A brief experiment with Truth

In my previous post, I mentioned in passing that an article by Declan Walsh in the NY Times about the war in Tigray seemed to have reversed facts and created a false narrative about who was the aggressor.  Well, this subplot took a dramatic turn today.  Long story short, in addition to the blog post, I asked him publicly repeatedly, and today he publicly admitted it! It is an extraordinary admission but since the editors of the NY Times are apparently sweeping this reversal under the rug, I would like to  relay the story more completely here.

On June 21, the NY Times published this article: "From Nobel Hero to Driver of War, Ethiopia’s Leader Faces Voters -- Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed plunged Ethiopia into a war in the Tigray region that spawned atrocities and famine".   It's quite long and there's lots of "color", but it basically has two pieces of new information.

First about Feltman meeting Abiy in Addis Abeba in May. The meeting itself is not news, what's being reported is an anecdote about how the meeting went, showing Abiy trying to clumsily charm Feltnan and failing, with details like coffee spills, etc. to show the info comes from someone who was there.  So basically this is relaying  the story of the meeting from Feltman's perspective. Not really reporting but ok...  

Second, it reports that Coons spoke to Abiy in "early November". What happened in that conversation is the real substance of the article. Here's what it said:

• "Washington" heard about the war before it started 
• Coons called Abiy and tried to talk him out of starting the war
• Abiy wanted the war and predicted swift victory before it started
• There is no mention in the article of the actual event that started the war, namely the Nov 4 attack by  TPLF on the national army. 

The story a normal reader would get is basically that the Ethiopian government was the aggressor against TPLF.  

But if you are not naive a  few things jump out. 

• First it is saying the call happened in early November before the start of the war, and before the US election, so it must have been Nov 1-3.  At that time Coons was running for reelection.  It is hard to believe that a US Senator is making phone calls to foreign leaders in the last 48 hours of his own election campaign.  
• Second, the reason Senator Coons has been involved lately is as a personal emissary of President Biden. They are both from Delaware, Coons took  Biden's seat in the Senate when Biden became VP, and it is not unusual for a sitting president or a president-elect to have personal emissaries do some international diplomacy for them.  What is unusual is for this to happen before he's elected.  And it is even more surprising that candidate Biden would be focused on Ethiopia while he is in the final hours of his own very intense presidential campaign!  
• Third, consider how might have "word reached Washington" about a war that hasn't started. Who gets "word" about alleged secret military plans of a foreign country? Is the claim that Biden was getting secret foreign intelligence while he was still a candidate? The Trump adminstration and Biden transition  were not even cooperating *after* the election, so if there really was a secret channel of intelligence to Biden this would be news!
• Fourth a quick look at Senator Coons website shows that his calls are logged.  For example the Nov 23 call is there and is consistent with what was widely reported at the time.  But there is no record of a call in early November. Strange exception.

What makes more sense is that there was no pre-Nov 3 conversation. It was the Nov 23 conversation. By taking what Abiy said three weeks after the war was started by TPLF, and placing it before Nov 4, the article creates a false narrative about who the aggressor is. Literally reversing the truth!

This was part of a pattern in all the other articles by the same Declan Walsh. In a June 28 article he wrote ENDF "invaded" Tigray back in November, a strange statement considering ENDF was attacked on its own bases in Tigray.  (I'm using links to tweets as neutral timestamps since publication dates on nytimes.com can change).  In May he wrote that "Abiy began a military operation on Nov. 4" , as if he just happened for no apparent reason.  In February article, he describes the beginning of the war by saying "Abiy launched a surprise offensive".  A surprise! A few people have noted this amnesia. By June, he had written over 6300 words in 4 articles on the war without once mentioning the Nov 4 attacks. The phrase "Nobel prize" appears in every single article in sentences with a negative or ironic tone. Every Ethiopian government or army action is portrayed as if it was done personally by Abiy himself on a whim, a typical "third world dictator" trope.  But the Nov 4 attack by TPLF was not mentioned, not once. Finally, after months, and thousands more words, perhaps as a result of the criticism,  "Nov 4" appeared in the 20th paragraph  of an article on July 3. In the most recent article, perhaps he has retreated  to  using passive voice formulations like ""war erupted in November".  All this to say this detail appeared on Jun 21 against a backdrop of consistent, shall we say, omission.

