March 20, 2005
Wrong Again
The headline on the Times Herald-Record Sunday was "Two Years in Iraq and... THE SILENCE IS DEAFENING." It is accompanied by a photo of a worn plastic yellow ribbon tied around the base of a telephone pole, presumably to show flagging support at home for our troops, which the paper promotes on page 9 with a heavily-biased tabloid-quality story showing how the lack of yellow ribbons in the area shows flagging support for the war and our troops.
The problem is, the ribbon they show is a lie.
I know, I placed it there.
Or perhaps not that ribbon in particular, but hundreds like it. These ribbons are on telephone poles across the region and perhaps around the country, used by electric company subcontractors to mark poles for a multitude of reasons. They are not there for the reasons the newspaper implies.
These particular yellow ribbons are used to mark poles that need to be relocated due to their close proximity to the road. If the photographer went back to this location, he would likely note a stake driven into the ground with an orange ribbon tacked or tied to the top to mark when the new pole should be located. At the time the pole and stake were placed, a white letter "P" was painted on the road with an arrow, so that the electric company would know which poles needed to be moved, but salt, rain and snowplows have long since removed the water-based paint from the road surface.
To me, the photo goes along with the rest of the reporting of this weekend's second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, that is to say, "false, but accurate," misleading, and half-told.
It seems fitting that the media misrepresents the war at home the way they've misrepresented it overseas for two years. If nothing else, you can't fault them for inconsistency.
Update: The Record got back in touch with me, and says that this photo was taken in Livingstone Manor, and this ribbon was placed as part of a community vigil nine or 10 months ago on behalf of the troops safe return, and that they will continue to investigate this. If they hold with this story, I would be very interested to find out why the people at the vigil would place this around the base of the pole (instead of eye level,and no, this stuff does not easily slide down over creosote, a preservative tar), and why they used cheap marking tape instead of readily available pre-made ribbons.
I can now categorically say it wasn't a marker ribbon I personally put up, though it wasn't very far from other projects I worked on in that general area.
