PressEthic

As I’ve been reading all the different stories about the Iraqi trenches, I still have no clarity about what we should be taking out of it. All the papers and news sources have covered it very differently, but does this mean they have different agendas? Everyone has a different idea about the most important aspects of the story.

The New York Times definitely makes the trenches themselves the focal point of the story:

The Iraqi government plans to seal off Baghdad within weeks by ringing it with a series of trenches and setting up dozens of traffic checkpoints to control movement in and out of the violent city of seven million people, an Interior Ministry spokesman said Friday.

However, the Times attributes this action to "the Iraqi government," while "American officials said the military had approved of the plan." Whose plan was it?

Also, the Times seems to stress the increase in danger and need for security:

There has been a surge in the number of Iraqis killed execution-style in the last few days, with scores of bodies found across the city despite an aggressive security plan begun last month. The Baghdad morgue has reported that at least 1,535 Iraqi civilians died violently in the capital in August, a 17 percent drop from July but still much higher than virtually all other months.

It seems like the paper is slightly advocating for the building of the trenches, but then they do go into the problems that may arise:

It is unclear whether Baghdad can really be sealed off, given the city’s circumference of about 60 miles. With so much terrain, guerrillas might find areas that are unconstrained by the trenches and checkpoints. On the main roads, traffic could be snarled for miles, especially in the final days of Ramadan, when people travel to celebrate with their families.

In stark contrast, the Los Angeles Times makes U.S. frustration with Iraq the main focal point of the story:

Four months after Iraq's new government took office, U.S. officials are growing impatient with leaders in Baghdad and pushing them to move more quickly on the difficult agenda confronting them.

The article does not even mention the new trench plan until the 8th paragraph. This article really seems to stress how critical security is and the failure of the Iraqi government to provide proper security in Baghdad. Unlike the New York Times, this article seems to emphasize the fact the trench idea was the U.S. push on the Iraqi government:

The plan, announced by Bush during a White House news conference and confirmed by Iraqi officials, is to dig a series of trenches that would form a perimeter of about 60 miles around the city.

The New York Times article said that the idea was proposed by the Iraqi government and approved by the U.S. military, while the LA Times indicates it was the other way around.

What was even more confusing was reading the article Reuters put out, which is actually about how the U.S. denied the trench idea:

The U.S. military denied reports on Saturday that Iraq plans to dig a giant ring of trenches around the city of Baghdad.

The article even points out the New York Times’ mistake:

The New York Times quoted an Interior Ministry spokesman on Saturday as saying the Iraqis would also dig a giant trench around the city of seven million people.

The entire story is not so much about the trenches themselves and the effect they will have, but it is more about how the story got exaggerated by other news sources:

"So it's not a trench. It will be a series using the natural terrain that already exists such as canals, and some obstacles."

These three sources are so different in their coverage of this one event that I am extremely confused about what to believe and what not to believe. How do we determine the facts when they contradict each other?