On November 16, FAIR issued an action alert about misleading reporting in the New York Times regarding civilian casualties in Fallujah. FAIR noted that in coverage of the recent U.S.-led assault on the city, the Times characterized civilian deaths from the April siege of Fallujah as “unconfirmed” on three separate occasions (“mostly unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties”–11/8/04; “unconfirmed reports of heavy civilian casualties”–11/9/04; “unconfirmed reports of large civilian casualties”–11/15/04).
What follows is the response from Times public editor Daniel Okrent, which was posted on the paper’s website (12/1/04):
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Reporting Civilian Casualties
Since the beginning of the U.S. action in Fallujah, I’ve received many queries, and quite a few criticisms, about the way the Times has characterized reports of civilian casualties there and elsewhere in Iraq. Why, I’m asked, does the Times insist on referring to “unconfirmed civilian casualties,” especially when hard figures have been offered by both hospital personnel and reputable aid agencies?
The issue is both valid and vexing. Times reporters (as well as those from other news organizations, of course) are risking their lives when venturing into Fallujah and other battle zones, and I don’t think anyone can expect them to publish, without qualification, purported facts they cannot verify or attribute with confidence. In a war such as this one, even the relief agencies, whom I too regard as impartial sources, cannot make the distinction between those of the dead who were civilians and those who were fighters in civilian clothing.
Further complicating factors were discussed in “How Many Iraqis Are Dying? By One Count, 208 in a Week,” by Norimitsu Onishi, which ran on Page One on October 19.
But I do think the Times could be more forthcoming than it has been, citing as often as possible figures of civilian deaths reported by reputable sources, carefully attributed. Such attribution would sensibly also include pertinent information (such as the issue of civilian clothing) that would provide readers with a fuller understanding of the circumstances, and enough context to shape their own views of the situation. Foreign editor Susan Chira agrees: “We should strive whenever space constraints allow to describe fully the range of estimates about civilian casualties, quoting relief agencies when possible,” she told me in an e-mail today.
Understanding her concern about space, I nonetheless hope to see closer attention paid to civilian casualties in future dispatches.
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FAIR thanks Okrent for responding to the activists who wrote to the paper; we certainly agree that the problem is “both valid and vexing.” FAIR also seconds Okrent’s hope that we will “see closer attention paid to civilian casualties in future dispatches.”
But Okrent’s response, along with one from Times editor Andrea Kannapell (full text below), fails to address the core criticism of the alert. Kannapell argues that the Times “did not suggest that there were no civilian casualties,” which was never FAIR’s contention. FAIR’s criticism was that the Times repeatedly cast doubt on reports that civilian deaths during the April offensive in Fallujah were “large” or “heavy.” That there were, indeed, heavy civilian casualties in Fallujah has been affirmed not only by local hospital officials, but by refugees, independent observers in the city (including journalists) and human rights groups. Iraq Body Count, which only includes multiply-cited reports from doctors and eyewitnesses, found at least 308 women and children alone were killed in Fallujah in April (iraqbodycount.net, 10/26/04)– deaths that could quite confidently be distinguished from “fighters in civilian clothing.”
Even the U.S.-backed Allawi government, while claiming that civilian deaths were lower than announced by those on the scene (Associated Press, 4/22/04), acknowledged that hundreds of people were killed, including 52 women and children– a toll that certainly qualifies as “large” or “heavy.”
Only the U.S. military, which bears responsibility for these killings, denies that they took place– without offering its own estimate of how many civilians died, or providing any evidence that the independent tallies are exaggerated. To accept such undocumented assertions as canceling out documented reports from a wide variety of sources is not to be “cautious” (as Kannapell describes it), nor is it evidence of journalistic neutrality. It is instead taking the side of the U.S. military.
That the Times does indeed see the conflict in Fallujah through the Pentagon’s eyes was shown by an article, published the day after FAIR’s alert, which reported that “inflated civilian casualty figures from Fallujah General Hospital inflamed opinion throughout the country, driving up the political costs of the conflict and ultimately forcing the American occupation authority to order a withdrawal.” The Times has never offered any evidence that the number of civilian dead was “inflated”; publishing such a claim as fact is doing U.S. government propaganda work, not journalism.
Kannapell’s full letter to FAIR appears below:
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Dear FAIR,
You have expressed concern about our representation of civilian casualties in Fallujah during the American offensive in April. This is a very serious topic, on which much remains unclear.
At the time of the offensive, there were indeed reports coming out of the Fallujah hospital of many hundreds of civilian deaths. We included those reports in our articles at the time, sourced to the hospital and to the wire service reporters who spoke directly to the officials there.
We also reported the American military’s statements that it could offer no estimates of civilian casualties. The American military believed that the counts from the hospital were inflated and untrustworthy, which is one of the reasons that, in the most recent offensive in Fallujah, occupying the hospital was among its first goals.
We did not suggest that there were no civilian casualties; we reported the fact that people were seen carrying bodies into a soccer field converted into a cemetery.
We were frustrated, as were many newspapers, in having so little clarity about what was happening in Fallujah. At that time, we had no reporters embedded with troops there, which would have given us at least some ability to judge for ourselves and to interview some residents about what they had seen. The Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post, which had embeds there at the time, have also remained cautious in reporting numbers of civilian casualties, similarly reporting both comments from hospital officials and contrasting comments from American military officials. The Post, in an article published on November 17, referred to “still-unconfirmed reports of high civilian casualties.”
Still, in late April, our correspondent Christine Hauser was able to go to Fallujah, and reported carefully on the soccer field-turned-cemetery. She also reported the contradictory estimates of civilian casualties, including the Iraqi interim government’s estimate of 271 civilian casualties. That article is appended below.
Our October 19 article, which you cite, delved deep into the many issues that make it difficult to count civilian deaths, including contradictory estimates from Iraqi and American sources and the problems with trying to distinguish rebels from civilians. But we have never suggested there have been no civilian deaths–indeed, we have reported on many such deaths, in official accounts as well as feature articles.
Our reports of civilians leaving Fallujah before the recent assault were not based only on what military sources said, but also on our own reporters’ experience. They saw very few civilians within the city; articles we printed during the offensive included several sightings of civilians–as rarities.
Regards,
Andrea Kannapell
Staff editor
Foreign Desk
