I try to keep reasonably close tabs on the news... in the process, I often catch the same story from multiple sources, so I've gotten fairly adept at determining where word choice implies spin, and what bias is being served by that spin. Today's news has a developing story that looks to have that aspect to it... but I can't determine whether it's spin, or ignorance on the part of reporters, or myself, or some admixture of them all.
A cargo ship, the Maersk Alabama, was captured by Somali pirates. During those early reports, it was simply referred to as "U.S. flagged", which makes sense... sure, it's a holdover from "wooden ships and iron men" days, but even cargo ships have to be claimed by a country, to prevent random confiscation by one country or another. Later, the crew reclaimed control of the ship... and the news reports start referring to them as a "U.S. crew". That's where my questions begin... is there a requirement that flagged vessels be manned by a crew of that country's nationals? Or, is it just an assumption on the part of some reporter, which was picked up and run with by all the news agencies? Or... is it a more purposeful manipulation of the readers... which is to say, "Oh, this ship, which happens to be registered in the U.S., got captured by pirates", followed by "The brave American crew retook their ship from those nasty pirates"?
Oh well, maybe time will out, maybe not... but I do wish I could get the Joe Friday "just the facts" version of the news, on occasion.
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NPR covered this a bit. The crew is mostly Danish with a few Americans. Normally this particular vessel sails under a Danish flag, but in this case, it was on a US relief mission for the US government with a cargo of US goods so it was flying the US flag.
Apparently this is the first time since 1804 that a ship with a US flag has been attacked by pirates.
Oh, I'll grant it's newsworthy, that pirates were bold/stupid enough to take a U.S. flagged ship (and, incidentally, I think one of those cranes on the cargo ship would make an excellent yardarm for traditional piratey punishment). But now, if it's a mostly-Danish crew, I do have to wonder all the more about news reports calling it a U.S. crew...
Well, we couldn't very well give credit to Danish sailors for taking back their ship when there were a few Americans on board that we could give all the credit to... :-)
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