Reader Ann asks me to comment on progress in Iraq, and the media's coverage, or lack, thereof.
I'm not really qualified to assess progress in Iraq; I know little about their political system, and less about military matters. I think economic progress is underreported; their infrastructure has either returned to, or exceeded, prewar measures, and by all reports is still rapidly improving. This matters a great deal, not only for quality of life, but because the more there is to destroy, the more stake people have in peace.
I can comment a little on the severe difficulties of news coverage in a war zone, particularly Iraq. It isn't safe, so reporters are limited mostly to Baghdad or embeds, which are not the whole story, and probably dramatically skew their perception of the situation; Baghdad is in the Sunni triangle. Also, someone recently pointed out something I hadn't thought of: most of the people who speak English in Iraq are Sunnis, privileged in the previous power structure. That is going to skew what people see. There's also the fact that bombings are dramatic, easy to see, instant; progress is slow and often hard to measure.
I don't think it's some sort of conspiracy. Journalism, like most things, is harder than it looks; without great care, it can go very wrong.
Thanks for such fast feedback! Regarding the difficulties of coverage, surely the difficulties of covering a war zone become less as the situation improves, yet coverage has gone down as the ease of coverage has increased. Of course that might be due in part to the "if it bleeds, it leads" obsession with drama. As you said, progress is less dramatic.
I don't think that it's a blatant conspiracy, but I believe that there would be more coverage if either the news was worse or a democrat was in the White House.
As my Father, the small-town weekly newspaper publisher said, "Good news is not news." I'm afraid that probably explains the majority of "media bias" right there.
A dramatic decline in American media coverage of the Iraq war has exactly coincided with the dramatic decline in violence there. You can say its not a conspiracy, Megan, but that doesn't mean the it's not deliberate. The fact that chaos and disorder isn't inevitable doesn't fit the narrative the media built for themselves during the last few years, so it is very inconvenient for them to report on the new facts.
For instance, how does NBC news report on the dramatic decrease in violence and the near destruction of Al Qaeda havens given that they conspicuously labeled Iraq a "civil war" just a year or so ago?
To see some statistics, see an American Journalism Review article here: http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4515
FALLUJAH, Iraq, June 17 (UPI) -- U.S. provincial reconstruction teams in Iraq's western Anbar province installed solar-powered purification units to provide potable water to local residents.
Iraqi citizens living in the city of Fallujah in western Anbar province get the majority of their water from the Euphrates River. The Iraqi minister of health has told the provincial council, however, the water in the river is contaminated with cholera and other microbial contaminants.
Solar-generated electrical power drives a pumping system in the purification units that draws water through a cascading series of filtration systems which releases water into holding tanks. The system requires no fuel and does not use chlorine.
The system is not linked to area distribution networks, meaning residents need to come to the site to get their drinking water. The local reception to the system, however, is positive, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq said in a report Tuesday.
"Clean drinking water is enormously important to our people," said Fallujah Councilman Hamid Ahmed Hashim al-Alwani.
U.S. reconstruction teams have installed seven of the solar purification units throughout the area, and there are plans to install five more units by the end of June.
© 2008 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form.
http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/06/17/fallujah_gets_solar-powered_water_units/3070/
If this was reported, widely, in the U.S., many citizens would, rightly, wonder why this isn't happening here--to aid our own ailing Water Supply infrastructure.
Shorter Megan: I'm not qualified to answer. Iraq isn't safe. Journalism is hard.
Wow, thanks so much for the insight. You've earned your pay for today!
"You've earned your pay for today!"
Well, given how much we all paid for the opinion, we have little room for complaint. It's her blog.
On reflection, though, the answer does seem to be a bit of a cop-out. Most voters aren't experts on Iraq but will still have to decide whether Obama or McCain would take the better approach. Given the stark differences between them on this issue, it's pretty important for the average voter to try to figure out whether or not there's still hope for improvement in Iraq. Should we cut our losses or try to win?
MM>> I think economic progress is underreported; their infrastructure has either returned to, or exceeded, prewar measures, and by all reports is still rapidly improving.
Oh yeah, very rapidly:
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/06/17/iraq.main/index.html
Note refugee numbers at the end of the article - almost half of the country (or what's left of the country) has been displaced.
Yeah, the sentence, "I'm not really qualified to assess progress in Iraq" is followed by a couple of easily researchable assumptions about Iraq which she manages to get wrong. You can see how Megan was so easily duped into supporting the unsupportable Iraq invasion.
