politics

AP: Speed Kills

April 8, 2004

Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before the 9/11 commission is the big story of the day (and maybe the month), and how the press portrays her appearance will have big political repercussions. But two early accounts of the event fail to pick up on an apparent contradiction in Rice’s testimony.

Rice was questioned aggressively about a still-classified memo from Aug 6, 2001 — just 36 days before 9/11 — with the ominously prescient title, “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside United States.” On NYTimes.com, David Stout reports,

Ms. Rice insisted, however, that the memo did not warn of attacks inside America. “It was historical information based on old reporting,” she said. “There was no new threat information, and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States.”

Seven paragraphs later, Stout writes:

In further questioning about the Aug. 6 memo, [Sen. Bob] Kerrey said it referred to “patterns of suspicious activity in the United States consistent with preparations for hijacking.”

Ms. Rice replied that the information was checked out and steps were taken in circulars from the Federal Aviation Authority to warn of hijackings.

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If the FAA was in fact instructed to issue a warning that “activity…consistent with preparations for hijacking” was under way, that would appear to contradict Rice’s earlier contention that the Aug. 6 memo, “did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the U.S.”

Stout doesn’t note the contradiction between the two pieces of testimony, so most readers likely won’t spot it.

In fairness, Stout’s story is an immediate report filed to NYTimes.com, not a polished piece of work for the Times print editions. And at least Stout does lay out both parts of Rice’s testimony on the subject for readers. That’s more than Hope Yen of the Associated Press manages. Yen gives readers Rice’s initial description of the August 6th memo as “historical information based on old reporting.” But she ignores Rice’s statement, made minutes later, that, as a result of the memo, “steps were taken…to warn of hijackings.”

The AP story appeared little more than an hour after the conclusion of Rice’s testimony, so it’s inevitable that it doesn’t contain every noteworthy element from the event. Spotting an apparent contradiction like Rice’s requires a reporter to pore over her notes, or to closely study the session’s transcript, to which Yen may not have immediate access.

And perhaps that’s the problem: As has often been observed, the press’ obsession with speed — most pronounced for wire services like AP and Reuters – all too often compromises its ability to identify key elements of a storyline that may not be apparent at first glance.

It’s not too late for AP to revisit the story with a more thorough update. If it happens, we’ll be on the case. But if past is preface, we aren’t holding our breath.

–Zachary Roth

Zachary Roth is a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly. He also has written for The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Talking Points Memo, among other outlets.