The WaPo LIES ON THE FIRST PAGE, but retracts stories on page 18!

[RaulVB]

Excerpt below:

"Ombudsman
A Powerful Tale Unravels

By Michael Getler
Sunday, January 23, 2005; Page B06

On July 21, 2003, The Post published a wrenching front-page story about a 41-year-old Iraqi woman, Jumana Michael Hanna, who said that during the mid-1990s she had endured torture and rape inside the prison cells of Saddam Hussein's "police academy." The headline over the 2,800-word story by correspondent Peter Finn read, "A Lone Woman Testifies to Iraq's Order of Terror."

(snip)

The story was very detailed, with lots of quotes from Hanna, her mother and others. Human rights officials said hundreds and possibly thousands of women had been tortured or sexually assaulted by Hussein's agents. But survivors left much unsaid. Hanna spoke out and became the face of this horror. After the Post story appeared, Hanna was taken into protective custody and honored by the Coalition Provisional Authority, then taken to the United States with her family. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz told a Senate committee about her courage in providing "what is very likely credible information."

Link below (I hope it works):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29575-2005Jan22.html

The "Post" LIES WITHOUT SHAME about everything. Why should we BELIEVE what the post has to say about the "2.004 election winners"?

[Jacobin]

1. A RW rag and propaganda machine

anyone know the email address of the ombudsman?

Not that it will do any good, but I'll send him a scorcher on their cowardly 'correction' of one of the reasons for this fucking invasion.

[noamnety]

2. when you email

Ask for a followup story - has she been forced to pay back the assistance money she got, and been deported yet?

[RaulVB]

3. Email here,

Michael Getler can be reached by phone at 202-334-7582 or by e-mail at [e-mail].

Ask for a MORE VISIBLE RETRACTION AND FOLLOW UP!

[Mrs. Venation]

7. A Right-Wing Rag?

Excuse me, but do you read the Washington Post? I read it every day, something I've been doing for more than 20 years, and I can attest to the fact that it is decidedly not a right-wing rag!

Wanna see right-wing? Try the Washington Times.

[Bertha Venation]

4. a few points

First, the Ombudsman always appears in the paper's B section. Second, the Ombudsman is commonly where retractions & corrections are printed in many papers.

Third, this is not the first time the Post revealed its error. Did you read the whole article? Did you miss these bits?

"Readers, properly, continued to demand answers about whether the paper was ducking the implications of the Esquire piece. "The Post's piece turned Jumana Hanna into an icon, one used by the Bush administration to justify the war," one reader charged.

"Ultimately, The Post did the right thing in re-reporting this story and laying out all the flaws. Headlined "Threads Unravel in Iraqi's Tale," it appeared Thursday on Page A18, and there was a small reference to it on the front page. That it was well inside the paper on Inauguration Day* annoyed those who were initially critical. They have a point. This was a big and powerful front-page story, with pictures, 18 months ago, and correcting the record deserved more prominence.

~snip~

". . . . The Post, in the view of one reader, "is still failing" in what it considers newsworthy about the war."

* About the story appearing deep inside the A section: they ran it on inauguration day, and if you have to ask why you'd have to ask the editor. No matter: IMO one can't really fault the Post for plastering its front page w/ inaugural news. It is, after all, the leading newspaper in the nation's capitol. The Post has no love for the Bush administration -- anyone who regularly reads the editorial page knows this -- and the inauguration of a fraud is just as newsworthy as the inauguration of someone who deserves the office.

edit: here's a link to the 1/20 article on A18: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22249-2005Jan19.html

[RaulVB]

5. That's your take, not mine

Thanks anyways.

[Bertha Venation]

6. It's my "take?" Not exactly . . .

I guess you must be referring to the last paragraph in my post. Yeah. That's my opinion. Except for the part about the Post being the leading newspaper in the nation's capitol, of course. That's fact. (You do know what the other DC newspaper is, right?)

Other than that, Raul, I printed facts about the purpose of an Ombudsman, and when and where the Post first printed it had been misled, and then I posted direct quotes from the column you cited.

Have you ever regularly read the Post's editorial page? I have and I don't ever remember reading a single Post editorial that was complimentary to the Bush administration. Do you?

Did you read the 1/20 article?

Did you notice all the points at which the Ombudsman referred with regret to the Post's errors?

Did you also notice how many times the Ombudsman pointed out how the Post's readers had been taking the newspaper to task?

But as we know from the Bush administration, when it comes to facts, everyone's mileage varies, so :shrug:.