But this time it was more than just an omission and subjective tone, it was a blatant true or false question. So I asked him directly on Twitter

Convo between Coons & Abiy was on Nov 23, NOT before Nov 3 as you claim: https://t.co/JHIzenPLGo
Or was it a secret one? Changing timeline to reverse cause and effect? You did this in May 13 and Feb 27 articles. https://t.co/s8qHCR1KTq pic.twitter.com/LxJa5KFDSR

— Nemo Semret (@nemozen) June 21, 2021

And again two weeks later.

Finally today, (thanks to @Noslata and many others) Declan Walsh responded! He said the article was updated, and blamed the falsehood on Coons misremembering the dates.

After publication Senator Coons said he misremembered the date and the story has been corrected and appended. https://t.co/nuHeSHaokS

— Declan Walsh (@declanwalsh) July 14, 2021

Here's what the updated article says as of now 

So basically the main point, the meat of the story, is now completely different. 

Vindicated!  

But I'm not celebrating. The whole thing is still a loss for Truth. Either the reporter was  lying in the article and is also lying now on Twitter when he blames it on Coons; or he simply writes  what a politician tells him without even the most rudimentary checking --  more secretary than reporter. One might wonder how a "bureau chief" of a major newspaper could be such a clumsy liar or so gullible. I guess we are lucky that we are dealing with the B team here. Check this out:  "The New York Times shows how not to write an Africa job advert" a hilarious deconstruction of a job ad. That might even be the actual one that was filled by Declan Walsh!  Reading it you can totally see how the position could go to second-rate hacks who are easily manipulated by their sources.  This is not the first time either -- I've complained before.

More depressing is that on the article itself, even now there is no indication that a correction was made! No editor's note, no diff.  It just says updated as if it was a minor punctuation change.  It's hard to overstate the impact of this.... One of the most influential newspapers published a completely false narrative about one of the biggest most tragic events, then after millions had read it, quietly reversed the facts.  It's much worse than the old problem of print corrections not getting as much visibility as the original falsehood. In this case the damage is done and what little evidence there was is erased....  

Another disappointment is that  this  July 11 artcile in Al Jazeera  covers the same conversation with the same tone, and misses the opportunity to clearly put in the right context (i.e. after not before Nov 4). Before today's admission by Declan, I had asked the author privately if he had more info on this conversation but didn't hear back.  

So what can we do?   When this kind of stuff happened leading up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the NY Times played an infamous role. Here is their own list of articles that contributed to deceit about the war. Their ombudsman aka public editor, whose role was to hold the paper  accountable on behalf of readers wrote a scathing rebuke of the Time's failures. Sadly, this position was abolished in 2017 it seems. So I resorted to asking the question on Twitter. And that is the silver lining. You are now the public editors!  And unraveling falsehoods  can now happen in a few days instead of years.  And of course, the evidence was never really erased merely swept under the rug. We can see on archive.org that the change occured between June 25 and June 27.  Also I usually don't grab screenshots but for some reason something made me latch on to this  on June 21.   The summer solstice maybe?  Anyway  I hope  this little experiment shows there's hope for truth. Strengthen your mind we are living in serious times

P.S. The title of this post is borrowed from the autobiography of M. K. Gandhi, one of my favorite books. 

Airline fees and the unbelievable worthlessness of CNN

Earlier this week I stumbled upon a mini-editorial on CNN, wherein the anchor "Campbell" (not sure if it's his first or last name, I think they try to market them like that) went off on the topic of the airline industry charging extra fees. That is, charges that are not part of the ticket price, like the fees for luggage, or food, extra leg room etc. He was all up in arms because new data showed it was EIGHT BILLION dollars last year. He said that airlines are profiting from your discomfort, his face running the gamut of expressions from mocking to outraged. Basically he painted a picture of an industry conspiring to deceptively price gouge.

But here's the thing. In the entire piece, he failed to mention a) whether overall cost of air travel has gone up or down; b) whether the airline industry as a whole was profitable or not. Without those two additional data points, his conclusions are entirely unsupported!

What is definitely happening is a shift to more granular pricing. For example, let's say 50% of travelers have luggage and 50% don't. Say previously everyone paid $400 for a ticket and now it's $350 for the seat + $100 for luggage. Why is that bad? You can argue that it it's annoying to have the cost broken down in pieces, or you can argue that it's great to have more flexibility. I, for one, am very happy to trade a luggage quota I don't use for more leg room! Whatever your opinion, in our example, since the average cost is still $400, you can't say that they are "profiting at your expense". Yet that's exactly what CNN did, without presenting any evidence that the total cost is higher! As a matter of fact, the cost of air travel has been going down for decades and as far as I can tell that trend hasn't reversed recently.

