Westward Venture Incident: No News, and That's News

An American warship (well, it was as much an American warship as the Global Patriot was) fires on fast boats from the Iranian coast guard. Except Iran says, 'is not!'

Compared to news coverage after the Global Patriot incident, there's dead silence about what happened with the Westward Venture near Iran, in the Persian Gulf.

That's just a comparison, of course: There actually is some news coverage. For example:

• "Naval Incident Raises U.S.-Iran Tensions"
  Wall Street Journal (April 26, 2008)
• " U.S. cargo ship fires warning shots in Persian Gulf, Navy says"
  CNN (April 25, 2008)
• "U.S. reports new Gulf confrontation, Iran denies"
  Xinhua (www.chinaview.cn) (April 26, 2008)

There really isn't that much new to report, in terms of facts. What impresses me is the lack of anti-American "news," based on innuendo and speculation. I suspect that the lack of a sympathetic victim, and a disappointing response to last month's publicity campaign, may be factors in today's resonating silence.

I wrote about the Westward Venture incident yesterday: "Westward Venture: American Ship Fires on (Iranian?) Fast Boats" (April 25, 2008).