All Blog Posts from Public Eye

More than a week after its original report that 1,300 Iraqis had been killed as a result of violence following the bombing of a Shiite shrine – a number disputed by the U.S. military and several Iraqi officials and one that has not yet been corroborated by any other news outlet – the Washington Post today offers another defense of the paper’s statistics.

The day after the number was cited, The Post offered a further explanation of its report “but it took a strange, strained and stilted form,” wrote CJR Daily’s Gal Beckerman, who continued: “…it doesn't serve to explain the bizarre gap between its numbers and everyone else's.” In that story, The Post spoke with the U.N.’s former human rights chief for Iraq (who was located in Australia), who cited “pressure” on Baghdad morgue officials not to investigate the “the soaring number of apparent cases of execution and torture in the country.” The story also noted that “Gen. Ali Shamarri of the Interior Ministry’s statistics department put the toll at 1,077.”

Today’s story anonymously quotes an Iraqi Health Ministry official, who said that the Shiite party had “ordered that government hospitals and morgues catalogue deaths caused by bombings or clashes with insurgents, but not by execution-style shootings.” In addition to the Post’s original source for the 1,300 number (an anonymous Baghdad morgue worker) the Post cites the Health Ministry official and two more sources --“an official with the Interior Ministry and an international official in Baghdad,” -- who “have put the toll at 1,000 or more, though none gave a toll as high as 1,300." In his summary of the piece, Slate’s Eric Umansky makes an interesting catch:

Last week, the Post actually cited a named source, a Gen. Ali Shamarri. Other papers haven't been able to find him; Iraqi officials say they have no record of such a general. And curiously, he's not mentioned in today's Post.

Read full post…

Quantifying the death toll among Iraqis has become an increasingly difficult process and an article in today’s Washington Post reveals as much. The Post's count of Iraqi deaths following the most recent spate of violence in Iraq is far higher than that reported by the U.S. military and other media outlets, which has caused some controversy. The Post reported today that the violence following last week’s bombing of a Shiite shrine has killed “more than 1,300 Iraqis, making the past few days the deadliest of the war outside of major U.S. offensives…” Editor & Publisher offers a good background on the issue:

Iraq Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari called such high death totals "inaccurate and exaggerated," without mentioning the Post.

In comparison, The New York Times reported Monday that the recent violence "brought the country to the brink of civil war and left at least 200 dead." Others had produced similar figures.

On Tuesday, the Times increased that number to "379 dead and 458 wounded, the nation's Council of Ministers said today. At least 246 people in Baghdad alone were killed, the top two city morgue officials said."

It's unclear why these numbers remain so much below those cited by The Washington Post. Iraqi officials on Tuesday challenged the Post's figures.

Amid such confusion, what number is CBS reporting? I spoke to Charlie Kaye, executive producer for CBS News Radio, who said that CBS Radio is currently not reporting any “hard numbers” with their stories related to Iraq, but they did include the Post’s 1,300 number in an earlier report, and attributed it to the Post. They reported the number “based on guidance from the [CBS] bureau in Baghdad” and based on the fact that the Post reporter obtained the information after visiting the morgue in person. CBSNews.com's current story on Iraq violence cites various outlets' counts, including the Washington Post's and the number cited by the Iraqi Cabinet (379 killed.)

Kaye said he expects some “further clarification” from CBS’ Baghdad bureau, which is currently looking into the number. Kaye emphasized that obtaining such information is particularly difficult, adding that Associated Press reporters attempted to gain access to the morgue today, but were denied.

Read full post…