Publicity By AK-47

Yesterday's terrorist saunter into Ramadi reveals a considerable amount of information, including additional insight into the LATimes' most recent manufactured news story, on paying for the placement of positive stories.

I've already laughed away that story because it's so clear that the media are a battlefield in the GWOT, and equally clear that the terrorists are doing better in that skirmish than the forces of freedom.

So, as you think of the US's contracted PR guy offering to slip a $50 to a news editor in return for a story placement, consider this, from WaPo's coverage of yesterday's events in Ramadi:

Witnesses in Ramadi said they saw some of the armed fighters instruct a journalist for an Arabic-language news outlet to report that Zarqawi's group, al Qaeda in Iraq, had taken over the entire city. The Arabic outlet by late Thursday was reporting only that the fighters had held some streets of the city center -- a description of events in line with the eyewitness accounts and reports from other news organizations. News directors for the organization did not respond to requests for comment. The news organization is not being identified for security reasons.

Desparados described by WaPo as "lean figures, many in masks and dark tracksuits lugging shoulder-mounted rocket launchers or wielding AK-47 assault rifles," walk up to a reporter and offer him continued breathing in return for placing a favorable story. Seems a bit more persuasive than a $50.

WaPo's not telling us something here. The saunter occurred in the morning, and "by late Thursday" the Arab news outlet was reporting accurately -- that's a very oddly structured sentence that appears to be covering up the fact that for some period of time Al Jaz (presumably) was telling the Arab world Zarqawi's bloodsuckers had easily taken over Ramadi.

Why the sly writing, WaPo? Maybe this will help us to understand:

"Today I witnessed inaccurate reporting, use of unreliable sources, media using other media as sources, an active insurgent propaganda machine, and the pack journalism at its worse," Capt. Jeffrey Pool, a spokesman for the 2nd Marine Division, said in an e-mail to news organizations.

Which example is worse for the emerging free media in Iraq: A little pay-for-play on an opinion column, or a display of inaccuracy, use of bad sources and bad fact-checking, pack journalism, and kowtowing to publicity-by-AK47?

Talk about a plank in the eye!

h/t Memeorandum