On 3/30/06, Stephen Gallagher <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> As an aside, as the reports on the capture Charles
> Taylor in Africa were
> coming in, it was reported that he was apprehended
> 600 miles from the
> location of his house arrest. This morning on NPR,
> a foreign correspondent
> got the miles and kilometers confused, and reported
> the obvious 1000 km as
> 1000 miles. So much for accuracy in the media.
Whenever I hear US news reports about activities
taking place abroad, I wonder whenever the reported
mentions that something took place:
"About 2/3 of a mile from this location" or
"Just under 3/4 of a mile from here" or
"100 yards away."
Are those distances that they determined themselves,
or are are they taking 1 km and 100 m distances,
reported by foreign news agencies, and dumbing them
down. I would suspect the latter.
