The reported “mini-Tet offensive” in Ramadi has turned out to be less than accurate. In fact, it has been anything but. The Associated Press reported a massive citywide insurgent attack, and Reuters and other news outlets quickly picked up on the story.

Captain Jeffery Pool, Public Affairs Officer for the 2nd Marine Division, disputed the claims in the harshest of terms, and rebuked the media for its mis characterization of events. “

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.

Cori watches our old friend CBS News [emphasis in original]:

. . . on tonight's CBS News as part of a rapid fire report clearly meant to suggest thing were going to hell in a handbasket (but this happened, and this happened, and this happened) a different reporter referred again to yesterday's events in Ramadi, noting that insurgents even went so far as to release video to show how in control they were -- and showing a few seconds of the contested video yet again. . . . The reporter (I believe Kimberly Dozier, but I'm not positive) did point out that the Americans "dismiss" this "as propaganda."

Sorry, but that doesn't get it. . . . You can't show footage, then merely say, the Americans aren't buying -- without explaining what underlies that -- and claim the report is balanced. The visual will always trump, or appear to trump, the textual, unless you do substantial explanatory work.

CBS's performance here is particularly disturbing because they don't seem at all disturbed by the fact that they're using footage that the American military has stated is part of a terrorist information operation. Once that claim has been made, how dare they use it without providing their audience with far more contextual background than has been offered here? . . . .

Yet they seem perfectly happy, and perfectly certain that their obligation to their audience has been fulfilled, once they provide the disclaimer, "oh, yeah, the Americans say this footage we're using right here is propaganda. Can't say what that's all about. Moving right along here . . ."

Well, that's CBS all over, isn't it? They weren't disturbed last year at the possibility that fake documents might throw an election. In fact, CBS can't distinguish fake from real. In fact, CBS probably thinks this terrorist-derived footage is "fake, but accurate."

Cori notices the same lack of context from NBC:

. . . they have now aired footage filmed by terrorists of their attack on American troops when those troops were walking out in the open, a major step forward in terms of how explicit the networks are willing to be in terms of what they will accept and air from the terrorists. . . .

To NBC's (quite minimal) credit, the terrorist's logo was left on the footage, so that the source was made clear. That doesn't change the fact that they were disseminating terrorist propaganda, while making no effort to analyze or discuss the footage as propaganda. Which leaves the terrorist's information campaign, quite simply, intact, uncritiqued, successful.