Lies, damn lies, and the press
Nov 30th, 2007 by atrommer
In a widely run story, a teacher was wrongfully detained in Sudan after her students named a class teddy bear “Mohammed”. Absolutely ridiculous, to be sure.
Some facts about the recent rally:
- From the BBC to AP, most media outlets count the rally at around 1000 protesters
- Out of all those protesting, only a small group were calling for executions
- The Sudanese government, while defunct for supporting the charges in the first place, have sentenced Gibbons to 15 days in jail
- The UK government is appealing and chances are that by the end of the weekend this will just be another embarrassing moment in modern Sudan politics
However, in the media led this story with outrageous headlines:
- CNN: Sudan protesters: Execute teacher
- Execute isn’t even in the copy
- AP: Thousands in Sudan Call for British Teddy Bear Teacher’s Execution
- again, the small handful reported in other outlets is exaggerated to now be the entire protest group calling for executions
As usual, NY Times had the most rational report, noting the small amount of protests were largely those ordered to be there by the government and that across the city the mosques weren’t calling for any violence whatsoever.
Just another wonderful sign that anything can be bumped to the top of the major networks, regardless of factuality.