Here's my position, and I think it's one that can be defended: if a newspaper (or other media outlet) covers a story, and subsequent developments show that fundemental elements of that story as it was covered were essentially incorrect (in other words, we aren't talking about a correction, a situation where the paper got something wrong, but a situation where the situation developed, proving the original interpretation false) then that outlet owes it to its audience to provide that information with as much emphasis as the original story received.
If the original story was on the front page, you can't tell readers that new developments have shown that story false in a single sentence on page A-32 that makes no reference to the first story.
This is apparently the position of the Times' Public Editor, who wrote about the practice of not acknowledging the original story in the email he wrote about the story we followed here, the Palestine Road incident in Iraq. He called it a "rowback," and said he would be talking to Times editors about it.
They aren't listening.
Because in an article in today's Times comes the Mother of All Rowbacks.
Was the question of the 16 words ever prominently mentioned in Times stories?
Is the Senate committee's disclosure that the famous 16 words, originally brought into ill-repute by an oped published by the Times, were actually accurate, given the same degree of emphasis?
Today on page A-12, not on the front page, comes a story headlined, "How Niger Uranium Story Defied Wide Skepticism." Now, that suggests to the casual reader that this is a story about how the uranium story kept going despite skepticism about it. But, there was always skepticism about it, and it kept going for awhile anyway, so it looks like a somewhat historical piece, not a piece that presents relatively breaking news.
The first two grafs, the reader has a right to assume, present the frame:
Soon after the Central Intelligence Agency heard in 2001 that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Niger to build nuclear bombs, the first doubts about the account were raised. But the story was included in President Bush's State of the Union address last year despite sustained skepticism by the State Department, disclaimers by another intelligence agency, assertions that key documents were faked and a dearth of evidence that eventually led C.I.A. officials to grow wary.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, in a report released Friday, has provided the most comprehensive review of what went wrong in the Niger case, which became a major political issue last year after documents that described the uranium deal were discredited as forgeries.
This is, in other words, a story about the history of the Niger story as we understood it when we picked up our paper this morning. There's nothing in this frame that tells the reader that the real news is that what the report says is also that the Niger story didn't go south, that there's something new in the report, that in fact the news here is that the report says our understanding of the Niger story needs to do a 180.
If someone looked at those two grafs they might easily think, pfft, why do I care what the history is? I know the upshot.
Not until the 11th graf does the actual rowback even begin!
First revised claim: who suggested Wilson be sent to Niger
Instead of assigning a trained intelligence officer to the Niger case, though, the C.I.A. sent a former American ambassador, Joseph Wilson, to talk to former Niger officials. His wife, Valerie Plame, was an officer in the counterproliferation division, and she had suggested that he be sent to Niger, according to the Senate report.
That finding contradicts previous statements by Mr. Wilson, who publicly criticized the Bush administration last year for using the Niger evidence to help justify the war in Iraq. After his wife's identity as a C.I.A. officer was leaked to the news media, Mr. Wilson said she had not played a role in his assignment, and argued that her C.I.A. employment had been disclosed to punish him. The F.B.I. is investigating the source of the leak about Ms. Plame, which was classified information. (My emph.)
You can argue, of course, that by mentioning that this contradicts previous statements made by Wilson, it doesn't quite fit the defintion of a rowback, since this acknowledges the existence of prior stories. But, you know, lets go by the spirit and not the letter of the law here. But maybe that should have been the lead graf?
Second revised claim: Wilson actually found a possible Iraq effort to purchase uranium
Mr. Wilson went to Niger in February 2002 and met with the former prime minister, former minister of mines and other business contacts. In his C.I.A. debriefing, Mr. Wilson reported that the former prime minister said he knew of no contracts with any so-called rogue nations while he was prime minister, from 1997 through 1999. But he did say that in June 1999, a businessman insisted that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss expanded commercial relations with Baghdad, according to the Senate report. The meeting took place, but the prime minister said he never pursued the idea because of United Nations sanctions on Iraq. (My emph.)
No deal, no shipments, but a clear indication of interests, and as we know, enough to picque CIA interest in the story (not that that part of the Senate report appears in this story.)
Third revised claim: the Vice President knew
Analysts at the C.I.A. did not believe that Mr. Wilson had provided significant information, so the agency did not brief Mr. Cheney about it, despite his clear interest in the issue, the Senate found.
What about the "kicker?" (Some people argue that the last graf matters, that even if people don't read the whole article, they will skip to the end.)
The next day, in his State of the Union speech, Mr. Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
His address suddenly gave the uranium issue high visibility, but it could not withstand global scrutiny. In February 2003, Washington sent copies of the Iraq-Niger documents to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which monitors nuclear proliferation. The next month, the agency determined that the documents were forgeries. On March 11, the C.I.A. issued its own assessment, in which it said it could not dispute the atom agency's conclusion.
But nothing here makes clear that the report makes clear that the forgeries were irrelevant to Wilson's story, and irrelevant to the Brit's conclusions (hence to the famous 16 words.)
So it's a rowback, but a grudging and graceless one.
Now, I'm interested in the question of coverage, presentation. Mr. Djerjerian is interested in historical accuracy, and it's worth taking a look at his take as well.
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