Bait And Switch

A common tactic you can see througout the mainstream media (MSM) is what I'll call the 'bait and switch' tactic. You'll see a headline that clearly states the gist of the story, then find upon reading it that the headline actually only covers one small facet of the story and ignores the rest of the details, even when they completely counteract the suggestion imparted by the headline. My story about the AP and their initial coverage of Memogate is an example of this to the extreme, it's usually more subtle.

Take, for example, this article. This originated with the AP, but the headline has been repeated everywhere from myway.com to Drudge. 'U.S. Weapons Inspector: Iraq Had No WMD!' the headline screams. From that headline, one is clearly lead to believe that the report found no evidence of WMD's in Iraq. If you believe that, you'd be wrong. Abandoning the headline for the truth, the article clears up the matter by the second paragraph of the story.

'In a 1,500-page report, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer, will find Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of U.N. agreements and maintaining a dual-use industrial sector that could produce weapons.

Duelfer also says Iraq only had small research and development programs for chemical and biological weapons.

As Duelfer puts the finishing touches on his report, he concludes Saddam had intentions of restarting weapons programs at some point, after suspicion and inspections from the international community waned.'

Quite a difference from the outcome suggested by the headline. They didn't find actual WMD's, but they found that Saddam was importing banned materials, working on UAV's, maintaining industrial areas that could produce weapons, had small research and development programs for chemical and biological WMD's, and they conclude that he had intentions of restarting the programs as soon as international scrutiny waned.

Um, I really hate to break it to the fine, unbiased folks at the Associated Press, but THAT MEANS SADDAM HAD WMD'S!!! It all adds up to the same conclusion! If he had the material to make them, was doing the research to create them, had the facilities to make them, and clearly had the intent to make them as soon as the UN stopped looking, then every single thing that everyone from the President on down has said is true. He was a threat, via WMD's, to the free world and his own people. Just because he didn't have a stockpile up and ready to use (which I do not believe, I believe we should be checking under Syria's beds for those) does not mean that he was complying with the UN sanctions. This report clearly shows that he was not, and was in open defiance of it, continuing to pursue methods of mass destruction.

This CNN report gets in on the same act. While the headline claims 'Intelligence report: Iraq prospects bleak', you only have to read a little of the story to note a very important fact about the nature of the report:

'But the official noted that the document, which spans roughly 50 pages, draws on intelligence community assessments from January 2003, before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deteriorating security situation there.'

Ah, so those prospects are mighty bleak...well, at least they were almost two years ago! This report was based on theories of what might happen in Iraq offered up before we even set a foot into the place. What would these same intelligence wonks have to say about it now? Well, the story doesn't say, it just quotes a bunch of politicians who say various negative things about the current state of the matter, not adding any real substance based on this report that garnered such an alarmist headline.

So, my friends, as you wade through your daily paper or your morning websites, bear in mind that the front page is just as susceptible to bait and switch tactics as the advertising section.