Mainstream media suppress Iraq optimism

Michael Fumento writes in Townhall Editorial page associate editor Mark Yost at the Knight-Ridder newspaper the St. Paul Pioneer Press committed a major boo-boo. He penned a provocative column on media coverage of the Iraq war, observing that from what his contacts there told him – with apologies to Johnny Mercer – the mainstream media are accentuating the negative and ignoring the positive.

This is something I have said many many many times.

Yost couldn’t have imagined he was bathing in blood and throwing himself into the shark pen. His media colleagues were merciless. “With your column, you have spat on the copy of the brave men and women who are doing their best in terrible conditions,”

It is not the reporters fault, who are working in those conditions, that they dont turn in stories they know their editors, who are safe at home, won't run, because they only want to run the bad news.

reporter Chuck Laszewski at the same newspaper charged in an open letter. “You have insulted them and demeaned them,” he wrote. “I am embarrassed to call you my colleague.” Knight-Ridder D.C. Bureau Chief Clark Hoyt devoted a column to a Yost roast, taking time out only to slam U.S. progress in Iraq. To read it is to know exactly why so many Americans believe we can’t trust the media to fairly cover the war. OF COURSE the war coverage is slanted: The adage "If it bleeds it leads" doesn’t halt at the Iraqi border. That's why when two small shells land in a barren section of city the size of Boston CNN.com blares: "Blasts rock Baghdad near coalition headquarters" whereas the completion of an electrification program or water main gets not a column inch. It was the very obviousness of Yost’s observation that led to vicious attacks attempting to either show there is no bias or that alternatively there is a bias but it’s justified. One reporter claimed on the Poynter Institute’s Romenesko open blog for journalists that Yost "must not be watching the network nightly newscasts," yet that's exactly what Yost was criticizing. David Hannners, another Pioneer Press reporter, insisted the media have no obligation to present positive stories because war itself is a negative thing. Come again?

That is exactly the problem. These Left Wing media masters dont like war, and the don't like Bush, so they run only things which indicate the negative side of the issue, and they bury the positive stories.