A Very Easy Quiz
Yesterday I told you about two stories, one from the Washington Post and one from the L.A. Times, which covered the same event (the release of Chief Justice Rehnquist’s annual report on the judiciary) in very different ways.
Today I want to provide another example of two stories from the L.A. Times and Washington Post covering similar topics. We’ll do it quiz-style. I’ll give you the headlines of the stories and some relevant excerpts. Your mission is to guess which story appeared in the Post and which was in the Times.
One story is titled: An Election Day That Could Be a Close Call. The sub-head reads: “Worried about unrest, a volatile Sunni Muslim area of Iraq is bracing for this month’s vote. Most candidates skip a chance to tape ads.” It opens:
BAQUBAH, Iraq — At the former Baath Party headquarters known as the Blue Dome, everything was set for candidates in the upcoming elections to come in and tape political ads for local TV. . . . But recording the campaign spots this recent morning didn’t take long.
Only three people showed up.
The story is full of pessimism, and suggests that Iraqis may be reluctant to vote:
A boycott here in central Iraq in the area known as the Sunni Triangle could undermine the elections. Some Sunni Muslim politicians say that continued violence, especially in the central and northern parts of the country, will make it difficult to hold a fair election.
. . . .
Many Iraqis worry the elections will spur even more violence.
“We are fearful,” said one Iraqi woman. “Maybe because of the election, it will be worse.”
. . . .
Throughout Baqubah and its southern suburb of Buhriz, insurgent groups are distributing leaflets that promise death to those who vote. Freshly painted graffiti spell out “Praise Be Fallouja” — the insurgent stronghold recaptured in November — and “Join the Jihad.”
All of this leaves Schnell, the intelligence officer, to ponder whether he would vote if he were an Iraqi.
“I think I would,” he said. “But I don’t live here.”
The article ends with this cute story:
Still, the three who showed up had enough time to deliver their messages. Candidates from the Communist Party and the Elites of Diyala explained their parties’ platforms — improving local infrastructure and irrigation, an interpreter said. The third candidate, from the Socialist Arab Movement, read from a script as U.S. soldiers watched him exercise his right to free speech: “No to the American occupation,” he told the camera.
The story from the other newspaper is titled: Iraqi Officials Cite Rise Of Interest in Elections. The sub-head reads: “In Final Week, Many Act to Ensure Registration.” And the first sentence says:
The number of Iraqis making sure they are properly registered to vote has surged dramatically, officials said Saturday, calling the rise evidence of enthusiasm for the Jan. 30 elections despite continuing security concerns that have blocked the process in two provinces.
The story is optimistic in tone:
Officials said more than 2.1 million people went to local election offices to assure that eligible members of their households could vote. About 1.2 million forms were submitted to add names to the voter lists, an involved process that requires providing proof of identification and residence.
“That’s a definite marker of voter interest,” said an expert with the Independent Election Commission of Iraq who was not authorized to speak publicly.
Because Iraqis do not have to take any steps to register to vote — food rationing accounts serve as voter rolls — requests for corrections are essentially the only gauge of voter involvement in the registration process for the Jan. 30 election.
“This is a very good indicator,” said Hussein Hindawi, who heads the election office. “We are very optimistic.”
Your mission: to guess which story appeared in the Washington Post and which was in the L.A. Times.
The answer is in the extended entry. No cheating!
If you guessed that the first story was published in the L.A. Times and the second one appeared in the Washington Post, you win the grand prize: a hearty “Attaboy!” from Patterico.
Is the Washington Post story simply being too optimistic? Not at all. It reports that the percentage of likely voters is lower in the Sunni areas, and spins this news in an unnecessarily negative way:
In such Sunni provinces where insurgents remain active, the level of voter preparation will remain unknown until officials break down the nationwide tally by province, which could take several more days. But in a poll for the International Republican Institute, more than 40 percent of residents surveyed in Sunni areas said they did not intend to vote.
In the poll, conducted in late October and early November, more than a quarter of Sunnis surveyed responded with the most adamant option: “Not intend at all.” Only 20 percent said they “strongly intend” to vote.