Second, is there price gouging, i.e. excessive profits due to collusion in the industry?Actually, the airline industry "as a whole has made a cumulative loss during its 100-year history". So while it's possible for price gouging to exist in on routes without competition, it's impossible that it is occurring on the industry as a whole. Yet that is what CNN is claiming without any qualifiers.

Wow! You couldn't design a more logically flawed editorial if you tried.

This would be a perfect opportunity for a warning against Gell-Man amnesia, if I didn't already believe that CNN is completely worthless. The only time I see it is accidentally while looking for sports.

Update: many years after I originally wrote this post, I learned the CNN guy's name is Don Lemon. He became famous, but unfortunately his journalism never improved. This little episode from 2010 was predictor of what was to come.

On Optics (channeling Safire)

William Safire recently died. Even though I disagreed with most of his political opinions, I loved and will miss his columns, especially "On Language". So I want to note his passing here, with my own little post on language. Now of course I don't aspire to be as entertaining or educational as him... so I'll just rant about something I find annoying.

Politicians and journalists in the US have started using the word "optics" when they mean "perception" or "appearance" . E.g. instead of "this looks bad" they say "the optics of this are not good"..... urgh! Extremely annoying fad! Here are two quick examples I just found using my favorite search engine. The first one is from a politician in 2008:

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa [...] said that terrorists would dance in the streets if Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, is elected president [...] because Obama's middle name is "Hussein," his father's Muslim roots, and his appearance -- or "optics," as King put it. "I'll just say this that when you think about the optics of a Barack Obama potentially getting elected President of the United States -- and I mean, what does this look like to the rest of the world? What does it look like to the world of Islam? "

Well Mr. Congressman, the optics of this are that you are a pretentious buffoon who thinks that borrowing scientific sounding words makes you look smart. (Oh and it seems you are also a bigot... but that's off-topic here.) The second one is a more recent example from an actual writer this time:

"In response to the leak, the White House kicks into high damage-control mode [...], but even here shows some clumsiness, at least regarding civil-military optics: the 25 hours for the Olympics vs. 25 minutes for McChrystal optic..."

The "McChrystal optic"? To me those two words invoke a beam of light going through a solid material whose constituent atoms are arranged an orderly repeating pattern. Which of course has nothing to do with what (I think) the writer meant to communicate -- something about Gen. McChrystal and perceptions. The faddish metaphor failed, the sentence is ugly and borderline incomprehensible. Way to go, Mr. Professional Writer.

I think this usage of "optics" right now, in 2009, is just at the point where it's perfect indicator of a certain kind of pomposity. Normal people haven't started using it (and hopefully never will), but it seems to be trendy with hacks who either can't come up with better metaphors or fear that simple words would expose their paucity of meaning. Am I being to harsh ? OK, let's give that last writer the benefit of the doubt, and see what else he's written... in an even more recent post, the following:

"President Obama and his advisors seem to be wrestling with this fundamental issue in Afghanistan and the optics and the body language...."

Bingo! Optics and body language.... just horrible isn't it?

It's not that I am just a cranky conservative when it comes to language -- far from it, I love its constant evolution -- slang, jargon, lingo.. it's all great! But that doesn't mean that all neologisms are good. It doesn't mean that "any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes", to quote George Orwell. For a new word, usage, phrase, or expression to work, for it to be cool, in any language "what is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around."

R.I.P. William Safire.

Gell-Mann Amnesia

Last November, I came across this piece by Michael Crichton. I found the following bit brilliant:

Media carries with it a credibility that is totally undeserved. You have all experienced this, in what I call the Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. (I call it by this name because I once discussed it with Murray Gell-Mann, and by dropping a famous name I imply greater importance to myself, and to the effect, than it would otherwise have.)

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all.

But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.

Brilliant! It reminds me of my rants about the NY Times. Yet I still buy it most days.... Amnesia.

Note: when I wrote that post, in November 2007, the Times' newsstand price had just increased from $1 to $1.25. Now it's $2. 100% increase in less than two years!

Letter to the editor

After reading this opinion piece from the Irish Independent News (archive link)...

Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:22:44 -0400
From: "Nemo Semret" 
To: kmyers@independent.ie, letters@independent.ie
Subject: Re: Africa is giving nothing to anyone -- apart from AIDS

Dear Kevin Myers,

I agree wholeheartedly with your article.

Indeed, it is a melancholy object to those who walk through that
continent of Africa, when they see the streets, and "vast savanahs"
crowded with "sexualy hyperactive indigents" (as you so aptly put it),
importuning Europeans for aid every few years, generation after
generation. I agree with you that the prodigious number of children
they produce is, given the growing uncertainty of the global economy,
an unacceptable economic, environmental and aesthetic burden on the
lifestyles of the deserving people of the First World.

Ethiopia, as you point out is a particularly galling example. At 80M
population today, with a birth rate of  3-4% and a net population
growth of over 2%, the country is producing 1.6M new mouths to feed
per year. Of those, perhaps 100,000 have any chance of having a
lifestyle that you would consider decent. That leaves 1.5M useless
mouths to feed, 750,000 AIDS conveying organs of each gender, 3M
Kalashnikov wielding arms, etc.

At the same time, China and India are earning their place at the table
of the global economy, but in the process putting pressure on the
world's resources. In particular,  as has been well publicized, their
growing appetite for meat is driving up prices of meat, of soybeans
and corn further down the food chain, and even of oil and gas.

Having turned my thoughts for many years upon this important subject,
and maturely weighed the several schemes of other projectors, I have
always found them grossly mistaken in the computation.  The Gates
Foundation as you point out  is misguidedly deploying considerable
resources to make the problems worse by preventing malaria from doing
it's natural job. I would add that the US government, the United
Nations, the Global fund, and various and sundry funds dedicated to
enabling Africans with AIDS to continue spreading the disease are
tremendously counterproductive.

I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope
will not be liable to the least objection. I have been assured by very
knowing people of my acquaintance that a young healthy child well
nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome
food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or fried; and I make no doubt
that it will equally serve in a lo mein or a curry with rice.

I do therefore humbly offer it to your consideration that of the
previously computed 1.5M excess Ethiopians produced annually, 150,000
be kept for breeding, and the remaining 1.35M,  at a year old, be
offered in the sale to reputable global agribusiness corporations;
always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last
month, so as to render them plump and fat for a good table. This
supply of about 15,000 metric tonnes per year of additional
high-protein food will, if appropriately marketed to the growing
markets of Asia, relieve global prices of a wide range of connected
commodities by up to 10%. Your average countryman stands to save at
least 100 Euros per year in gasoline alone!

I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious
and many, as well as of the highest importance. The risk of AIDS
bearing immigrants will be reduced, the reduction in civil wars in
Africa will free up more television time for entertainment in the
First World,  increasing not only viewing pleasure but also
advertising revenues and thus commerce and overall economic
well-being, and of course, the long-suffering consciences of the West,
rather than needing to be relieved by constant doses of aid-giving,
will be fully cured of  that most senseless and nagging feeling of
guilt. Many other advantages might be enumerated.

I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least
personal interest in endeavoring to promote this necessary work,
having no other motive than the public good of the deserving First
World, by advancing its trade, providing food for its growing
partners, and relieving its citizens. Though I am Ethiopian myself, I
have no children by which I can propose to get a single penny.

Sincerely,

Yonatan Fetanu

Collected rants about a certain Mr. Jeffrey Gettleman

Over the last few months, I have had quite a bit to say to
Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times. But like Don Quichotte at the windmills I waive and waive my sword, and he refuses to fight back! What a coward. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It all started out nicely about 4 months ago... with a front page article about Ethiopia on the NY Times. Here's what I had to say on 21 Jun 2007:

The journalist was clearly sympathetic to the ONLF .. but still I was glad that article appeared on the cover of the Times. Somalia was a big mistake by Meles. A Times article wont make things worse... Instead of worrying about the Times, the outside force they should be concerned about is the mullahs in the madrassas preaching about christian Ethiopians raping and killing muslims on behalf of Bush.

At least this article will make things better because the sooner they feel pressure from outside and the stronger it is, the better chance there is that ET can get the out of Somalia, bring in the AU and de-escalate the situation in Ogaden.

On a month later, our destinies crossed paths again when he wrote a more aggressive piece about the Ogaden region. Here's what I wrote in response on July 24, 2007:

True the fact is that ONLF is resurgent, there's a huge crisis in
Ogaden and that is a big story that deserves to be on the cover.

