BLACKFIVE has posted "Aiding and Abetting the Enemy: the Media in Iraq" an essay by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Ryan - a Task Force Commander in Iraq.
It's long but worth your time. Here's a teaser:
Print and video journalists are covering only a small fraction of the events in Iraq and more often than not, the events they cover are only the bad ones. Many of the journalists making public assessments about the progress of the war in Iraq are unqualified to do so, given their training and experience. The inaccurate picture they paint has distorted the world view of the daily realities in Iraq. The result is a further erosion of international public support for the United States' efforts there, and a strengthening of the insurgents' resolve and recruiting efforts while weakening our own. Through their incomplete, uninformed and unbalanced reporting, many members of the media covering the war in Iraq are aiding and abetting the enemy.
The fact is the Coalition is making steady progress in Iraq, but not without ups and downs. War is a terrible thing and terrible things happen during wars, even when you are winning. In war, as in any contest of wills with capable opponents, things do not always go as planned; the guys with the white hats don't always come out on top in each engagement. That doesn't mean you are losing. Sure, there are some high profile and very spectacular enemy attacks taking place in Iraq these days, but the great majority of what is happening in Iraq is positive. So why is it that no matter what events unfold, good or bad, the media highlight mostly the negative aspects of the event? The journalistic adage, "If it bleeds, it leads," still applies in Iraq, but why only when it's American blood?
[. . .]
Much of the problem is about perspective, putting things in scale and balance. From where I sit in my command post at Camp Fallujah, Iraq, things are not all bad right now. In fact, they are going quite well. We are not under attack by the enemy; on the contrary, we are taking the fight to him daily and have him on the ropes.
[. . .]
I believe one of the reasons for this shallow and subjective reporting is that many reporters never actually cover the events they report on. This is a point of growing concern within the Coalition. It appears many members of the media are hesitant to venture beyond the relative safety of the so-called "International Zone" in downtown Baghdad, or similar "safe havens" in other large cities. Because terrorists and other thugs wisely target western media members and others for kidnappings or attacks, the westerners stay close to their quarters. This has the effect of holding the media captive in cities and keeps them away from the broader truth that lies outside their view. With the press thus cornered, the terrorists easily feed their unwitting captives a thin gruel of anarchy, one spoonful each day. A car bomb at the entry point to the International Zone one day, a few mortars the next, maybe a kidnapping or two thrown in. All delivered to the doorsteps of those who will gladly accept it without having to leave their hotel rooms -- how convenient.
These excerpts give you the general idea, but don't do Lieutenant Colonel Ryan's essay justice. You really should read the whole thing.
The press is aiding and abetting the enemy. The only question is the press doing it deliberately. It's hard, no impossible to imagine that it is not deliberate. How many times has the press been called to task for biased way the news about the war is reported? If the faulty reporting weren't deliberate surely by now the press would have changed their ways. They haven't. It seems to me that the reporting from Iraq has actually gotten worse over that last year.
The media's biased coverage of the war is one of California Yankee's pet peeves. Last moth California Yankee posted about a speech the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby gave at Connecticut College:
Jacoby said coverage is slanted because reporters work in “newsrooms with a left-of-center view” and are “skeptical” of the military.
I think it is worse than that.
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