August 22, 2005
What News Is
I'm not the only person unhappy with the coverage the Western press provides on the war on terror. As Army Capt. Sherman Powell told Today Show host Matt Lauer in in response to his question how troop morale could be so high, given the problems in Iraq:
"If I got my news from the newspapers also, I'd be pretty depressed as well. Those of us who've actually had a chance to get out and go on patrols and meet the Iraqi army and the Iraqi police and go on patrols with them, we are very satisfied with the way things are going here."
What does the coverage consist of? Headlines about how many coalition force or Iraqi civilians were killed today or silence if none were killed, or recently how the effort to forge a new Iraqi constitution is about to unravel if there is kind of heated debate, posturing to make a later deal, or rhetorical point scoring at the sacrifice of progress, or silence if the effort is going smoothly. American operations are only mentioned in the context of (1) the casualties they bring to coalition soldiers and (2) how the enemy is so flexable and always adapting. Listening to news reports provides the inescapable conclusion that the only thing coalition forces are doing in Iraq is dying.
A large part of the problem is the divergent aims of terrorist groups in Iraq and the coalition forces - one is simply out to kill and terrorize and intimidate; the other is out to build a new civil society. The former is much easier to cover and so leads and dominates the coverage. The latter is much harder because it is so much more varied, much more widespread, and considered "normal" and thus not news. How can killing terorrists, finding and destroying arms caches, building infrastructure like power or sewage treatment plants, and holding elections all be a single aim? By and large for the press, if it can't be covered simply, it isn't covered at all.
So this morning my local paper's WOT terror coverage consisted of an article about how 4 US soldiers were killed in Afganistan and how the things are getting worse there. Where is the story about how US and Afgan forces killed 105 terrorists in the same area that the 4 US soldiers were killed -- I guess that somehow wasn't news.
Posted by Kevin Murphy at August 22, 2005 12:13 PM | War On Terror
