Saturday, December 30, 2006

Parsing the Associated Press on Saddam's demise

There is THIS AP STORY on Saddam's well deserved demise. One particular section struck me as odd as I read it:
U.S. troops cheered as news of Saddam's execution appeared on television at the mess hall at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in eastern Baghdad. But some soldiers expressed doubt that Saddam's death would be a significant turning point for Iraq.

"First it was weapons of mass destruction. Then when there were none, it was that we had to find Saddam. We did that, but then it was that we had to put him on trial," said Spc. Thomas Sheck, 25, who is on his second tour in Iraq. "So now, what will be the next story they tell us to keep us over here?"
Note carefully the word "some" and the single example that follows it. Knowing AP's history and extreme bias, it must have pained them greatly that they were unable to scare up enough moonbat soldiers to warrant the word "many" and had to settle for "some" and a single lonely example.

This particular choice of wording could be no accident, nor was this plainly tortured ploy to inject stealth editorial content into a "hard news" story an accident. One malcontent is not "news". If AP had found ten malcontents at that base and used the word "many" (as would have been warranted in that case) then they would have had a story.

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