TV NEWS REPORTS LIKELY WRONG ABOUT DOWNS BOMBERS

Cable TV and newspaper accounts that al Qaeda in Iraq had used two women with Downs syndrome to carry out suicide bombings in Baghdad on Friday were being questioned over the weekend by the New York Times and the Associated Press, which said that the reports were based on the appearance of one of the heads of the alleged bombers recovered after the blast. The two news outlets indicated that the head's deformities may have been caused by the blast itself. As reported by Editor and Publisher, the McClatchy newspapers observed that Iraqi authorities have made similar claims in the past about using Down's victims and that authorities have not even determined whether the recent explosions were caused by suicide bombers and might have resulted from hidden bombs. E&P was critical of the news media for reporting the story of the "mentally disabled" bombers "as fact, rather than [as] wild speculation."

04/02/2008