"Note refugee numbers at the end of the article - almost half of the country (or what's left of the country) has been displaced"
The UNHCR numbers refer to refugees WORLDWIDE, not just from Iraq and Afghanistan. The number for Iraq, per UNHCR, is about 2 million, or 7.7 percent of the population. A slightly larger number are internally displaced, though it's not clear how attributable that is to the war, as a lot of Iraqis (Marsh Arabs, for example) met the definition of internally displaced prior to the war.
Shorter J: The Iraq Invasion is awesome, no statistics you ever cite will mean otherwise.
I would ask for statistics to back up this convenient and facile assumption, but that would be futile.
Isn't it bad that water has to be taken from a polluted river that's carrying cholera? Cholera! Where is the city's water system? Where is the electricity to run it? The International Reconstruction Fund Facility for Iraq states:
This of course does not include the living conditions of a million displaced Iraqis. Of all the facile statements McArdle has make, this is one of the most egregious.
I'm afraid that my statement might not be strong enough. By slavishly supporting the conservative view that our illegal invasion of Iraq and disasterous consequences were necessary and rightous, McArdle is supporting a corrupt and deadly power structure. She should be honest enough to admit it, and not attempt to hide her disregard for suffering under a thin veneer of civility. Nobody is fooled except for fools.
Susan, the question is not whether Iraqi infrastructure sucks--it does--but whether it is better than it used to be. It is. That doesn't mean the invasion was a good idea, but you should familiarize yourself with the basic statistics about Iraq before you make confident assertions about the sitation.
Uh Megan, as Susan's quote clearly shows, the Iraqi infrastructure is in much worse shape AFTER the invasion than before. You simply cannot just assert the opposite then call that assertion an argument.
As should you, Megan. And you do not address the important part of my post--your immoral support for the administration. There is simply no excuse. As a writer on the Atlantic you have a choice every time you post, to provide assistance and support to immorality and naked aggression, or to fight it. You do the former.
You have some power and an audience. You have what most of us do not--a chance to make a difference. Every time, you favor the powerful over the powerless. "I don't have a problem with privilege" indeed.
Next I suppose Susan will demand Megan's indictment for war crimes.
It's not a conspiracy, but the reporting is no doubt colored by the outcome people are expecting and looking for.
If you're rooting for America and want to see the the good the reporting will slant that way. Now, I'm not saying that when a car bomb goes off and a GI dies the reporter talks about the courageous soldier and the progress in Iraq instead.
But if a reporter sees Iraq as something we should get out of ASAP because it's an unwinnable civil war, and as you point out the journalism is alreaday tough to do and yields unclear results, there's no doubt which way the reporting will slant. Showing negatives, skipping over, downplaying or hedging the positives with potential negatives...
You simply cannot just assert the opposite then call that assertion an argument.
How else would you expect Megan to make her point?
sam-
I think you and the rest of the 101 Fighting Keyboarders should read Logan's response to your silly attacks against the media:
http://www.liberalavenger.com/2006/08/29/lara-logan-responds/
Rickm,
So you're suggesting the media doesn't cover the good because they don't want to damage or injure those people who are still out there doing good? "Look a school has been opened that makes life better." and the next day the school gets bombed.
So the media are so altruistic that they decided not to cover the school to save it from being bombed?
First the media have an incentive to make attention grabbing headlines. Schools may do that once or twice, but every reporter knows human interest stories, while nice, are not what sells papers on a day to day basis -- some sales yes, but on a consistent basis no.
Going back to the media refusing to cover something for fear of negative outcomes.... why do they provide a platform for the terrorists? Surely terrorism is more effective with the media spreading it around? How many people knew or cared about the terrorist uprising in the Philipines 50 years ago? It would be foolish to expect the media not to cover bad events.
But I think for most people it's clear the media does tend to bias the tone of its reporting in favor or their opinions. What does that mean with an overwhelming % of their opinions favor one outcome instead of another? A bias.
I already said there is no conspiracy. But it is biased and colored and if you don't think so Rickm that's fine; you're entitled to your opinions, however false they may be.
Sam, who are these reporters who hate America and want Iraq to win? Did you notice them when you were in Iraq? I can't believe this isn't front page news--reporters who don't want America to win. Oh, wait, must be that Liberal Media again. Darn you, Liberal Media!
"So the media are so altruistic that they decided not to cover the school to save it from being bombed?"
Yes.
First the media have an incentive to make attention grabbing headlines.
Indeed. I wonder if that's why the media, virtually across the board, actively cheered on the awesome Iraq Invasion. Mission accomplished!
