Two different attacks in Baghdad, 11 days apart. Two press releases from the U.S. Military. Two almost identical quotes from “one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified.” From the CNN article covering this phenomenon:
Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, spokesman for the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, said use of the quote was an “administrative error.” He said the military was looking into the matter.
Following are the two quotes as provided by the U.S. military in news releases:
[The July 24] news release said: “The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the ISF and all of Iraq. They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists, said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified.”
The July 13 news release said: “The terrorists are attacking the infrastructure, the children and all of Iraq,’ said one Iraqi man who preferred not to be identified. ‘They are enemies of humanity without religion or any sort of ethics. They have attacked my community today and I will now take the fight to the terrorists.“
In this instance, the source of the misinformation was the U.S. Military. Dan Gillmor, however, lays additional blame on the PR-bullshit-replication culture (I just coined that!) that the news media perpetuates, not only by hinging on press releases as sources, but by themselves maintaining a similar PR-driven releationship with the public. Dan writes:
Look, PR people make up quotes all the time. It’s part of their job.
If you’re in the news business you see this stuff all the time. I mean, when a corproate CEO is quoted as saying, “I am gratified by the performance of our frabjab-widget business unit during the quarter, when the trajectory of widget sales continued to move in a favorable direction,” you can be fairly sure that this line was written, not uttered, and not by the guy being quoted.
Now, I grant that it’s even more stupid than usual for a PR person to use the same (probably fake) quote in separate releases. And you’d think that the military could find a real person to quote. But this kind of thing is only a surprise to people who think that quotes in press releases have actually been spoken out loud by actual people, except on the rarest of occasions.
Call me skeptical, but I have a sneaking suspicion that CNN’s corporate parent indulges in a little creative writing of its own from time to time, even when discussing CNN itself in a press release. For example, it strains my brain to imagine that John Lee, senior vice president, CNN Newsource Sales, really told a PR person: “A more useful Web site continues CNN Newsource’s leadership position in communicating with affiliates, ensuring that they have all the information they need as quickly and reliably as possible from CNN. This newly designed interface is an easy-to-navigate portal that connects affiliates to the world of news. It is an efficient, intuitive, one-screen, information portal that lets each desktop user get immediate, topical information that they need from CNN to produce their local newscasts.”
Just rolls right off the tongue, doesn’t it? The only human-sounding aspect of that quote is the bad grammar.
