USA Africa Dialogue Series - nytimes and propaganda

the following, today's lead story in the ny times, is an amazing! example of propaganda.
if you look at what follows, here is what you get.
a headline about the terrible threat to the manuscripts in timbuktu. they are muslim mss, but if we are to vilify muslims, let's just pretend they are intellectual heritage for the world.
secondly, the picture shows books scattered on the floor
next the lead paragraph indicates that we don't know what happened to the texts since scholars are reported as frantically searching for them
the next paragraph tells us scholars (those are the good guys) fear the worst (not "feared" the worst)
by that point, the light reader is shaking his head, is murmuring imprecations against the modern vandals who wrought such destruction, and has turned to the sports or editorial page.
only those who get to paragraph 3 get the corrective that most of the texts apparently escaped damage.
i have no love for ansar dine, but who could not be moved to anger by this kind of manipulative journalism?
ken

new york times  January 30, 2013, 8:39 am11 Comments

Mali’s Culture War: The Fate of the Timbuktu Manuscripts

By HARVEY MORRIS

Eric Feferberg/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images The ashes of ancient manuscripts were discovered at a Timbuktu library on Tuesday.

LONDON — Scholars are urgently trying to determine the fate of a treasure store of ancient manuscripts in the city of Timbuktu.

As French-led forces consolidated their hold on northern Mali, international scholars feared the worst: that retreating Islamic militants had torched the Ahmed Baba Institute, home to 30,000 priceless items of scholarship dating back to the 13th century.

But many volumes may have escaped destruction by being hidden from fundamentalist forces that seized the north last year. The militants launched a campaign to eradicate historic vestiges of a medieval Muslim civilization that they deemed un-Islamic.

South African researchers involved in a project to preserve the Timbuktu manuscripts have had word that most of the treasures survived in private libraries and secure locations.

--   kenneth w. harrow   faculty excellence advocate  distinguished professor of english  michigan state university  department of english  619 red cedar road  room C-614 wells hall  east lansing, mi 48824  ph. 517 803 8839  harrow@msu.edu