Excellent post, Sachi. Another example of why I come by twice a day. I linked from The Media's Defensive War.

You know what would be fun... since the Network Reporters won't report from beyond the lobby of thier hotel the MilBloggers should start taking pictures of the Network guys at "work". Here's the CNN guy at dinner; here's the ABC guy in the bar. Maybe we could really get to know how dangerous it is for these Hero Reporters...

...and if you can get video of them doing WHATEVER it is they are doing, that might be fun too. This of course assumes you wouldn't end up with 18 hours of video footage from under the bed.

Selling the idea of defeat = good is a tough sell, but the MSM feels up to it.
I think they are wrong.
Just recall that this was tred with Lincoln during the Civil War. It got him re-elected with a very strong Republican majority.

The MSM doesn't want to be seen propandizing for the US government, like they're some sort of extra-national institution and supporting US policy would be "stooping too low". Too nationalistic.

"Disgusting" is what we call it.

Instead they're taking up the cause of the Baathists and the fascists.

"Indeed, it's hard not to conclude that they think the first [America defeated] is a small price to pay for the second [Bush humbled]."

*sigh*

And it's not necessarily going to far to conclude that, in fact, "America defeated" is their true goal. It was their goal in Viet Nam after American forces actually had won victory to turn it into American betrayal of the South Vietnamese people. They accomplished that goal, so why should their hubris quail at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq, as well?

The reporters who are in Iraq know perfectly well that the situation is worse than they are allowed to report. If they wanted to sap America's confidence and defeat Bush, they could run gory pictures of dead bodies every day. And as Lara Logan brilliantly pointed out, the State Department won't let them report on things like schools and reconstruction projects because the very act of reporting on them can cause them to get blown up.

The basic fact of the situation is that there is no security in Iraq. Until the security situation improves, there is no "good news" -- and it is getting worse, not better.

Our brave reporters in Iraq are doing a fine job and the Bush Administration's attempts to blame the media for Bush's own failures -- vile, vile, vile. Just another part of Bush's war on America, this time the war on the patriotic American media.

So this is what Powerline thinks of as an insightful blog, hm? Figures.

Thanks, Sachi. You nail it well:

"The elite media want to see America defeated -- and Bush humbled.

Indeed, it's hard not to conclude that they think the first is a small price to pay for the second."

The Bush administration made a mistake when they started using the name "The War On Terror". That name suggests that we started this war. On the contrary, the war was started a long time ago by the terrorists and was finally forced upon us unwillingly on 9/11 after we tried to ignore it for many years. A better name would be "The war started by terrorists", or the "Islamist war against the free world".

I think the basic fact in Iraq is that much of the "nation" IS secure, contrary to M.A.'s belief. Moreover, reporting on good news from the front is always a good thing, since it encourages Americans to support the war and helps validate the sacrifices the country is making.

That's why the MSM won't report this stuff, not poppycock about protecting their security by avoiding "drawing attention" to school construction and water projects.

M.A.

Lara Logan reported some good news from Tal Afar. I introduced it here.

Lara Logan is one of the few reporters who actually goes out with the army and reports more accurate news. So from her perspective, the charge seems unfair.

But she is the exception, not the norm. That is exactly the problem.

"Moreover, reporting on good news from the front is always a good thing, since it encourages Americans to support the war and helps validate the sacrifices the country is making."

I just don't think that's the media's job. Their job is not to convince us to support the war; that's the job of the government. The media doesn't work for the government. Their job is to give us an idea of what's going on -- and in a war, what's going on is usually killing and violence. That's the essence of war.

And sometimes the media has a responsibility to tell us things that the government doesn't want us to know -- because governments often lie. (And not just Republican governments either.) That was the point of the coverage of the Tet Offensive. Contrary to the conservative myth, the media did not tell us that we "lost" the offensive. What they did tell us was that the Tet Offensive was very bloody and killed many more Americans than expected. Suddenly it was clear that the Johnson Administration was lying to America when they said that the war wasn't costing a lot of American lives. But was it wrong for the media to show that Johnson was lying? No. The American people needed to understand the true cost of the war in order to make an informed decision about whether it was worth it.

