ANOTHER JOURNALISTIC SCANDAL
Reuters completely changed the tone of and added new material to a story Deanna Wrenn filed on Jessica Lynch's homecoming. Opinion Journal reprints a damning piece Wrenn originally wrote for her home paper, the Charleston Daily Mail. You need to read the whole thing, because the details are damning. Here's the lead:
CHARLESTON, W.Va.--This is from a story that Reuters news service ran this week with my byline:
Jessica Lynch, the wounded Army private whose ordeal in Iraq was hyped into a media fiction of U.S. heroism, was set for an emotional homecoming on Tuesday. . . . Media critics say the TV cameras will not show the return of an injured soldier so much as a reality-TV drama co-produced by U.S. government propaganda and credulous reporters."
Got problems with that?
I do, especially since I didn't write it.
Here's what I sent last week to Reuters, a British news agency that compiles news reports from all over the world:
ELIZABETH--In this small county seat with just 995 residents, the girl everyone calls Jessi is a true heroine--even if reports vary about Pfc. Jessica Lynch and her ordeal in Iraq.
"I think there's a lot of false information about her story," said Amber Spencer, a clerk at the town's convenience store.
Palestine resident J.T. O'Rock was hanging an American flag and yellow ribbon on his storefront in Elizabeth in preparation for Lynch's return.
Like many residents here, he considers Lynch a heroine, even if newspaper and TV reports say her story wasn't the same one that originally attracted movie and book deals.
Read the whole thing. What happened to Wrenn, and to her sources, is truly scandalous.