In listening to much of the recent war coverage, you'd think that we're experiencing little but a series of unmitigated disasters, shocking betrayals by the administration, horrifying surprises, and stunning setbacks in the slow-grinding quagmire that is the war in Iraq. Not all reporting has been like that, but it's often rather disorienting: I'll go from listening to NPR, wondering how we'll ever recover from this horrible mess we've gotten into, then head over to The Command Post and I'll see information from all sides and perspectives, from around the world, and I'll realize: hey, things aren't that bad at all. In fact, they're pretty good, if you get past the bug-eyed coverage from so much of the press.
I think Rand Simberg has the most clear-eyed perspective on the war coverage I've seen so far. And the funniest.
RUMSFELD: STATEMENTS THAT WAR IS ON TRACK ARE ‘ON TRACK’
10,000 Pronouncements of On-Trackness Reported Thus Far
At a Pentagon press briefing today, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that official Pentagon statements that Operation Iraqi Freedom was on track were, in his words, “on track.”
“In terms of the number and volume of statements we have made that the war is on track, we are exactly where we hoped to be at this point,” Mr. Rumsfeld said. “The frequency with which we’ve said we’re on track is definitely on track.”
http://www.borowitzreport.com/
The Internet is a great thing. It actually does present both the best and worst sides of the first amendment and everything in between. That is not a problem for me since I do not read trash.
It is refreshing Americans can access other sources outside America’s booby press. The Internet is the leading reason why. Hopefully, this balance will force America’s establishment media to get with the program or go out of business. O’Reilly actually believes that broadcast news will disappear in seven years.
I don't bother to watch much of the news -- just enough to get a sense if anything major happened. I first started to tune out when a radio reporter announced, "heavy casualties today in Iraq on the third day." He meant 20 or so.
"Heavy casualties" is Iwo Jima: 28,000 wounded, nearly 7,000 dead Marines; Okinawa, 12,000 killed or wounded on the first day, 38,000 total casualties. And let's not talk about Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg or Gettysburg.
In Afghanistan, the news was unrelenting in its negativity until the Taliban collapsed. It didn't take a genius to realize virtually everything journalists had said was speculation and bullshit. Same goes for the terrorist sniper incident.
As Steve den Beste put it [paraphrasing here], if there's no story, they just make one up.
Thank God for the Internet.
I'm probably wrong on the 12,000 on the first day of Okinawa thing. But the overall casualty figures are accurate.
The only conundrum I see in this equation is, "When will the rest of America finally turn these bums off?"
I'm noticing fewer and fewer stories about the war but more stories about reporters reporting the war! One was injured (he got some glass in his face, not serious. There were soldiers more seriously injured but got less air time...) and then of course there's Arnett and Geraldo. Major news outlets think its all about them.