Inside the Suffolk village next to a US airbase with nuclear weapons

The i Paper's feature on Lakenheath mostly attributes the terror alert to US intelligence sources, calls the September plot alleged, and reports doubts about Iran's capacity to carry out such attacks. Its opening sentence, though, places the village 'in the crosshairs of a terrorist threat' in the outlet's own voice, before the body makes clear the threat is a US claim. This is a minor lapse in a piece that otherwise keeps its sourcing straight.

1. States one side's claim as fact

   Minor

   “For a village in the crosshairs of a terrorist threat”

   Why this matters

   In its own opening words, The i Paper places Lakenheath 'in the crosshairs of a terrorist threat', with no source attached.

   The impression it gives

   A reader starts the piece believing a terrorist threat against the village is an established fact.

   The context

   The article itself later attributes the threat to US intelligence sources, calls it something Washington 'suggested', and reports doubts that Iran could carry out such attacks. The lede states as fact what the body treats as a claim.

   How we know

   • Elsewhere in the article“US intelligence sources let it be known that the reason for the alert”
   • Elsewhere in the article“terror plots which Washington this week suggested had been detected”
   • Elsewhere in the article“there are doubts in some quarters that Iran has the resources”