Blogcritics Comments on "Just one view, of course, but I'm surprised how much the last one resonated around the net"

Comment by Joel Andrews on "Just one view, of course, but I'm surprised how much the last one resonated around the net"

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 20:43:26 EDT

Medea basically learned this in Iraq: "it's a disaster, people don't have electricity, water, garbage collection, sewage collection, jobs." After that she only repeats the mantra endlessly. By simply reading this you have now been to Iraq, too! Usually when I go someplace, I try to pick up a little more information. Makes me wonder if it was an airport layover or something. Maybe a drink at the bar in the Palestine. ]]>

Comment by Joe on "Just one view, of course, but I'm surprised how much the last one resonated around the net"

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:33:13 EDT

Brian, am I to infer that you feel that either proximity (has or hasn't been to Iraq) or military experience (chickenhawk!) are qualifiers to having a valid opinion on the subject of Iraq? If so, would you care to share your credentials with the group. ]]>

Comment by Eric Olsen on "Just one view, of course, but I'm surprised how much the last one resonated around the net"

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:11:38 EDT

A) I'm not sure why I should care what kevin Drum said about this unless he himself chose to visit. B) it all comes down to emphasis, which I mentioned in the story intro, and to emphasize the bad news disproportionately to the good news (or even the just "not bad" news) distorts the picture. I also said it isn't even a question of left vs right, or pro- vs anti-war, it's a question of giving an honest feel of the atmosphere on the ground. That's what I have been trying to do with these reports from the scene. ]]>

Comment by Brian Flemming on "Just one view, of course, but I'm surprised how much the last one resonated around the net"

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 15:05:27 EDT

Interesting conversation at pbs.org between a person who has visited Iraq and a person who hasn't. ]]>

Comment by Robert Moates on "Just one view, of course, but I'm surprised how much the last one resonated around the net"

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 14:36:43 EDT

"In any case, there's no way of knowing whether news from Iraq is slanted unless you yourself happen to know how things are going." At that point you should have stopped. But no, you had to go on, call people scoundrels and opine that things must be very bad because we hear very bad things. You say, "the media behavior in Baghdad is no different than their behavior in Los Angeles" perhaps that is the problem. Baghdad is different than LA. A shooting in Baghdad is not the same as a shooting in LA. Or are we suggesting that the police pull out of LA? (Sorry that was uncalled for) Fact is that if things are going well in 85% of Iraq then we would expect that a relative number of stories would reflect the same. What that number is I don't know. But it should not be inversely proportional. If it is, something else is going on. ]]>

Comment by Brian Flemming on "Just one view, of course, but I'm surprised how much the last one resonated around the net"

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 13:54:40 EDT

From CalPundit (emphasis mine):

Virginia Postrel says she doesn't know what the real situation in Iraq is, and Glenn Reynolds responds with this:
And neither do I, of course. But what has been obvious from here is that the bad news has been consistently overplayed and the good news consistently underplayed....
Really? From where I sit, Glenn opines rather endlessly about the situation in Iraq. You don't have to look far, either: just read the sentence right after "And neither do I." The proximate cause of all this is a USA Today story about media coverage of Iraq, which actually says nothing about slanted coverage at all. What it says is that some reporters think things are better than reported while others think things are actually worse. And presumably everyone agrees with Time magazine's Brian Bennett that this really has nothing to do with bias: dramatic events are what the media reports everywhere, not just in Iraq. Their behavior in Baghdad is no different from their behavior in Los Angeles. In any case, there's no way of knowing whether news from Iraq is slanted unless you yourself happen to know how things are going. And considering the fact that our soldiers continue to get killed, buildings and pipelines are being bombed, the president wants 87 billion additional dollars, and reserve tours have been extended — well, how good can things be? We wouldn't be extending our troops' stay in Iraq and begging other countries for help if things were going better than planned, would we? To update Samuel Johnson, media bias is the last refuge of a scoundrel. When the news is bad and you can't actually marshal any particular facts to prove otherwise — aside from a few cherry picked positive reports and the descriptions of some casual visitors — just yell "media bias" and pretend that "bad news has been consistently overplayed" even if most of the evidence belies that. I have no doubt that there's good news in Iraq — Saddam is gone, infrastructure is being slowly rebuilt, daily life may possibly be returning to something close to normal — but it's pretty obvious that there's plenty of bad news too. That doesn't mean we have to give up, but the war party, which was so enthusiastic about this adventure beforehand, ought to be willing to face up to it. So quit shooting the messengers, guys, it's unbecoming.

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