Media ignoring progress in Iraq

This Web only Speakout has not been edited.

Chuck Fisher

Published March 31, 2008 at 6 a.m.

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Blaring at readers from newspapers across the nation was continuing evidence of the press’ obsession for ‘benchmarks’ of servicemen who’ve sacrificed their lives in Iraq, as if the 3,999th soldier to die—or for that matter, the first—merited no mention.

This issue isn’t about freedom of the press. It’s about journalistic ethics. The press circles like vultures waiting for the next lapse in government accountability but demands virtually unlimited freedom to use anonymous sources.

Who polices the ‘policemen of democracy’? Why, they do, of course—creating their own rules of conduct (such as ‘Deliberate distortion is never permissible’) and measuring themselves against those rules.

Readers need to ask what information is not in news reports out of Iraq. What is emphasized and what is not? The emphasis is reflected by a dozen column-inches devoted to bombings and body counts—and perhaps only an inch or so to report a 60% drop in violence since Bush ordered the surge. Newspapers chose that emphasis. True, such decisions about emphasis often reflect practical exigencies—space allocation, advertising, newswire veribiage, and newsprint costs.

But mingled with the practical are investigative choices. A newspaper staff has as much access to varied and credible news sources as any citizen, so there is no excuse for simply relying on ‘Mr. A.P.’ I can go to the State Department or Multinational Force-Iraq websites or innumerable soldier blogs and read about hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women who are not dead but who are rebuilding Iraq and cultivating friendly relations on the streets of Baghdad. There I find descriptions of an Iraq that is a different planet from the Iraq the media choose to present Americans.

An educated populace is the best defense against both a tyrannical government and a tyrannical press. Readers need to go beyond trusting the press concerning particular issues they are concerned about. They need to ask questions about the media. For example, why the marked decrease in news articles about Iraq since the body count has plummeted? Is increased peace not newsworthy? Why are the majority of reports on the Iraq War from a single source: the Associated Press? This self-policing organization has over 8,000 subscribers worldwide—a virtual stranglehold on information Americans receive about the Iraq war. Are we simply to trust this organization?

The media’s preoccupation with death smothers the success in Iraq. Doing so also neglects the more important issue—whether the war is the right one to fight. Body counts say nothing about the cause for which Americans have died. We were thankful for the sacrifice of 416,000 GI’s in World War II because such sacrifice overcame tyranny and despotism. If we believe the war in Iraq is a war against another form of tyranny and despotism, then the body count isn’t the news. Our chief concern should be victory.

However, by emphasizing ‘macabre milestones,’ the press reveals its bias against the war and subtely manipulates public opinion rather than providing complete information on which readers may form their own.

If readers believe that the war in Iraq is simply Bush’s Oil War, then they will trust the AP as a single-point source of information and be titillated by ‘macabre milestones.’ However, if readers want a more accurate, complete perspective of the war, about the thousands of kind acts of our servicemen have performed, about the lives that have been saved rather than lost, and about how American investment in lives and resources is transforming Iraq, they’d best seek information someplace other than in newsprint.

Chuck Fisher is a resident of Evans.

• March 31, 2008

  7:27 a.m.

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  GWM writes:

  Well said Chuck. The main stream media do few stories on the good things that are happening in Iraq. Why do you suppose that is? Not part of their agenda? Hmmmm....

• March 31, 2008

  10:02 a.m.

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  Romulus writes:

  Take the blinders off, Chuck. The surge has reduced the violence level from incredible to merely unacceptable. Some "success". And even that is unsustainable, because our military is stretched too thin and we can't keep paying off the Sunnis forever. Our presence in Iraq is the greatest recruiting tool that George Bush's stupidity could ever have presented to Osama bin Laden.

• March 31, 2008

  9:45 p.m.

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  Sweetpickle writes:

  When things aren't going well change the subject.

  There are always good stories in the midst of carnage, because kind people show up. Many US troops are nice guys, some of the people in Iraq are pleased to have Saddam gone. But none of that means that we have good results there. Neither the U.S. or Iraq may ever recover from this adventure.

