaul, with Dexter Filkins and John Burns back to civilization of sorts (although with car bombs planted in the UK, Burns' new patch of Londonistan is none too calm.)

This alpha male was famously kidnapped at gunpoint by bandits near Fallujah, then re-kidnapped by Baathist insurgents, interrogated as a suspected CIA spy and released after 8 hours. The kidnappers discovered that both their captives had been based in Israel, and things looked pretty hairy for awhile.

"See, not soldier. Just bald," the shaved-headed Farrell joked to the second lot of gunmen, to convince them there was no threat. Dinner then was served to Farrell and his petite female colleague, freelancer and fluent Arabic speaker Orly Halpern, before they were blindfolded and driven to Baghdad.

Steve manages to keep his head down a bit more these days, but has a great nose for news and a knack for danger.

Well, Farrell is back for more Iraq hi-jinks, full-on. He did not exactly slink away from the Holy Land hotspot. The send-off party at his Jerusalem apartment, for which he donned his ratty Iraq t-shirt, was classic. Sushi was served and the press corps was roasted with "Golden Bollocks" awards for ace blunders. The winner was a strapping Scandinavian hack who, when grilled by agents at the Ben Gurion airport, had managed to leave them sputtering and speechless. "Did you have contact with any Arabs?" they had asked, attempting to assess whether he was a threat to the Nation of Israel. "Well,Arabs, Jews, whatever... I can't really tell you guys apart," he had replied. Doh! They must have been rough with him.
James Hider, who is assuming Farrell's old beat at the London Times, is also an old Baghdad hand. It's a beastly business.

Military mindset spins the press

The US military's snarlingly defensive spin-meisters showed their true colors in a Haditha talking points memo written by four officers last January. It was part of the evidence submitted at a Camp Pendleton hearing to determine whether some US Marines should face court martial for murder after 24 Iraqi civilians were killed.

The NY Times ran excerpts from a five-pager that mulled over how to respond to Time's veteran war reporter, Tim McGirk. Stonewalling by the military put the Haditha story on the backburner for several weeks until Congressman John Murtha (D-PA) broadcast his misgivings that these killings of old folks and children in their beds might have been "in cold blood". Was there a cover-up?
.................
NY Times reporter Paul von Zielbauer, attended the preliminary military hearing in San Diego then highlighted how the marines were dismissive and suspicious of anyone who confronts them with difficult questions. They conceal rather than inform, and obviously prefer that their heroics are extolled by embedded hacks. The Los Angeles Times had quoted from part of the same scary memo last week.

McGirk: How many marines were killed and wounded in the I.E.D. attack that morning?

Memo: If it bleeds, it leads. This question is McGirk’s attempt to get good bloody gouge on the situation. He will most likely use the information he gains from this answer as an attention gainer.

•
McGirk: How many marines were involved in the killings?

Memo: First off, we don’t know what you’re talking about when you say “killings.” One of our squads reinforced by a squad of Iraqi Army soldiers were engaged by an enemy initiated ambush on the 19th that killed one American marine and seriously injured two others. We will not justify that question with a response. Theme: Legitimate engagement: we will not acknowledge this reporter’s attempt to stain the engagement with the misnomer “killings.”

•
McGirk: Are the marines in this unit still serving in Haditha?

Memo: Yes, we are still fighting terrorists of Al Qaida in Iraq in Haditha. (“Fighting terrorists associated with Al Qaida” is stronger language than “serving.” The American people will side more with someone actively fighting a terrorist organization that is tied to 9/11 than with someone who is idly “serving,” like in a way one “serves” a casserole. It’s semantics, but in reporting and journalism, words spin the story.)

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