Anatomy of a news story

It’s not that often that I’m so up on the news of the day that I can watch a news story unfolding but I feel that way about the alleged Haditha massacre that is now rapidly becoming a major news event.

On May 19 I happened to be listening to the local NPR radio station air a piece about an ongoing investigation into an alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians by a small squad of U. S. Marines in November 2005. Since I hadn’t heard about it before, I assumed it was the breaking news of the day and would be all over the next morning’s paper. It wasn’t. In fact, there was no mention I could find about the alleged massacre.

That evening I Googled the topic “Iraq massacre” getting only a few relevant hits. Virtually all the hits were from right leaning blogs and websites denouncing Representative John Murtha (Democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania, former Marine of 37 years, and long-time military supporter) for his “too eager” revelation of the incident. He was called a “bandaid soldier” and worse for “speaking without any facts” and “aiding and abetting the enemy”. I didn't even remember NPR quoting Murtha but I could have missed that part.

Days went by and the Googled references increased but still heavily weighted in favor of those who were mostly upset that anyone would dare discuss this in public.

Finally, 12 days after I first heard the program, the story reached the main news outlets. The story hasn’t changed from what NPR discussed 12 days earlier but the right-leaning websites and blogs had changed their tune. Now they were accusing the press and liberals of “convicting before a trial” and “tarring the entire military” with this one incident. Now most sites that I visit are impartially reporting what is known and quoting the military as saying that there will be full disclosure once the investigation is over. Left leaning websites and blogs are “tarring” the war (not the military) with the evil that a massacre represents and also pointing out that such misdeeds aid the enemy much more than our discussion of them. They are also claiming that the military wouldn't be investigating this event if Time hadn't first begun raising the question. Now congress is even investigating the possibility of a cover-up

I doubt we’ve seen the end of this news story. And to think that I heard about it almost before it was born.