• April 1, 2008

  4:25 a.m.

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  Brian1973 writes:

  lcsrjjxant - do you have that saves to your desktop? while I"m not a frequent reader here - that paragraph seems to be the only thing I can recall you ever saying

• April 1, 2008

  7:04 a.m.

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  vudumom writes:

  It's the SSDD button on his computer. Only he has one. It's the Same *hit Different Day button.

• April 1, 2008

  7:29 a.m.

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  greenleaf writes:

  I would be the first to admit that some conditions in Iraq have improved since the surge. Although I think that it proves the point that we went in with too few troops initially to secure the country.

  As for media reporting, it's always biased to bad news. I remember an analysis of column inches devoted to "bad" versus "good" news in several major papers some years ago. While it wasn't very scientific and was too subjective, it concluded that "bad" news was given over twice as much coverage as "good" news.

  So do we blame the media that is trying to give us what it thinks we want to hear, or do we blame ourselves? Bad news always has and still does sell papers. If we really want a different standard, we need to demand a different standard. I would however, be careful what we ask for as there are problems associated with going too far the other direction as well.

• April 1, 2008

  5:01 p.m.

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  Jeff writes:

  "I can go to the State Department or Multinational Force-Iraq websites or innumerable soldier blogs and read about hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women who are not dead but who are rebuilding Iraq and cultivating friendly relations on the streets of Baghdad."

  Yeah, wars are a real bummer when you bring up the dead.

  "The media’s preoccupation with death smothers the success in Iraq."

  Ugh! You're so right. I mean, ANY war is going to look bad if you focus on that whole "death" thing. How dare these reporters cover the roadside bombing that killed U.S. service members rather than the ribbon-cutting at the new school. Sheesh...

  Okay, sarcasm exhausted. Chuck, I find your speakout well-written, but I couldn't disagree more with the content. The latest tactic of the 30-percenters seems to be to compare the body count in Iraq with the body count for World War II, which - yep - is done here.
  Chuck, I don't doubt that you feel any less bad about the deaths of the U.S. troops than myself or anyone I know, but we apparently disagree on what caused it and what can be done to keep the number from going higher.

  I once heard a criminal prosecutor refer to a common debating point criminal defense attorneys use, that he called the "54-times" arguing technique (might be getting the number wrong, but whatever). Basically, it's a joke on the last-ditch efforts defense attorneys will make the jury when the client is clearly guilty as sin: "My client may have stabbed his wife 53 times, but at least he didn't stab her 54 times!"

  When I hear people downplaying the casualties in Iraq, I always think of the 54-times technique.

• April 2, 2008

  9:13 a.m.

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  greenleaf writes:

  bropus,

  Many "leftists", including myself did support going into Afghanistan. There are those who will oppose going to war under any circumstances and I respect their beliefs. You, of course, don't have to, that's your prerogative.

  I could have supported the effort to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein if we had taken more time to get the international community behind the effort rather than alienating most of them the way the administration did. Of course, the same flawed information about WMD and non-existent ties to terrorists would have had to be more convincingly foisted on all of us to have moved the world to action. Some of us still believe that increasingly harsh sanctions and covert measures would in a matter of one or two years have brought him down without an American life being lost in the effort. We probably could have avoided the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars of American taxpayer's money . I always thought that Republicans liked to ease the taxpayer's burden. I guess not!

  I do commend you for your dropping insults from your posting bropus. Your defence of your arguments is better served without using them. Thank you!

• April 2, 2008

  9:52 a.m.

