While network correspondents like ABC’s Terry Moran singled out “an amazing admission from President Obama” that there is still no "complete strategy" to defeat or degrade ISIS, USA Today’s front page on Tuesday carried an upbeat headline in all caps: “OBAMA VOWS TO BOLSTER IRAQIS.”
The brief ten-paragraph front-pager by Kim Hjelmgaard and Jim Michaels never included a quote from Obama saying there still wasn’t a strategy. It only referred to pledges to improve training:
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN, Germany — President Obama said Monday his administration is working on ways to accelerate the training of Iraqi security forces, whose recent setback against the Islamic State has prompted criticism of Obama's strategy for defeating the militant group.
"One of the areas where we are going to have to improve is the speed at which we're training Iraqi forces," Obama said at a news conference here after the conclusion of the Group of Seven summit of major industrialized democracies. "We're reviewing a range of plans for how we might do that."
...."What is fair to say is that all the countries in the international coalition are prepared to do more to train Iraqi security forces," the president said.
Then inside on page 5-A, the large headline about the G-7 summit was “GLOBAL ACTION PROMISED,” imposed over a picture of Obama talking with German prime minister Angela Merkel. Hjelmgaard offered two more brief stories: a list of “top concerns” like “climate change” and terrorism and Iraq – again avoiding the “no strategy” quote, just happy talk about "We want to get more Iraqi security forces trained, fresh, well-equipped, and focused."
