November 15, 2003

Typically Reuters

The Reuters News Service, now famous for the reporting philosophy, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter", has published a list of the "worst terror attacks" since 9/11/01.

Charles Johnson of LGF points out the glaring omission of ANY of the suicide bombings by Palestinian terrorists in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, many of which had higher death tolls than other incidents that are listed. Since the death toll itself is apparently not the qualifying criterion for the list, one can only infer that the particular variety of human being victimized in these attacks is the reason Reuters feels they are not "bad" enough to be among their "worst".

Well, I guess it's either that, or a Reuters definition of "terrorism"that excludes the massacre of schoolchildren by blowing up their school buses with suicide bombers. Not sure which it might be. Either way, as Johnson says, "This is, purely and simply, lying by omission."

UPDATE 11/15: The blogosphere works. CNN has taken down the "Worst Terror Attacks" list, as you found out if you clicked on the above link. It is somewhat comforting to know that as a whole, the blogosphere acts as a watchdog of sorts for major media. What's discomforting is to realize how long they got away with the bias and distortion that is now pointed out by bloggers.

Posted by dan at November 15, 2003 2:17 PM