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  KelcyCo writes:

  The surge did nothing. It was the Cleric al Sadr telling his militia to stand down that allowed the so called surge to work in terms of lowering the level of violence. You`ll note that as soon as al Sadr ramped up his militia all hell broke loose again. This was last week by the way. He then ``negotiated`` to call off his militia. He is doing this same thing every once and a while and he gets more of what he wants every time he does it. Ramp it up, create havoc, negotiate and then ramp it down. Brilliant. That is not the surge. He is the one in control.
  I would love to hear the good news stories. Has the US contractors actually finished any of the buildings they were working on and turned them over fully functioning yet? That question excludes the permanent bases that they are building even though we don`t have a treaty with the country that allows for permanent US facilities beyond that over the top embassy. Whatever happened to that police building with the faulty plumbing? Are they still having to use outhouses? Are any of the hospitals fixed and back up and running with adequate supplies yet? Has anyone stopped the pilferage of the millions of gallons of crude and refined oil from the pipelines and trucks that has been going on every day? Is the country back up to having running water every day, all day as well as power? You know, even though Saddam was such a B*****d they did have water and power.
  I know from the stories that many of our troops are doing great work and building relationships with locals. They are doing so under austere and trying times. Doesn`t mean that those on the local level can fix the problems we created on such a massive scale. It has to be the Iraqis that fix the problems and quite frankly, while they may well be tired of it all, the individual groups are not going to give control to the other groups that they are competing against.

• April 2, 2008

  10:39 a.m.

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  rg writes:

  Even in my limited role during the military part of my life in 1953 I knew Bush's surge was equivalent to Hitler's surge called the Battle of Bulge in which his generals agreed to his lunacy. Why they would vote for a talking Bush that can't even talk right is lunacy and an eqivalent to that is Bush's high approval rating of 25%. Richard Grimes, deicide.

  Deicide Corner: Freethinker: A person who forms opinions about religion on the basis of reason, independently of traditon, authority, or established belief.

• April 2, 2008

  12:37 p.m.

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  rg writes:

  Legerdemain was practiced by Saddam to convince the Iranians that he had WMD: His ruse was so good it convinced the talking Bush whose own slight of hand convinced Congress. “Bush’s election is a symptom of the dumbing down of America,” says Susan Jacoby, so Bush is not alone in his idiocy. My friend Barry says, “People Suck,” so I declare myself an exception. Richard Grimes: Deicide/Independent.

  Deicide Corner: Kill those who claim I'm not God, Jehovah and kill those my enemies: Jesus Christ Luke 19:27

• April 2, 2008

  6:18 p.m.

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  greenleaf writes:

  bropous.

  Thanks for the links, I've only had a chance to look at fact check. What a great site. I'm going to bookmark that and refer to it often. I will look at the others tomorrow. It does look as though Bush may have been misled by the British. I think that would have sorted itself out with a little more time. I think Bush was pretty eager to go!

  Thanks again bropous.

  Later

• April 3, 2008

  9:04 a.m.

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  jconder45 writes:

  bropous- because right-wing sites like Newsmax and Frontpage reported something doesn't make it true. They add no credibility to your bogus assertions.

  What has been hidden by the media is the extent to which Iraqi infrastructure has been destroyed there, guaranteeing continued anti-US animus.

• April 3, 2008

  1:32 p.m.

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  jvb writes:

  Threat to assassinate Bush's dad sent W. into Iraq where millions have died, millions displaced, $trillions to bankrupt America: Truly, W. has avenged his dad. McBush will guarantee a W. 3rd term to augment the revenge.

• April 4, 2008

  10:29 a.m.

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  anderson writes:

  If "the media" is ignoring our progress in Iraq, how does the SpeakOut columnist know things are going well? Oh, upon closer examination it appears the newspapers doing this bad deed, and we should go to the State Dept website for the straight scoop.

• April 5, 2008

  9:39 a.m.

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  rg writes:

  Oh: Oh! That lover of illegal immigrants is back. Anderson is back.

• April 5, 2008

  9:49 a.m.

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  rg writes:

  Anderson, the lover of illegal immigrants is not aware of how well the surge is working. The hot war continues to get hotter. There is so much war being waged presently, Allah is clearly beating up Bush's Christ: Allah is the greater god. Ah bullcrap! Listen up Anderson: The surge is not only an exercise in futility, it creates more resistance (resistence) to Bush's fiasco.

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