Journalisming Is Hard

This is small, but I fid it kind of grating: the insertion of useless sentences in a news article. Case in point: A CTV article on King Fahd of Saudi Arabia's admission to a hospital:

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and home to its two holiest shrines.

This is one of those sentences that's technically true, but is probably offensive to some Muslims, given the corruption and general craptitude of the Saudis (the rulers, not the people.) Let me put it this way: How many angry letters do you think CTV would get if they called the Sharon's Israel the "birthplace of Christianity" or Mubarak's Egypt the "birthplace of Judaism"? The sentence would actually be far better if CTV has simply dropped the word "Saudi". Saudis only captured Mecca in 1925, so saying that Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam is inaccurate, as well as granting the House of Saud a legitimacy they don't really deserve.

You might argue that I'm asking reporters to editorialize, but I would argue that's what they've done here. As I say, referring to "Arabia" as the geographical location, instead of the political body "Saudi Arabia" would be far better, from the perspective of objectivity.

And on top of ALL THAT, the sentence really has no place in the article, making me wonder why it's even there, as well as this sentence:

During his rule, Fahd brought the kingdom closer to the United States and agreed to a step that enraged many conservatives: the basing of U.S. troops on Saudi soil after the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

The troops later left.

Alright, either drop that friggin sentence, or tell us just where those troops went. Give you a hint. It starts with an I, ends with a Q, and rhymes with "schmirack".