NPR: Papers Tell Different Stories on Wolfowitz

Papers Tell Different Stories on Wolfowitz

One advantage of the explosion of news on the Internet is that you don't have to rely on only one or two sources to get the entire picture behind a story. Take, for instance, the news this morning that World Bank investigators sent a report to the institution's governing body that was highly critical of the way current bank President Paul Wolfowitz arranged for his girlfriend (who also works at the bank) to get a promotion and a pay increase.

European papers focused largely on the report's most negative aspects. For instance, the Guardian story zeros in on a "four-letter tirade" that Wolfowitz apparently launched when it appeared that his actions would be made public. The quotes used by the Guardian include several references to the "f-bomb," as we say stateside. The article reported that he sounded "more like a cast member of the Sopranos than an international leader."

The more conservative Daily Telegraph avoids the colorful language in the Guardian piece, but also focuses on the negative consequences of the investigator's report for Wolfowitz. The German magazine Der Spiegel took a similiar tack.

Then with a click of the mouse, take a look at the same story as told by The Washington Post. While it focuses on the investigator's report in the top two paragraphs, the majority of the article is made up of Wolfowitz's rebuttal of the issues raised by the investigators. The New York Times also covers this angle of the story. Neither American paper mentions the swearing tirade so prominently featured in the Guardian version.

When you read the pieces in the European media, you are left with the impression that Wolfowitz has disgraced the bank and without a doubt deserves to be fired. But when you read the Post piece, you can get the opposite impression -- that the former deputy defense secretary was someone who was just trying to handle a difficult situation in as delicate a manner as he could. The split in newspaper coverage also reflects the split among policy makers about Wolfowitz. Europeans and others want him to go, while the Bush administration and many American politicians want him to stay.

None of the stories is "wrong," but they illustrate how editors can choose a particular angle to emphasize -- normally an angle that reflects local thinking. Thanks to online media, we can now read several takes on a story before we make up our own minds about an issue, rather than having an editor in a single newsroom decide what the story is for us.

12:25 PM ET | 05-15-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Well, hold on, now. None of the stories is wrong? Maybe in the sense that none of them contains deliberate and outright lies. But surely their relative wrongness should be judged according to the standard of what's right -- what's a newspaper (or news medium) supposed, or reasonably expected by its readers, to do?

Speaking just of political news, I think most people read the paper simply to find out what's going on. Unpacked, that means they want to get an idea what's being said or done, by whom, and why. For that matter, they pretty much want the same thing from the sports news. And maybe you remember George Carlin's long-ago routine as a sportcaster who says, "Dallas and Cincinatti, we have a partial score from that game -- 2." In sports news, that's funny, because you'd never hear it. In political news, that's dangerous and biased, and you hear it all the time.

What's important about the Wolfowitz affair -- what I want to know from reading about it -- is what's going on ostensibly (and the accusations against Wolfowitz, and the defence he offers is the substance of that -- both of them together, that is, not just one or the other, like some Carlinesque partial score). But more impoprtantly, I want to know what's really going on under the surface. Why do the Europeans want to get rid of him? Why does the White House want him to stay? Why should one man's career have taken on so much international political significance?

That's what I want to know, and I'm finding it very difficult to get satisfying, or even plausible answers to these questions. And in my opinion, such a state of affairs is just wrong.

Thanks!

Jeff Ewener
Toronto, Canada

Sent by Jeffery Ewener | 1:37 PM ET | 05-15-2007

Tom,

Interesting observations. To say however, that "none of the stories is 'wrong'," and to state it as a mere illustration of editorial angling is quite incorrect. It does matter if Wolfowitz swore or did not, and, in your words, if he behaved like Soprano's character or not.

Since no reportage is never objective, and all angles is all we have, it becomes the job of editors to decipher from the event and content what sort of reporting will speak to multiple levels of concern.

In Wolfowitz case, for him to be accused of acquiring a raise for his girlfriend, then to angrily express that he will screw those trying to screw him, I think sheds light on the accusations.

Both express a white-collar form of gangsterism. To brush over such comments and to emphasize that Wolfowitz is merely trying to work with the Bank is not just an editorial angle, it is misleading the public

Thanks to you, this is the first time I have heard the report on the tirade. And I must say it changes my view of Wolfowitz.

Don't forget Tom. U.S. newspapers were slow to criticize the U.S. war in Iraq. And this has become a tendency to wait for the climate, that is, the approval of the public and the administration to permit them to be critical.

When the time is right, watch, Wolfowitz will get his editorial dues.

Sent by Nyasha Chiundiza | 1:46 PM ET | 05-15-2007

The Guardian and FT offered similar coverage. It is you who has zeroed in on the four letter tirade, and not the Guardian for which this was only part of the story. The real story, as covered by the FT, Guardian was the depth of deliberate rule breaking and deception employed by Wolfowitz. They revealed the real picture of Wolfowitz as a self-interested, corrupt and deluded paranoid.

The US press chose to ignore the depravity of one of their own and used the previous days defence, now discredited, in an attempt to shore up Wolfowitz. The US coverage is false. It lacks insight of any significance and leaves the reader with the impression that the issue is simply a difference of opinion revolving around a trivial issue.

There is a cultural difference here. The US media is biased, self-censoring and hides uncomfortable truths from the public. It's a major factor in why so many Americans are so ignorant, arrogant and nationalistic.

Sent by Peter Brown | 4:35 PM ET | 05-15-2007

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