Susan's comments are typical of the kneejerk reaction some people have to this war that renders any discussion with them impossible. For them, the war was illegal and immoral not on its facts, but do declare it so gives justification to their partisan extremism. They can't argue against the war on its merits, so they try and pretend as though there's no legitimate grounds for supporting the war. By peremptorily declaring the war evil they can avoid having to rationally face any arguments that challenge their worldview.
In fact, I believe that the war was morally correct, and I can base that opinion firmly on Just War grounds. The war legal, and that opinion is based on the text and history of UN Resolutions 687 and 1441 and customary international law under the Vienna Convention.
The antiwar crowd wants to insist that this is all about Bush, and invent conspiracy theories to justify themselves - theories which are self-evidently silly and supported by no real evidence.
The facts on the ground in Iraq show a remarkable turnaround since the Rumsfeld doctrine was replaced by the proven methods of Petreus and McMaster. The reason why we're not getting the whole story in Iraq is complicated, due to lazy journalism, uncritical acceptance if propaganda and above all a journalistic class that is steeped in groupthink.
Once again the pro-war arguments fail the logic test. If we are "winning" the war in Iraq, then logically we should be able to foresee a point when no troops are necessary and US forces will "draw down". You know, like we did when we liberated France. Oh I forgot, Iraq is nothing like France but exactly like Germany and therefore our troops will be there forever and ever amen!
Instead, the argument is that the surge was so successful that it should be sustained forever. Therefore it fails.
Susan's comments are typical of the kneejerk reaction some people have to this war that renders any discussion with them impossible. For them, the war was illegal and immoral not on its facts
Who are the kneejerks who claim Iraq is illegal and immoral not on facts? Where are they? Why would they make that argument when they could as easily rely on Teh Facts? It's a mystery.
In fact, I believe that the war was morally correct,
Really? Shocker. Was the torture morally correct? I'm confused there.
The antiwar crowd wants to insist that this is all about Bush, and invent conspiracy theories to justify themselves - theories which are self-evidently silly and supported by no real evidence.
Not so fast there, facty, it's more about Cheney, Richard Perle, Fred Hiatt, and a poop-load of assorted weak-minded fools (certain Republican pseudo-libertarians come to mind) who sold and supported the unsupportable Iraq Invasion. Bush was mostly playing computer golf when he wasn't being puppetted for propaganda.
The facts on the ground in Iraq show a remarkable turnaround since the Rumsfeld doctrine was replaced by the proven methods of Petreus and McMaster. The reason why we're not getting the whole story in Iraq is complicated, due to lazy journalism, uncritical acceptance if propaganda and above all a journalistic class that is steeped in groupthink.
Oh, so complicated, like that Valerie Plame thingy. Well, try and explain it to us, please, using as many fact-checkable examples as you can. Are you basing this awesome success on the high oil and gas prices, or your own observations in Iraq? Thanks in advance.
Except that isn't the argument at all. The surge succeeded because a necessary precondition for political reconciliation is security. Iraq can't progress if all the sides have reason to fear each other. The Shi'a distrusted the Sunnis for fear of al-Qaeda, the Shi'a turned to the Sadrists in response. Breaking that cycle was key, and that's what the US is doing. Our continued presence is a security guarantee. As long as we stay, neither party can guarantee that the use of force will give them an advantage. We need to stay in force until the Iraqi Army can take that role from us, and building an army takes time.
Even then, having a rapid reaction force available is a good idea. The point is to give the Iraqis the security they need to be comfortable enough to negotiate. Security is an essential requisite to political reconciliation, and until the Iraqis can provide it, we have to get them to the point where we can. The determination of when that is should not be a political determination, but a military one.
Except that isn't the argument at all. The surge succeeded because a necessary precondition for political reconciliation is security. Iraq can't progress if all the sides have reason to fear each other. The Shi'a distrusted the Sunnis for fear of al-Qaeda, the Shi'a turned to the Sadrists in response. Breaking that cycle was key, and that's what the US is doing. Our continued presence is a security guarantee. As long as we stay, neither party can guarantee that the use of force will give them an advantage. We need to stay in force until the Iraqi Army can take that role from us, and building an army takes time.
Even then, having a rapid reaction force available is a good idea. The point is to give the Iraqis the security they need to be comfortable enough to negotiate. Security is an essential requisite to political reconciliation, and until the Iraqis can provide it, we have to get them to the point where we can. The determination of when that is should not be a political determination, but a military one.
I believe ed just proved my point by example. A handful of ad hominems and conspiracy theories do not comprise a rational argument.
