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New sub USS Illinois will not have all female crew

Virginia-class attack submarine USS Missouri SSN-780

The Virginia-class attack submarine Pre-Commissioning Unit (PCU) Missouri (SSN 780) prepares to conduct sea trials July 2, 2010 in the Atlantic Ocean. Photo courtesy of General Dynamics Electric Boat/Released

I cannot determine where the error originated, in the White House press release or at another point but… The Weekly Standard and a large number of other news outlets, blogs, boards and Twitter users have noted that the USS Illinois, SSN-786, a Virginia-class nuclear attack submarine under construction, will have an all-female crew. That is utter nonsense but apparently few news people had their thinking caps on. It will be the first submarine to have women in the crew.

The Weekly Standard has corrected their story on the sponsorship of the USS Illinois, without noting the change.

Yes, you’re correct: It won’t be an all female submarine. The story has been updated. We apologize for the mistake.

All best,

The Web Editors

On Mon, May 28, 2012 at 2:42 PM, wrote:
Comment from: csimmins@xxxxxxxx

I suspect what the White House meant to say was that the USS Illinois would have the first women to crew a US sub. It will not be an all-female crew, so far as I can tell.

Unfortunately, a lot of news outlets went with a similar report and have not corrected it as yet. Below are some screen captures I took just moments ago.

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the attachments to this post:

Virginia-class attack submarine USS Missouri SSN-780
USS_Missouri

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USS_Illinois_05

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USS_Illinois_04

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USS_Illinois_03

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USS_Illinois_02

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 28th, 2012 at 10:05 pm and is filed under Original writing, Original writing, Reporting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Comment to “New sub USS Illinois will not have all female crew”

  1. SkippingDog says:
    May 29, 2012 at 12:59 am

    It all started with misreporting by Carlo Munoz at The Hill. Everyone picked up on his story and, since it’s Memorial Day and all of the editors and fact-checkers are apparently off for the holiday, nobody from The Hill has bothered to correct the Munoz error.