Here’s another way to look at the results of that poll. Looking at the poll’s most recent results (from November), the poll said that 67% of Iraqis believe that the country will be ready to hold elections by the end of January. 84% said they intend to vote — and of those, 71.4% said they “strongly” intend to vote. In the Sunni areas, the percentages of likely voters are far lower — but nevertheless, the majority of Sunnis surveyed (53%) said they intend to vote.
But the L.A. Times chooses to focus on the Sunni areas exclusively — and tries to make it sound like as though almost no Sunnis are going to vote. As you can see from the above excerpts, the paper does this by taking isolated quotes that suit this purpose — quotes from a woman on the street worried about violence, or a military official who isn’t sure he’d vote if he lived there.
By the way, I’d like it if either of the stories had put these percentages in perspective. Historically, voter turnout in the United States for presidential elections has hovered at just above 50%. In non-presidential federal elections, turnout is generally under 40%. And turnout for presidential primaries was recently as low as 7.2%.
So why would it be tragic if “only” 53% of Sunnis voted?
I understand that we want Sunnis not to feel excluded. I would like to see Sunnis turn out for the elections in large numbers. But if “only” 53% of Sunnis vote, I won’t see that as a failure — especially if the rest of the country is voting at levels of 70% or more.
Unfortunately, none of this context is provided by the L.A. Times, which is simply spinning the events to make it look as negative as possible. But the Times does accomplish one impressive feat with this story. It makes the Washington Post look like a down-the-middle newspaper. That’s a tough thing to do, so you gotta give ‘em that.
UPDATE: Roger L. Simon is also comparing anticipated turnout in Iraq with voter turnout in the U.S.
I agree with you about the Washington Post looking good compared to the LA Times or, for that matter, the NYT. I read the Post daily on the internet, in addition to other papers, and I have to say that generally they do a better job of being fair and factual than most other major media outlets.
And by the way, I linked to your two-part post on the LA times at my site and generated a bit of opposition. I’m going to add a link to this post among my comments. Keep up the great work!
Comment by Tom Carter — 1/2/2005 @ 6:22 pm
I read about a quarter of the first story, and knew it came from the LA Fish Wrapper. The Post isn’t great, but it is much better than it’s competitors–and these days, it is lucky enough to be able to compete worldwide. Too bad LA doesn’t get it yet. Don’t they want to sell ads to Red States on their website? Instead, they consider us flyover country, and not important…
Comment by kschlenker — 1/2/2005 @ 8:41 pm
This letter went to the Times today about yet another terrible piece on the news pages.
“Sirs:
This morning’s Times provides another depressing example of distortion of the news pages to make an editorial point (”Bush Adapts, but Won’t Call It That” page A7 1/3/05). I cancelled my subscription last year (after nearly 50 years) because of obnoxious political bias. Since you were practically giving it away, I resubscribed a month ago. The Edwin Chen article is an editorial, flogging a dead horse that has already been discredited in the rest of the US news media. The administration was attacked by a UN official who may have misspoken or who, as a Norwegian, may have been briefly unhinged by the prospect of the loss of thousands of Norwegian tourists in Thailand. If you wish to continue a story thread that has been widely discredited, do so on the editorial pages. It is not news and is not even true. The Times is marginalizing itself with distorted news coverage. It’s simply amazing that a smart fellow like Michael Kinsley can’t see this. I don’t care what you print in the editorial pages since I rarely read them. If you can’t keep the news straight, my return to the Times will be brief. When I called to cancel a year ago, after a particularly offensive Robert Scheer piece, the girl who handled my call laughed and agreed when I suggested that she must be getting many such calls. There is an old saying in surgery, “Bleeding always stops.” How much blood does the Times have left ?”
The story continued the ridiculous “stingy” thread that Egeland has already retracted. Keep up the good work
Comment by Mike K — 1/3/2005 @ 7:07 am
I don’t mind much that the editorial page is liberal. They should expand the editorial section to include the insane conspiracies on democraticunderground.com blaming the tsunami on Bush, oil drilling, the bombs in Iraq, and SUV owners. Everyone enjoys reading stuff like that.
