Post: Not A ‘Civil War’

From E&P:

The Los Angeles Times and, starting Monday, NBC and MSNBC, have adopted the phrase “civil war” to describe the conflict in Iraq. Most other media outlets, including The Washington Post, still prefer phrases such as “sectarian violence.” Appearing on MSNBC’s “Hardball” with Chris Matthews Monday night, Dana Priest, the Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Post, said that it sure looks like a civil war to her.

Earlier Monday, E&P’s Joe Strupp had asked Leonard Downie, Jr., the Post’s executive editor, about that. Downie said, “We just describe what goes on everyday. We don’t have a policy about it. We are not making judgments one way or another. The language in the stories is very precise when dealing with it. At various times people say it is ‘close to a civil war,’ but we don’t have a policy about it.”

Read more here.

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