Bill at INDC Journal takes me to task for this statement:
Pretending that this would not be an issue if only the media had covered more school openings or spent more time talking about the free chapstick, toothbrushes, and playing cards our soldiers will get is simply idiotic. Sure, I would like more positive news coverage out of Iraq. I would also like more positive news.
Bill states:
Presumably, John’s been so busy channeling outrage at wingnut hijinks that he’s just too darn busy to read Chrenkoff’s massive good news updates.
Well, no. I read Chrenkoff, and I link to him when I see fit, although probably not frequently enough. Bill continues:
That’s like defending a police force that arrests murderers, while failing to mention that they let every single other class of criminal roam free.
Well, if all the media reported was casualties, that would be true- but the media reports all sorts of good news. In fact, the very summary of good news by Arthur Chrenkoff is little more than a culmination of, you guessed it- media reports. Featured in Arthur’s summary are links to the Wapo, the Ap, The Times Online, the BBC, Xinhuanet, the CS Monitor, Kurdish Media, Reuters, MSNBC, the Washington Times, the LA Times, and hundreds of other media outlets.
Bill is right- deaths and disaster are featured more prominently, but that is not because of an anti-military bias or because of a desire by those in the media that our Iraqi efforts fail. It is simply the nature of what is newsworthy.
Look at your local news- when a car catches fire in downtown Morgantown during rush hour, it makes front page news. At the same time, you will not find any stories about the 40,000 other cars that didn’t catch fire. When Bill Clinton was immersed in an affair with an intern, the media didn’t report on the hundreds of other interns Clinton didn’t diddle. When the BTK killer was caught, the media didn’t focus on the other 300 million people in the country who aren’t serial killers.
Why? Is it because of an anti-car bias? An anti-intern bias? An anti-people bias? Of course not- it is because one event is news, the other is not.
Arthur does a great job summarizing reports of what we are supposed to be doing- the reasons we are there. But that doesn’t mean it is inappropriate or wrong for the media to cover the deaths and injuries our soldiers are suffering. A better measure of what we need to do to make the situation better will come from a close examination of our failures, rather than cheerleading our successes.
Bill is right, though- both need to be mentioned, and, for the most part, they are. And the media is, in my estimation, lazy, and it is easier to report death and destruction than it is to report the good news. Perhaps if the security situation were better, we would have more good news. More likely, if things were going well, we wouldn’t have much news at all- you don’t read too often about reconstruction efforts in Japan and Germany anymore, do you?
Perhaps a better way of stating what I really want is not more positive news, but less bad news.
*** Update ***
Bill responds, and, quite honestly, I am too lazy to respond right now. Sun, grill, beer are on the agenda. We will have to revisit this tomorrow or Tuesday (Monday being reserved for jingoistic displays of unfettered nationalism, including hot dogs, beer, flags, and pretty shit blowing up). A short response- Bill thinks the media dwells too much on the bad stuff, something I would tend to not disagree with but something I wouldn’t wholly endorse. I think the media has a different sense of what is newsworthy (which may explain why they are losing customers), and that if the area were more secure, we would see fewer stories about death and destruction and more of the good news that is going on. Now, on to grill.
JoshA
Good point. As the old saying goes, “if it bleeds, it leads.” You see stories on murders in the US all the time, but I can’t remember the last time I heard a story about American school construction.
James Emerson
but I can’t remember the last time I heard a story about American school construction
Good point!
But we’ve been spending our national resources in Iraq, so that may be why…
More towards John’s basic point…not entirely. Newsworthyness has a lot to do with the ratings game, but in Iraq it has more to do with secure and safe access to the story.
We rarely see the positive news…if there is any…because the reporters can’t report them while the risk to their person is so high. Not many reporters want to become the next story. Also, how many Iraqis would voluntarily speak with a reporter without living in fear for his life and the lives of his family?
On the other hand…The most secure areas in Iraq are the military installations…boring, the Green Zone…boring, and the sites where bombs were recently detonated…exciting, lurid, pools of blood, screaming wounded, dead bodies, and mourning relatives.
It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out how to justify one’s expense account, while minimizing the risks.
James Emerson
And speaking of newsworthy…
MI
“..At the same time, you will not find any stories about the 40,000 other cars that didn’t catch fire.”
Almost exactly like this Daily Show quote I saw online the other day..
“”Support for the Iraq war is at an all-time low, and some Republicans blame the media and its ’24/7 news coverage of car bombs,’ which ‘tends to leave a certain impression.’ You know, that’s so true. You never hear about the cars that DON’T blow up.”
–Jon Stewart
TM Lutas
Media could play this a lot better for US war aims if it wanted to, even if they didn’t violate the “if it bleeds, it leads” narrative template. The media, so far as I can tell, really pushes the bloodthirsty rhetoric of the other side off the scene much more than necessary. Alongside casualty counts, war crime counts in false surrenders, targeting medics, and other frequent occurrences could make for a safe story (it’s statistical data gathering) that will get the blood fired up for good ratings but would tend to help and not hurt the US cause.
