Thank You, Digby
The nonsense about how "they're not reporting the good news" continues. Lucky for me, Digby at Hullabaloo appears to have heard me screaming at my television.
Equally absurd is the idea that now, after three years, we should be satisfied with even the qualified "good news" that exists. It's not like the press has been steadfastly refusing to report that the Iraqi oilfields are back online and are now paying for our forces there. It isn't a conspiracy of the media that the electrical power to Baghdad still sucks, as we head for another long, hot summer.
If the press stopped covering the violence, they'd be able to move on to reporting how badly the country was broken, how corrupt the CPA was and how pitiful the reconstruction has been. Maybe they could do more coverage of the big construction projects taking place there, like the tons of concrete being poured at our bases, which look more and more permanent every day.
Bush can say "progress" all he wants, but it simply hasn't been enough. Three years is a long time, if you know what you are doing, and you are serious about doing it well. It's past time when the results should be obvious even if there was a "it bleeds, it leads" bias to the reporting. It's not.
Right now, all they're basically asserting is that, three years in, we're making progress away from it being a complete and total disaster. It's not nearly enough.
Memo to the news media:
The mere fact that reporters must risk their lives every time they attempt to report the "good news" means that the news, by definition, cannot be all that good. It means that all those new schools and soccer games and litters of adorable puppies exist in the shadow of horrible violence.
Don't be fooled. The fact that life goes on in Iraq, even during a violent occupation, doesn't mitigate the death and destruction that makes Iraq a daily story of unimaginable terror. Bush and his minions would like to make Americans believe it does, but it isn't true. All we have to do is imagine if we would agree that a new school being opened in St Louis was newsworthy on a day when 30 people were killed while shopping at the Safeway down the street and four Catholic churches around the country were blown up.
It's the violence, stupid. Until that stops, there is no good news.
Equally absurd is the idea that now, after three years, we should be satisfied with even the qualified "good news" that exists. It's not like the press has been steadfastly refusing to report that the Iraqi oilfields are back online and are now paying for our forces there. It isn't a conspiracy of the media that the electrical power to Baghdad still sucks, as we head for another long, hot summer.
If the press stopped covering the violence, they'd be able to move on to reporting how badly the country was broken, how corrupt the CPA was and how pitiful the reconstruction has been. Maybe they could do more coverage of the big construction projects taking place there, like the tons of concrete being poured at our bases, which look more and more permanent every day.
Bush can say "progress" all he wants, but it simply hasn't been enough. Three years is a long time, if you know what you are doing, and you are serious about doing it well. It's past time when the results should be obvious even if there was a "it bleeds, it leads" bias to the reporting. It's not.
Right now, all they're basically asserting is that, three years in, we're making progress away from it being a complete and total disaster. It's not nearly enough.
posted by Paul at 9:59 PM |
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