An investigation on US drone attacks has uncovered evidence that the government is not telling the truth about collateral damage of these attacks. And the press is letting the government get away with it.
Reporting on his investigation in The Conversation, American University professor Jeff Bachman shows how the Obama Administration’s claim that its drone “strikes are precise and conducted in compliance with international law,“ does not hold up to the facts. However, in an apparent effort to support that claim, government officials, according to Bachman’s research, have repeatedly underreported the number of civilians killed in drone attacks, and the press has simply accepted those government numbers as fact.
After studying a sample of “81 NYT and 26 WP stories published within two days of particular strikes” and comparing their casualty figures with those reported by “the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s coverage of the same drone strikes, " Bachman documented that both the New York Times and the Washington Post “substantially underrepresented the number of civilians killed in drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen.” Even worse these papers failed to correct the numbers “when evidence emerged that their reporting was wrong.”
Bachman says he is concerned that the public is not being made aware of “the real consequences of drone strikes," and he’s also concerned about the implication of these strikes as they relate to international human rights law.
Sign this petition to hold New York Times and Washington Post responsible for setting the record straight on civilian casualties of US drone attacks.
To the New York Times and Washington Post Reader Representatives:
We, the undersigned, find Bachman’s research convincing and his concerns about underreporting of civilian casualties of drone strikes justified.
According to Bachman’s report and one by Truthout on his study results, these findings are further supported by The Intercept's recently published "Drone Papers" articles, which ExposeFacts’ John Hanrahan says "document the US government's lying to the press and public about the number of noncombatants killed in drone strikes."
Bachman’s study of comparisons between what TBIJ and Intercept reported as numbers of casualties versus what the NYT and WP reported indeed show evidence of substantial underreporting of casualties by NYT and WP and failure to address issues of international law. All point to a trend of misrepresentation of the facts.
For example, according to Bachman’s report, “TBIJ found that civilians were killed in 26 of the 81 attacks – a rate of 32%. Yet, the NYT reported civilians killed in only two of those 26 attacks – a rate of 7.7%.
WP's coverage of 26 strikes, says Bachman’s research, underreported the numbers by 14%, compared to TBIJ's findings. Most alarming, are Bachmans findings of the discrepancies in the total number of civilians killed as reported by both papers. He says that “According to TBIJ, in the 33 strikes that resulted in civilian casualties, a total of 180 to 302 civilians were killed. In the three NYT and WP articles that reported civilian casualties, the deaths of just nine civilians were documented.”
We, the undersigned, agree with Bachman that these discrepancies reveal a "trend of underreporting of civilian casualties that means readers are not being informed of the real consequences of drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan. It represents a failure by journalists at these papers to view critically government claims regarding who is killed in particular strikes."
We ask reader representatives for the New York Times and Washington Post to review this information and set the record straight - and do a better job of reporting these casualties in the future.
