New London Connecticut's The Day, reports on a speech The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby gave at Connecticut College Monday.
Jacoby said mainstream coverage of the war in Iraq has failed to document progress made in that country because a “left-of-center” media has failed to put the current problems and challenges into a larger context:
Iraq is moving into a modern world and slowly recuperating, but this is after decades of cruelty and neglect.
[. . .]
Jacoby said coverage in the “mainstream print media” has failed to highlight the incremental steps leading Iraq toward democracy. If it has been reported, he said it hadn't made adequate headlines. He listed a dozen examples culled from both major news sources and Internet discussion sites called “blogs.” Examples include stories of increased marriage licenses, a new Iraqi radio station and efforts to limit political corruption at the local level.
Jacoby said coverage is slanted because reporters work in “newsrooms with a left-of-center view” and are “skeptical” of the military. Quoting the maxim “if it bleeds, it leads,” he said negative images and news are more likely to appear on front pages.
[. . .]
Jacoby said Iraq's future is “uncertain” because of its ethnic, religious and political tensions. But he said the war had made the world safer because it moved Iraq toward democratically elected government and “democracies don't make war on each other.”
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