Go NBC!
By Cori Dauber
Every great once in awhile NBC Nightly News has deigned to mention the UN Oil for Food scandal, either when they haven't been able to avoid it for some reason, or when the New York Times for some odd reason focused on it. But they are always careful to phrase the writing in such a way to make it seem as if the only person to benefit from the scandal was Saddam -- billions and billions of dollars, and apparently, quite mysteriously, everyone let Saddam get away with it with no incentive on their parts whatsoever, because it enriched him (and his cronies) and only him (and his cronies) only, if you were to listen to their reporting (which has typically meant the reporting of Andrea Mitchell.)
Tonight (and, credit where credit is due, this is from Lisa Meyers, not a reporter whose work I've been very complementary about in the past) they have a fascinating story that the oily Tariq Aziz started to sing like a canary almost as soon as he was in custody -- but the really interesting part of the story is that he's not only singing about assassinations, murders, the usual, but also:
U.S. officials say Aziz already has implicated the French and others, claiming payoffs were made with the understanding that recipients would support Iraq on key matters before the U.N.
"He pointed to specific individuals in Russia and France, in the United States — that received favorable treatment," says David Kay.
Now, sources tell NBC News that Aziz has indicated he's finally ready to talk about alleged bribes to U.N. officials. U.N. investigators refuse to comment. (My emph.)
One complaint, though. No doubt he's singing to work a deal. But when a story like this pops up without any context for the audience (say, because the outlet hasn't fully reported things like the Duelfer report) it is problemmatic when the last line of the story is worded this way (and it's the same in print, on the web site, as it was orally, for the broadcast story):
Once Saddam's tireless defender, Aziz is now singing a very different tune, to please his new keeper. (My emph.)
Because while technically quite true, you can see how a viewer could easily interpret that as meaning "he's making stuff up, being creative, doing whatever he needs to, to keep his jailers happy."
But this is still far better then continuing to suggest to the audience that the only benificiaries of UNSCAM were inside Iraq proper.
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