3 ms·

> What I get from the story is that no explanation was given, to anybody The story doesn't include any comment from US government officials. It also doesn't in

> What I get from the story is that no explanation was given, to anybody The story doesn't include any comment from US government officials. It also doesn't include that they failed to comment (excluding the one ambassador, who is too low level to comment). Lacking a "declined to comment" line, the default assumption is that the newspaper didn't ask for a comment. It's lazy journalism. With good journalism, newspapers figure out who did what and why. Here we are mostly missing who and we have speculation to why but no hard facts. Story needs another week of research before it is published.

sanderjd 8y ago
I agree with much of your original comment (and I think it's lame that it's downvoted); uncritical acceptance of information within one's own groupthink is definitely a problem. But I very strongly disagree with your characterization here of their attempt to get the other side of the story. Here's the relevant line from the article: > The United States Embassy in Quito declined to make Mr. Chapman available for an interview. Mr. Chapman is Todd C. Chapman, the Ambassador to Ecuador[0]. He was a primary actor in the actions discussed in the article. Ambassadors absolutely aren't "too low level to comment", and your characterization of an article with a no-comment from a high-ranking primary actor in the events discussed as "the default assumption is that the newspaper didn't ask for a comment" is absurd. I also haven't been able to find any alternative explanation for this on the State Department's press site[1]. It might be there though; I'm not a journalist and I find that site maddening to navigate, so I gave up pretty quickly. But like your parent commenter said, this is a discussion site, if you have a good source for the other side of this story, I and many others here are likely to be all ears. [0]: https://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/249299.htm https://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/249299.htm [1]: https://www.state.gov/media/ https://www.state.gov/media/

sanderjd 8y ago

I agree with much of your original comment (and I think it's lame that it's downvoted); uncritical acceptance of information within one's own groupthink is definitely a problem. But I very strongly disagree with your characterization here of their attempt to get the other side of the story. Here's the relevant line from the article: > The United States Embassy in Quito declined to make Mr. Chapman available for an interview. Mr. Chapman is Todd C. Chapman, the Ambassador to Ecuador[0]. He was a primary actor in the actions discussed in the article. Ambassadors absolutely aren't "too low level to comment", and your characterization of an article with a no-comment from a high-ranking primary actor in the events discussed as "the default assumption is that the newspaper didn't ask for a comment" is absurd. I also haven't been able to find any alternative explanation for this on the State Department's press site[1]. It might be there though; I'm not a journalist and I find that site maddening to navigate, so I gave up pretty quickly. But like your parent commenter said, this is a discussion site, if you have a good source for the other side of this story, I and many others here are likely to be all ears. [0]: https://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/249299.htm https://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/249299.htm [1]: https://www.state.gov/media/ https://www.state.gov/media/