But this guy is either biased or irresponsible. He repeats the
allegation that three guys who spoke up at a meeting were tortured and killed
by the govt. He simply echoes Ogaden Online, adding that they have "a
network of reporters and contributors, some equipped with satellite
phones." Isn't that a pathetic way to validate their legitimacy? For all we
know it could be the ONLF office in Toronto that runs that website.

Moreover, he knows who the alleged victims are (the guys spoke on a NY
Times video!!!). And he can't verify it? He can't even get an official
response or statement from the govt about this? He has quotes from the
govt spokesman for other things but not this. WTF?! He didn"t have
time to call back before the deadline? The dog ate the response? We're
talking about 3 specifc guys who were tortured and killed allegedly
because of the Times material. It's a disgraceful level of investigation.

Hopefully we'll soon know whether the truth is that it's ONLF
propaganda or a government atrocity but it won't be thanks to Jeffrey Gettleman
-- the new Judith Miller... Pffff! Shame on the Times. Plus they just
raised the daily price to $1.25! I swear I'm this close to dumping the
old grey lady

Finally, the epic showdown on Oct 2, 2007. As you can see the temperature rose

Check this out: "A calm voice from embattled Eritrea" http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/world/africa/02eritrea.html
by.... you guessed it! Our hero Jeffrey Gettleman, aka Judith Miller the Second. Yes the same Jeffrey "excuse me while I regurgitate ONLF press releases" Gettleman who we last saw a couple of months ago in the thread below.

This time Isaias is the subject of Gettleman's fantasy. Acoording to the article, Isaias is simply a righteous guy, leader of a mighty little country in a fight against superpowers, who don't like it simply because it's "one small voice"! Besides the noble and righteous struggle against superpowers, Eritrea has a few mundane little economic challenges. But the only thing holding back the flourishing of democracy and growth of the economy is... you guessed it, the evil big neighbor to the south. To cap it off, Gellman says "... Mr. Isaias’s mustached face, which has been likened to an African version of Tom Selleck." Seriously. They actually printed that. I swear I expected the article to continue: "After the blowjob, Isu asked me if it was as good for me as it was for him". Seriously.
In fact if you read it carefully, there are no meaningful facts at all, no sign that any pointed questions were asked, nothing but a glowing portrait of Issayas, exactly as he would want himself portrayed, a calm nice guy, with hobbies, no pretensions, but idealist, fighting for justice.

Last time I was angry at the Times, now shock, disbelief.... What comes next again? Weyne weyne... New York Times... Anyway forget them, others are doing quality reporting and analysis, I just came across the example pasted below.

From http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/08/05/ethiop16594.htm

[...]

"Ethiopia has often justified military action in Somalia on grounds of cooperation between what it calls "terrorist" groups in Somalia and the rebellion in Ogaden. The ONLF certainly has strong ethnic and political links to Somali insurgents now fighting against the Ethiopian military presence in Somalia. It may have decided to escalate its rebellion in Ogaden in response to Ethiopia's full-scale military intervention in Somalia in December last year.

Now there are reliable reports that, as a result of Ethiopian military pressure inside Somalia, Somali insurgents including members the militant Islamist al-Shabaab have sought refuge in Ogaden where they could be regrouping. Thus instead of containing and calming the situation in Somalia, the actions of Ethiopia's forces there may well be exacerbating the conflict and regionalising it.

The emerging crisis in the Ogaden is indicative of an increasingly volatile political and military situation in the Horn of Africa. Predictably civilians are bearing the brunt of the crisis both in the Ogaden and in Somalia where hundreds of thousands have been displaced by fighting since the Ethiopian intervention. Predictably human rights abuses and violations of the laws of war are being perpetrated by all sides. It could all get a lot worse, especially if it leads to a resumption of the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

So why isn't the international community doing more to address this crisis. Hasn't the UN being saying for years that crisis prevention is better than cure?

The EU and the United States have significant leverage over Ethiopia in the form of foreign aid and political influence. They should use it instead of turning a blind eye to abuses carried out by the Ethiopian security forces in the name of counter terrorism.

Western support for Ethiopia's counter insurgency efforts in the Horn of Africa is not only morally wrong and riddled with double standards, it is also ineffective and counterproductive. It will lead to the escalation and regionalisation of the conflicts of the region and may well help to radicalise its large and young Muslim population. "