Finally, the sad fact is that "the country" isn't making any sacrifices. The troops are making sacrifices, but the country as a whole is sacrificing nothing: no draft, no rationing, no tax increases (so that the country is going bankrupt because Bush can't pay for the war), none of the things that created a shared sense of sacrifice in other wars. A civilian who supports the war is doing no more for the war effort than a civilian who opposes it, because there's no sacrifice involved; it's just a policy disagreement. I think this war is bad policy.

Sachi -- yes, Lara Logan mentioned later in the interview that she got attacked from the left for reporting good news from Tal Afar. But listen to the interview and how angry she gets at the accusations you people are making; she's not just speaking for herself but for all her fellow journalists in Iraq. She says she reports good news when she can, yet she says things are very bad, that the security situation has gotten worse, and that there's a lot of horror that the media isn't showing us. If she's one of the journalists you approve of, then you should listen to what she says, because it's not what the conservative media would like you to think.

"Moreover, reporting on good news from the front is always a good thing, since it encourages Americans to support the war and helps validate the sacrifices the country is making."

I just don't think that's the media's job. Their job is not to convince us to support the war; that's the job of the government.

Whether news is helpful or hurtful to the cause, the media's responsibility is to REPORT THE NEWS. M.A. believes that it's "not their job" to report good news.

OK... so we know where M.A. is coming from.

Their job is to give us an idea of what's going on -- and in a war, what's going on is usually killing and violence. That's the essence of war.

No need to try to deliver a bigger picture at all, right? I mean, whether or not we're accomplishing our goals is beside the point, no need for perspective. As long as there is killing and violence going on, the media's "job" is to report only on that.

Do you really believe this, M.A.? Or are you just passing along a meme?

"Whether news is helpful or hurtful to the cause, the media's responsibility is to REPORT THE NEWS. M.A. believes that it's 'not their job' to report good news."

No, I said it's not their job to make us support the war. It's not their job to make us oppose the war either. OK?

"No need to try to deliver a bigger picture at all, right? I mean, whether or not we're accomplishing our goals is beside the point, no need for perspective."

It would be easier to report on the how we're accomplishing our goals if the goals weren't so vague. If the goal is to, say, capture a city, the media can report on progress (and does). But the goal right now is just to make Iraqis stop killing each other. And nobody knows exactly how to do that, or even make progress toward that. So what can the media say, other than that Iraqis are killing each other?

It would be easier to report on the how we're accomplishing our goals if the goals weren't so vague.

I understand that our goals are to get Iraq on its feet economically and politically, and to get Iraq's own security services capable enough to take on the jihadists and Baathists so that we can draw down our forces.

I guess you weren't paying attention the many times Bush & Co. were explaining all this.

So what can the media say, other than that Iraqis are killing each other?

Funny how the narrative just falls naturally into place absent all investigations and evidence. And they say conservatives are intellectually incurious!

M.A. said:
"Moreover, reporting on good news from the front is always a good thing, since it encourages Americans to support the war and helps validate the sacrifices the country is making."

I just don't think that's the media's job. Their job is not to convince us to support the war; that's the job of the government. The media doesn't work for the government. Their job is to give us an idea of what's going on -- and in a war, what's going on is usually killing and violence. That's the essence of war.
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The job of the public media is to report all the good news as well as the bad. They're failing miserably in fulfilling that mission, and they are seemingly failing not because they lack the technical capabilities, the people, the access or the money to do well but instead because the thought leaders in MSM are against the war, simply put. Why else is the MSM so interested in shaping public opinion to be against the war? Big media reporting looks like nothing more than anti-war propaganda, by and large. AP or Reuters may be the most obvious, but are there any real qualitative differences between them and CBS/NBC/ABC/NYT/WaPo?

I hate to keep referring to a monlithic "media", but in this instance it seems justified. Is there a single major media company whose leadership is pro-Bush, or pro-war? If not overtly pro-war, at least even handed? I don't think so, and I can't imagine you would either. If you disagree, I'd sure like to read or see a consistent line of reporting or editorial content supporting the view.

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