A big part of the change in tone is the military's public affairs department. They are not giving reporters the same sort of information that they did in most wars up through Vietnam. Most of their press releases are about "human interest" stories - the ones reporters don't report unless it's a slow news day - and about American casualties. There isn't the steady flow of "American forces killed 5 and captured 15 AQI fighters yesterday in Anbar; Iraqi forces killed another 20.", which would at least show up on Fox News.
Shorter Jay Reding: I'm not going to answer your questions because you're the poopy-head around here, not me.
I like proclaiming the profound moral and intellectual shortcomings of my ideological adversaries as much as the next guy, but may I offer an alternative point of departure from the original post? Regarding the statement "journalism is hard", in matters of factual reporting, I typically find that the more I know about a subject, the less accurate the reporting. It may be that journalists are uniquely incompetent in my areas of expertise, but I suspect not. If that is so, it is probably a safe assumption that no reporting is trustworthy.
Does anyone else shares the experience that most reporting is unreliable? If so, what, if anything, can be done to correct that? Blogging appears to offer one solution, by giving topical experts a forum to directly publish their expertise, but their exists a significant signal-to-noise ratio problem to be overcome. Some sort of peer review might be another solution, whether applied to MSM or the blogosphere, but given that we want timely reporting of a vast amount of information, that seems cumbersome and the selection of who gets to be a reviewer just shifts the reliability problem from the reporters to the reviewers. Timeliness in this scenario might be addressed by checking reporting after the fact, and sorting through the quantity of information reported might be addressed by applying some sort of spot checking. The matter of who should perform the quality assurance remains. Can anyone be trusted to provide an competent and unbiased report? Isn't the absence of such the problem in the first place?
Perhaps when it comes to news, we're just out of luck as far as accuracy is concerned and we should be happy if we can find a suitably pleasing fiction of events.
More from [obvious terrorist-loving commie-symp America-hater] Lara Logan (via Alterman):
"If I had to watch the news that you have over here in the United States, I would blow my brains out because it would just drive me nuts." Lara Logan, last night on The Daily Show.
"I'm not really qualified to assess progress in Iraq; I know little about their political system, and less about military matters. I think economic progress is underreported; their infrastructure has either returned to, or exceeded, prewar measures, and by all reports is still rapidly improving. This matters a great deal, not only for quality of life, but because the more there is to destroy, the more stake people have in peace."
I don't know what I'm talking about; the media never tell you anything. But according to all indicators, things are fantastic in Iraq! Sometimes, Megan, you are really really dumb.
You know we've been treated to how happy the Egyptians might be with Obama. The Wall Street Journal has an article about how the Iraqis might see our presidential contest.
Uh, Michael, I'm pretty sure that's an opinion piece. From the Wall Street Journal. You know, Peggy Noonan. And other stuff.
"Constraints of time and money being what they are, I have not gotten round to phoning 1,000 Iraqis to get their views on Obama-McCain. But I did sit down last week with four key provincial Iraqi leaders, Sunnis and Shiites, who -- without actually endorsing Mr. McCain -- made their views abundantly clear." The WSJ author goes on to give the views of those leaders, one of whom is the governor of Anbar province. It is a standard of republican government to have leaders express the views and interests of their people.
"Security is an essential requisite to political reconciliation, and until the Iraqis can provide it, we have to get them to the point where we can."
Jay Reding - What a great summary of why we're there and need to stay. I've bookmarked your blog and will start reading it.
"I typically find that the more I know about a subject, the less accurate the reporting."
jj- Yes, I also find that there are what seem to be big errors in reporting of things I know about, which makes me wonder about the other reporting. In fact, I went through a brief period when my area of expertise was in demand, and I was interviewed frequently. I learned to e-mail the reporter after the interview to clarify my views and comments, so that the article was less likely to mis-quote me. After all, if I spent years researching a subject, how can I expect even a bright, hard-working, professional reporter to understand it all in a half hour interview? The follow-up e-mail dramatically reduced the misquoting.
I later talked to someone who had been interviewed frequently, and he said that the best thing to do, if one had a bottom-line message, was to simply repeat that message over and over in response to anything the journalist asked. To some extent that explained some of the frustrating TV interviews I've seen where the person didn't answer the question and just kept repeating the same thing - perhaps it was just that they were tired of being mis-quoted.
Ann,
Thanks for the feedback. I agree that the best one can hope for is the bright, hard-working reporter (and I naively assume that that describes most reporters) who doesn't have the time, knowledge base or space to give an accurate report. Even when reporting on a topic that doesn't require specialist knowledge, there will be multiple accounts of any contentious issue, by definition. There's pretty much no chance of getting anything but a blurry picture. It's a Bayesian world we live in.