Coverage of the War
It is often stated that the reason that most news organization only cover the bad parts of war is because it grabs the attention of a large enough audience. That may have been the case in Vietnam, but I seriously cant belive story’s about our soliders bravery and commitment would not play well to a larger audience. Take for example the story below, taken from this posting about some of the the good developmnents in Iraq over the last week.
Coffman, 51, is a senior adviser to Iraqi Special Police Commandos with the Multi-National Security Transition Command—Iraq’s Civilian Police Assistance Training Team. He accompanied a Commando Quick Reaction Force with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Iraqi Special Police Commando Brigade on Nov. 14, 2004 to help a Commando platoon under attack in a Mosul, Iraq police station.
As the QRF approached the station, it was besieged with rocket-propelled grenades, small arms fire and mortar rounds. Coffman and the Commandos fought the terrorists for four hours before help arrived. When the initial firefight killed or seriously wounded all but one of the Commando officers, Coffman rallied the remaining Commandos while trying to radio for assistance, according to his award citation.
“Under heavy fire, he moved from Commando to Commando, looking each in the eye and using hand and arm signals to demonstrate what he wanted done,” the citation said.
When an enemy round shattered his left shooting hand, damaging his M4 rifle in the process, Coffman bandaged it and continued fighting with AK-47 rifles he collected from Commando casualties until each ran out of ammunition. He also passed out ammunition to the uninjured Commandos with the help of the remaining Commando officer; when all that remained were loose rounds, Coffman held magazines between his legs and loaded the rounds with his good hand.
When a second Commando unit arrived four hours after the fight began, Coffman led them to his position and continued to fight, refusing to be evacuated for treatment until the battle was over. Not long after the Commando reinforcements arrived, air support and a Stryker Brigade Quick Reaction Force were on hand to assist to assist in the battle.
Coffman supervised the evacuation of injured Commandos and led another group of Commandos to the police station to make contact with the Iraqi police inside. Once the additional air and ground support elements began attacking buildings the enemy forces were hiding in, Coffman went back to his initial position to check on the injured Commandos and then agreed to be evacuated for treatment. Twenty-five terrorists were killed and dozens injured.
Am I to seriously believe that many Americans would not enjoy reading stories like this? I supect the truth is much closer to some kind of left bias combined with the expectation that bad news will lead to better ratings. Editors reason that bad news gets ratings. Happily, in this case, bad news happens to be in keeping with their fundamental assumptions regarding the war in general.
May 1st, 2006 at 9:58 am
Another thing I’ve heard from people who actually work in the news is that budget cuts and resulting laziness have led to a sharp decline in investigative reporting. It’s easy to report the body count which the military releases officially and then to speculate wildly; I suspect that storie like the one in hta posting take some amount of effort to find (as well as danger etc) and that many news associations simply aren’t willing to invest the resources to find such a story- or, to be more specific, do not have the framework neccessary to find such a story in place.
May 1st, 2006 at 10:15 am
Not true. If you visit the USAID page you will see plenty of stories on the reconstruction effort in Iraq. Using these stories does not even require having reporters in Iraq and yet these stories never make it to the front pages of the MSM.
May 2nd, 2006 at 6:24 am
Yeah, but they still need to send camera crews and shit; however, as I said i htink the main problem is the onfrastructue, ie, I honestly don’t know whether most mainstream news outlets have anyone who’s job it is (or who is competent to) find sites such as USAID and spend time verifying their stories. I totally admit I could be wrong though, I’m just saying this is my impression from talking to some people who were bitching about their jobs in the news.