Saturday, May 02, 2009

NYT begs people to stop reading NYT

In this morning's New York Times, Timothy Williams offers, "At Violent Month's End in Iraq, 3 U.S. Deaths." The article is drawfed by the one next to it on Afghanistan. Williams article has to be shortened to include a Names of the Dead announcement. There is no photo. The other article has a photo, it's an AP article. Yes, the paper is short changing their own reporters to run AP and to give AP more space. The article is entitled "3 Ameircans and 2 Others Are Killed By Taliban." A total of 5 US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan last month (not noted in the article). 3 on Friday. If you're trying to do the math, Iraq was more deadly in April and the fact that it was more deadly was NEWS because the press had been repeating the 'things are going great' fluff for months now.

Violent month's end screams the paper's headline. And yet AP overtakes it. How much money is the paper spending to staff Iraq? Way to send the message to everyone who paid for the paper that the AP is actually more important than anything the paper's staff could come up with.

The three who died on Thursday (announced on Friday) have been identified: Petty Officer 2nd Class Tyler J. Trahan, Sergeant James R. McIlvaine and Staff Sergeant Mark A. Wojciechowski.

Tyler Trahan was from the Boston area. Milton J. Valencia (Boston Globe) notes:


His family said yesterday that Trahan's goal when joining the Navy was to work in an elite ordnance disposal unit.
"It's something he always wanted to do and strongly believed in," his sister, Molly Trahan, said yesterday. He would always tell her, "Tough times don't last, but tough people do," she said.
Trahan was a 2004 graduate of Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical School in Rochester, where he excelled academically and in sports. He was in the top of his graduating class, a member of the National Honor Society, and a star quarterback on the football team.
After studying at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy for a year, he enlisted in the Navy and graduated from boot camp in 2006. He underwent naval dive and salvage training, and naval engineering training, before he was assigned to the ordnance disposal unit.

Brian Fraga (Boston Herald) adds this:

"The kid did what he wanted to do," said Jean Pierre Trahan, who traveled Friday to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to accept his son’s body.
"He wanted to serve his country."
U.S. Navy Cmdr. Joseph Polanin --the leader of Trahan’s Virginia-based explosive ordnance disposal unit -- said Trahan was an exemplary leader and skilled technician.




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