Mere Rhetoric: Seattle Times Anti-American "Experts" Proven Wrong Within Hours

It's really amazing how little self-awareness some journalistic outlets have. We live in an age of widespread media criticism, where many media consumers have a working understanding of how news gets produced. You'd think that by now, anyone with a brain would have given up on trying to slip in the "[insert journalist’s opinion here], experts say" headline. As Mickey Kaus has noted:

Hey, I've got analysts too! Many analysts say that "analysts say" pieces are the laziest form of journalism, because the "analysts" usually just happen to say what the journalist himself would say if the rules of journalism permitted him to do so without putting the opinions in the mouths of "analysts." Meanwhile, analysts who might say something else get ignored. But at least "analysts say" pieces, analysts say, should quote some analysts saying the things the analysts are supposed to have said. Otherwise the impression is overwhelming that the journalist who wrote the thing is just spouting off. According to observers.

The only thing that could possibly be more embarrassing than a transparently biased "experts say" headline is when those experts are so obviously wrong that they must have been cherry-picked. Let's pretend that it's OK for a journalist to go out and pick "experts" on only one side of a debate, because somehow the journalist has unilaterally divined that those "experts" are right. Surely that has to be the minimum standard - because if the journalist is headlining with one-sided "experts" who are wrong, then it's begins to sound dangerously like fibbing. Which you still get fired for, right?

So in the last few hours, Ethiopian troops have begun to score major victories against the Somali, Al-Qaeda backed Islamists who instigated a war against them. That's the story that Reuters is running. It's also the story that Xinhua is running. In fact, that's the story that just about everyone is running..

But not the Seattle Times. Instead, they found experts who - having looked at Al Qaeda losing in the last day or so - have concluded that Al Qaeda is actually winning. Brilliant!.

With due respect, they must not be very good at either predicting or evaluating events in their region of expertise. Given their obvious lack of insight, one wonders what the Seattle Times found so attractive about their opinion.

Previously: AFP Anti-Israel Bias Reaches Sublime Proportions, AP Bias Alert Level: Obvious (Grandma Suicide Bomber Edition), European Media Bias - Really?