[KS] Garbage in, garbage out!

[Michael Goodwin]

Mark Caprio wrote:

> It seems that the debate over the activities of the
> American troops in Korea at "No gun ri" has turned to
> a question of whether or not the key witnesses to the
> incident were actually there at the time the shooting
> reportedly took place.

I don't think it's much of a "turning point" actually! I think it was more a brief
"dust-up" over some scraps the Pentagon dropped along the trail approximately 13
days ago to throw the hunters off the scent.

Sometime shortly before May 13 the United States Defense Department told the ROK
government that two of the witnesses who had been named in the original Associated
Press reports (the series that took the Pulitzer) had, in fact, not even been in the
No Gun Ri area on the day of the alleged massacre. This was then subsequently
reported by Yonhap.

Coincident to this, that venerable publication, "U.S. News & World Report" raised
questions about the original AP stories in the week of May 15.

On May 13, in a typical burst of hyperbole the "Korea Herald" wrote this: "The
[Defense Department] notice is a complete denial of AP's earlier reports that
American soldiers were ordered to fire on hundreds of korean civilians under a
railroad bridge at Nogun-ri" (Chang Jae-soon May 13, 2000)

However, on May 16 Jonathan Wolman --the AP's executive director-- said, in a nine
page report released via the New York Times Wire Service and which I now have before
me that, "all those interviewed were quoted meticulously, many of them videotaped or
recorded ... the new questions [that have arisen as a result of the Department of
Defense statements] are based on records that themselves leave gaps or are subject
to multiple interpretations."

Also, you may be interested to know that Brian Duffy --executive director of "U.S.
News & World Report"-- has since admitted that, in its most recent writings on the
Nogun-ri story, his organization overlooked a key document which it had in its
possession and which, in fact, Duffy has acknowledged, "undercut one of its
challenges to the AP report". ("AP Responds to No Gun Ri Questions" New York Times
on the Web" May 16, 2000)

Anyway, I have read the 9 page AP "response" to the new questions and it seems that
every claim made in the "U.S. News & World Report" story --as well as the comments
made by the Pentagon-- can be contested by using the evidence AP provides there and
which was first made public months ago in their original coverage.

So what happened? Willful spin by the Defense Department and pathetic journalism by
Duffy's people and the Korea Herald. Garbage in, garbage out.

Mike Goodwin
(Toronto, CA & Greenville, NC)

P.S. "Breaking News from A.P", the wire service I referred to above, can be accessed
free of charge but you must register with the New York Times first. See
http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/

At the time I am writing this the Archives at "Breaking News from A.P." are
experiencing a Server Error. However, I imagine that when the server is back on line
you can probably find the 9 page AP response to the recent questions there. The
title of the piece is, "AP Responds to No Gun Ri Questions" (Filed at 12:41 a.m. EDT
by The Associated Press). Use any/all these keywords to search for it by full text:
Wolman, Duffy, "William Kean".



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