[Ads-l] "The first report is always wrong."

[Jonathan Lighter]

CNN today: "It reminds me of the old military adage, 'The first report is
always wrong.'"

1970 Phil G. Goulding _Confirm or Deny_  (N.Y.: Harper) 19: Much
information put before the Secretary of Defense is apt to be wrong, I was
to learn, and first reports are always wrong - or are so often wrong that
they always must be considered suspect.

1988 _Houston Chrobicle_ (July 6) III 8 : Disasters like the shooting down
of Iran Air Flight 655 are invariably shrouded in ambiguity and first
reports are always wrong.

1999 Marvin Pokrant _Desert Storm at Sea_ (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press) 87: The first report is always wrong.

2004 _Boston Herald_ (May 7) 110 : There's an ancient military maxim that
"the first reports are always wrong."

2023 Russell W, Glenn _Come Hell or High Fever_ (Canberra: Australian
National U. Press) 130: The old saw that "the first report is always wrong"
too often proves true.


JL
-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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