Say Anything Blog

Los Angeles Times editors have edited a Reuters story to remove critical facts supporting the U.S. position on an important international issue.
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The Reuters version opens with this sentence:

The United States and Italy on Friday disagreed on the conclusions of a joint investigation into the killing of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq, further straining ties between the two allies.
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The L.A. Times slightly alters that first sentence to read as follows:

The United States and Italy disagreed Friday in the conclusions of a joint investigation into the slaying of an Italian agent by U.S. troops in Iraq, further straining ties between the two allies.

In this edited version of the sentence, Times editors moved the word "Friday," changed the word "killing" to "slaying," and replaced the word "in" with "on," making the sentence grammatically awkward. [UPDATE: In the comments, Dafydd ab Hugh notes that the use of the word "slaying" tells you something about where L.A. Times editors are coming from.]
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An important contested issue in the controversy was the speed of the car as it approached a U.S. checkpoint. Sgrena has maintained that the car was traveling at a "regular speed" -- no more than 25-30 mph. Americans have said that the car was traveling at least 50 mph.
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the Reuters story reported that there is definitive proof that the car was speeding towards the checkpoint -- critical information that tends to justify U.S. soldiers' decision to fire on the car. But in the version appearing in the L.A. Times, editors cut out the passage reporting that proof.