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November 26, 2005

Selective Reporting, MSM Style

I absolutely love it when liberals I meet tell me they believe -- no, strike that, when a liberal expresses his or her beliefs, he or she states them as indisputable fact and will consider no suggestion that there is any possibility to the contrary -- that the Mainstream Media favors conservative politics.

Face it, he or she is either brainwashed, lying or simply obtuse.

If the media is pro Republican, news reports should minimize any mistakes made by the Bush Administration in, say, Iraq while playing up the positive news, such as infrastructure improvements, good Samaritan activities by American troops, new schools in Iraqi cities and good fellowship on the part of the rank and file Iraqi citizen. Their editorials would emphasize the enthusiastic response of the Iraqi people to the opportunity to embrace democracy.

If, on the other hand, the media is pro Democrat, the opposite will certainly be true. Bush Administration errors or perceived errors will be brayed forth for all they're worth and positives would be blatantly ignored. MSM journalists will play "see no positive, hear no positive, speak no positive," just like the three little monkeys, where all things Iraq are concerned.

If the media is actually doing its job, which is fair, accurate and balanced reporting, the reports we read, watch or listen to will include, in their entirety, both the negatives and the positives.

Hmmm, pick up the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Las Angeles Times or the San Francisco Chronicle on any given day and take a gander at the headsheet, or tune into the CNN, NPR, CBS, ABC or NBC news. Then compare what you see and hear with the above three paragraphs and decide which best fits the news reporting before you.

If you cannot acknowledge that you find that the middle paragraph best fits, well...

Mona Charen's offering up, once again, a spot-on column.

One Marine, Sgt. Todd Bowers, who did two tours in Iraq, described the attitude of many press types. "They didn't want to talk to us." Why? I asked. "Because we were gung-ho for the mission." Bowers, who was saved from grievous injury when a bullet lodged in the sight of his rifle (a sight his father had purchased for him), is chary about the press.

In his first tour, he noticed that members of the press were reluctant to photograph Iraqis laughing, giving the thumbs up sign, or cheering. Yet Bowers saw plenty that would have made fine snapshots. In Baghdad, Al Kut and Al-Nasiriyah, Bowers reported no signs of anti-American feeling at all among Iraqis.

You would think the press might be interested in the observations of this Marine, seeing as Sgt. Bowers is a two-tour veteran of the war they are covering in Iraq, for the purpose of informing the American public. Does this make sense? I mean, if a soldier or an Iraqi civilian makes a statement disparaging or otherwise casting anything other than a positive light on our involvement in Iraq, it always, somehow, seems to rate a prime piece of real estate right there on the front page or as the top story in the evening news.

There was plenty of progress to report, if the press had been interested. When the battle of Fallujah was over, the Marines set up a humanitarian relief station in an abandoned amusement park. Together with Iraqis locally hired and trained for the purpose and with an assist from the Iraqi ministry of the interior, they distributed rice, flour, medical supplies, baby formula, and other necessities to thousands of Iraqis. For six weeks, Bowers reports, the distribution went beautifully, "like a well-oiled machine." Not worth a story, apparently. Only when something went wrong did the press see something worth reporting...

When a liberal argues that he or she has developed his or her opinions by consulting diverse news sources, you can pretty much take that to mean one of the "Big 3" networks or CNN over breakfast, the local liberal newpaper or NPR, perhaps, during the commute to work and more of the same at ten o'clock on the tube. Between dinnertime and the news, prime time sitcoms are interwoven with the politics of mainstream Hollywood liberals.

And yet, despite this unending uphill public relations battle conservative America is forced to undertake, the majority clearly favors our point of view by going to the polls and electing significantly more Republicans than Democrats to public office.

Go figure.

Posted by Seth at November 26, 2005 04:26 AM

Comments

Posted by: Google at August 17, 2006 12:01 PM