What is insulting to me is reading articles in the facts sections, and trying to figure out what has happened. I already have my own opinions, and I don’t want to read other papers to get the facts.
LA Times approaches writing their articles by starting with how they want readers to feel when they are done. Then they omit and embellish facts as needed to achieve that.
Comment by Ladainian — 1/3/2005 @ 9:55 am
I read both yesterday and was struck by how much the LAT article reminded me of a Maureen Dowd piece.
Comment by Curtis — 1/3/2005 @ 10:24 am
A little offtrack, but did anyone else catch Colin
Powell’s reference to the NYT and UN Guy Jan Englund as churlish complainers on Meet the Press?
I really liked that zinger.
JL
Comment by Joe Lunchbox — 1/3/2005 @ 10:59 am
Glad to see DbD is pointing people, myself included, to this wonderful stuff.
Thanks for the further proof of the MEdia’s bias.
Comment by J at TAotB — 1/3/2005 @ 12:03 pm
As an aside, do you know that most of your recent recap links to old posts features comments literally full of spam? On the LAT Assault Weapon one, there were about a dozen comments, not one legitimate.
Might look into an auto-close for old comments, or a key system (or even a keyword filter, since they were all blatant.)
Comment by Sigivald — 1/3/2005 @ 1:32 pm
As an aside, do you know that most of your recent recap links to old posts features comments literally full of spam? On the LAT Assault Weapon one, there were about a dozen comments, not one legitimate.
Might look into an auto-close for old comments, or a key system (or even a keyword filter, since they were all blatant.)
Comment by Sigivald — 1/3/2005 @ 1:33 pm
Sigivald:
The assault weapons link is to Xrlq’s blog, not mine. I am always interested in learning about old posts of mine that have spam. I have tried implementing an auto-close program, but can’t get it to run. I think my hosting service is weak, and the same error messages that cause people to post comments multiple times also appear when I try the auto-close.
I will gladly accept any help with this that anyone wants to give me . . .
Comment by Patterico — 1/3/2005 @ 1:40 pm
About 110 people per day die in the US from auto accidents. What’s the rate in Iraq I wonder. That’s a dangerous place to drive, even without the war.
Comment by Ladainian — 1/3/2005 @ 2:54 pm
“. . . more than 40 percent of residents surveyed in Sunni areas said they did not intend to vote.”
In the last US Presidential election, about 35% of the voters in this country did not vote — and nobody was threatening their lives. It seems as if, even in the Sunni areas, there is a great desire for democracy.
Comment by Dave — 1/3/2005 @ 5:41 pm
“. . . more than 40 percent of residents surveyed in Sunni areas said they did not intend to vote.”
In the last US Presidential election, about 35% of the voters in this country did not vote — and nobody was threatening their lives. It seems as if, even in the Sunni areas, there is a great desire for democracy.
Comment by Dave — 1/3/2005 @ 5:42 pm
That’s funny. To sound more sinister, instead of “about 35%” say “more than 34%” didn’t vote. The 2nd way makes it sound like the true number is somewhere between 34 and 100. There must be some internal LA Times style guide for these types of manipulations.
Comment by Ladainian — 1/3/2005 @ 6:53 pm
Strange days at the Washington Post
Surprisingly, the Washington Post has printed two fair and balanced articles on politically charged topics in the last two days…It might be a pattern, but it’s still way too early to tell. We’ll keep watching.
Trackback by Carpe Bonum — 1/2/2005 @ 7:20 pm
Patterico and the MEdia
Patterico exposes, again, the bias of the LA Times. And Day by Day leads people, myself included, his way.
Best Line(s):
But the L.A. Times chooses to focus on the Sunni areas exclusively — and tries to make it sound like as though almost no Sun…
Trackback by The Art of the Blog — 1/3/2005 @ 12:00 pm