CNN headline writer chooses to make Abu Ghraib torture sound like a Frat Party!
Report: Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House'at night
Remember folks, CNN CHOOSE to use the phrase "Animal House" in the headline. Why? To support the idea the torture wasn't that bad? To accurately represent the content of the article? Someone thought it was clever and cute? Play your cute headline games on some other tragedy please, or better yet don't.
Here's part of the letter I sent to CNN about this headline choice:
Gee, that makes it sound like fun! I imagine toga parties, hot co-eds, beer drinking and dancing.
Using that phrase keeps alive the idea that Abu Ghraib was like a Frat house party during pledge week, rather than the torture chamber it had become once again. If you finally started focusing on the DEATHS that resulted from the torture and the rapes of young boys it would NOT be possible to make it sound like any frat that I know about.
Compare what your headline says to this one that might be more accurate, "Abu Ghraib: Like Torture Chamber from Spanish Inquisition".
Sounds like a different place than the den in Animal House. They each bring up very different images in your mind, correct? Therefore, just because Schlesinger said it in the report is no excuse for you to use it as the headline. This PHRASE (Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House') choice by your headline writer describing the report totally mischaracterizes what went on in the prison (as the body of the story seems to say) and trivializes what happened there. Your headline is just shameful! I request that you change it and stop downplaying what really happened in Abu Ghraib.
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Report: Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House' at night
Commanders blamed for lack of supervision
Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Posted: 9:04 PM EDT (0104 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq represented "deviant behavior and a failure of military leadership and discipline" at the facility, but direct and indirect responsibility for those acts and others elsewhere went higher up the chain of command, an independent panel reported Tuesday.
A hooded and wired Iraqi prisoner is seen at the Abu Ghraib prison in this undated file photo.
A robed and drunk John Belushi is seen at the Delta Tau Chi house in this R rated movie.
Update: 8-25-04 CNN Again runs another story about a report on torture in Abu Ghraib but doesn't use the Animal House quote as the headline. New head "General: Some Abu Ghraib abuse was torture"
How about using this bit of news from the story as the head:
"General: Five detainees died from abuse during interrogations"
Now that bit of news is in the LAST paragraph. Maybe that could have been further up? Or how about this one:
"General: At least 8 ghost detainees hidden from Red Cross. One dies in Abu Ghraib"
Or how about his headline taken from the first paragraph:
"General: "Serious misconduct at Abu Ghraib and a loss of moral values."
Once again the headline writer is downplaying the report and the situation at Abu Ghraib.
Remember folks, CNN CHOOSE to use the phrase "Animal House" in the headline. Why? To support the idea the torture wasn't that bad? To accurately represent the content of the article? Someone thought it was clever and cute? Play your cute headline games on some other tragedy please, or better yet don't.
Here's part of the letter I sent to CNN about this headline choice:
Gee, that makes it sound like fun! I imagine toga parties, hot co-eds, beer drinking and dancing.
Using that phrase keeps alive the idea that Abu Ghraib was like a Frat house party during pledge week, rather than the torture chamber it had become once again. If you finally started focusing on the DEATHS that resulted from the torture and the rapes of young boys it would NOT be possible to make it sound like any frat that I know about.
Compare what your headline says to this one that might be more accurate, "Abu Ghraib: Like Torture Chamber from Spanish Inquisition".
Sounds like a different place than the den in Animal House. They each bring up very different images in your mind, correct? Therefore, just because Schlesinger said it in the report is no excuse for you to use it as the headline. This PHRASE (Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House') choice by your headline writer describing the report totally mischaracterizes what went on in the prison (as the body of the story seems to say) and trivializes what happened there. Your headline is just shameful! I request that you change it and stop downplaying what really happened in Abu Ghraib.
---------------------------------------------------------
Report: Abu Ghraib was 'Animal House' at night
Commanders blamed for lack of supervision
Tuesday, August 24, 2004 Posted: 9:04 PM EDT (0104 GMT)
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Abuses photographed at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq represented "deviant behavior and a failure of military leadership and discipline" at the facility, but direct and indirect responsibility for those acts and others elsewhere went higher up the chain of command, an independent panel reported Tuesday.
A hooded and wired Iraqi prisoner is seen at the Abu Ghraib prison in this undated file photo.
A robed and drunk John Belushi is seen at the Delta Tau Chi house in this R rated movie.
Update: 8-25-04 CNN Again runs another story about a report on torture in Abu Ghraib but doesn't use the Animal House quote as the headline. New head "General: Some Abu Ghraib abuse was torture"
How about using this bit of news from the story as the head:
"General: Five detainees died from abuse during interrogations"
Now that bit of news is in the LAST paragraph. Maybe that could have been further up? Or how about this one:
"General: At least 8 ghost detainees hidden from Red Cross. One dies in Abu Ghraib"
Or how about his headline taken from the first paragraph:
"General: "Serious misconduct at Abu Ghraib and a loss of moral values."
Once again the headline writer is downplaying the report and the situation at Abu Ghraib.
3 Comments:
not 100% positive of this, but my understanding (from hearing various reports about the prison scandal report issued on Tuesday, beyond the article you site, so I'm 99% sure...) is that the "Animal House" phrase is either used in the report itself, or was used by one of the investigators on the commission looking into the scandal in presenting the report to the press on Tuesday.
If this is in fact the case, the CNN article is only quoting from the report or presentation.
Former US Defence Secretary James Schlesinger used the phrase in an interview I saw yesterday. I don't know if it was used in the report, but the way he said it made me think he had never seen the movie. It was a deliberate plant, and an attempt to lessen the horror that Abu Ghraib really was.
Yes, Schlesinger said it, but I don't have a problem with him saying it or even quoting it. I watched him say it on the news and he spit it out, which makes me wonder if he ever saw that movie (like Ellroon says above). What I have a problem with is the CNN headline writer pulling THAT specific quote. It is NOT representative of the the whole story and the writer knows it. By CHOOSING that quote they are lessening what happened at Abu Ghraib.
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