A good example of how that could work was recently on view at Gitmo. When the Koran desecration report came out and we found out that 5 instances of guard perpetrated desecration happened and 15 instances of prisoner perpetrated desecration happened over the same time and all of a sudden the domestic outrage over the abuse quieted right down. I have yet to see anybody look at that statistic and not be mollified by it.
Jon H
It’s an odd thing to complain about media coverage *now*, when coverage of anything from Iraq, good *or* bad is probably at a low point.
Why report on Iraq, or the wider war on terror, or anything else of consequence, when there are celebrities in “love”, celebrities on trial, white women missing, sharks being sharks, etc.
Far North
John,
You forgot one other thing about what Monday is reserved for. This Liberal will be following Major League Baseball and baseball’s hottest team, the Oakland A’s.
Mark Olson
The MSM coverage is especially weak on reporting on our Servicemen and women out there. In say WWII, there was daily reporting on strategy, plans, generals, outcome, and reports of individual heroism. Little of that is in our press today. And I don’t think it’s a result of an anti-Iraqi/anti-Bush bias in the media. I think they both find the military culture alien and have a strong anti-military bias in the journalistic culture.
I don’t think that is to their credit and they are also indoctrinating a whole generation of young servicemen who will come back despising the press. That will have consequences 20-30 years from now.
Nathan Lanier
Another criticism from conservatives regarding the media is the use of “buts” in news reports..
“The Iraqi citizens voted in droves today, BUT there were car bombs etc. etc.”
I just noticed something interesting from a USA today article
regarding an increase of US casualties in Iraq over the past year that tips the scale back toward fairness:
“U.S. military deaths in Iraq increased by about one-third in the past year, even as Iraq established its own government and assumed more responsibility for battling the insurgency.”
Is it fair to consider the “but” criticism ill founded? I think it is.
Scott Chaffin
Now, on to grill.
I’ll give you 5-2 that Cole would burn the burgers if there was a fire on the t00b at the same time. Whether it was in downtown Morgantown or downtown Baghdad. Just fire.
Keep working on it — you’re almost there, John.
David
If folks want “good news”, then they should look to the DoD. The DoD (and the Department of War) have won Oscars in previous wars for showing good news. There have been a few great retrospectives in Los Angeles that have highlight some of the best war documentaries released by the DoD. I would highly recommend the 1942 Oscar Winner “Prelude to War”. On the Oscar.org website, it list this by Prelude
tim
I think what will happen at some point will be
(me in a social situation): do you watch TV?
* Yeah.
(me) …
Christopher Fotos
“Well, if all the media reported was casualties, that would be true- but the media reports all sorts of good news. In fact, the very summary of good news by Arthur Chrenkoff is little more than a culmination of, you guessed it- media reports. Featured in Arthur’s summary are links to the Wapo, the Ap, The Times Online, the BBC, Xinhuanet, the CS Monitor, Kurdish Media, Reuters, MSNBC, the Washington Times, the LA Times, and hundreds of other media outlets.”
Bill is right- deaths and disaster are featured more prominently, but that is not because of an anti-military bias or because of a desire by those in the media that our Iraqi efforts fail. It is simply the nature of what is newsworthy.
Actually, much of the material is drawn from U.S. military sources, including in-house military press, and from Iraqi and other Arab media. Many other reports come from organizations like U.S. Aid or even the U.N. And on and on. This I know since I post excerpts every day, Monday through Friday, at my blog.
(Xinhuanet? Kurdish Media? These are supposed to be common distribution channels in the U.S.? )
And while much of the reports are from mainline western media such as AP etc., anyone who follows this news on a daily basis knows that they are scattered, downplayed, buried.
As for bombs and other explosions being “the nature of news,” one of the big problems with Western media is that reporters who are bored by town councils in Des Moines are equally bored by town councils in Baghdad. Big mistake. Representative government in the Arab world is amazing. Not to recognize that fact and report on it is just pathetically weak journalism.
TallDave
I think John’s a little bit off the mark. It’s true bad news leads… but bad news from Iraq gets special priority, while good news from Iraq gets a special downgrade because the media is determined to do nothing that could encourage the war effort; they consider it warmongering or jingoism.
For instance, the distribution of 1 million “Constitution suggestion forms” to Iraqis should have been HUGE news; this is incredibly historic. MSM response? Dead fucking silence. I would never even have known about it without reading Iraqi blogs.
The media wants the war discredited, and they slant their coverage to serve that agenda.
Kimmitt
Let me see if I understand this —
the “media,” which is “owned” by people like “Rupert Murdoch” “hates America,” so it wants the Iraq war to “seem unwinnable” so that they can make “the President” look bad. They do not, however, engage in other activities which would make “the President” look bad, such as “misquoting him,” playing clips of him “looking stupid,” or asking him why he hangs out with a “male prostitute.”
The fact that “the media” reports on lots of “people dying” in “Iraq” is not because “people dying” is the traditional definition of “news,” but because the media “hates America,” and America is hurt when “people notice” that “people are dying,” especially “American soldiers,” who are best supported at home by a “total news blackout.”
Did I miss anything?
Sojourner
That sounds about right, Kimmitt. Damn liberal media! The gall of them reporting on the deaths of soldiers. Totally unpatriotic!