I REALLY should be watching Hardball:

U.S. TV network news about Iraq as distorted as al-Jazeera? Checking in from Iraq on Wednesday’s Hardball with Chris Matthews as part of that show’s look this week at “Iraq: The Real Story,” Bob Arnot highlighted a Muslim ayatollah in Iraq who “is furious at the press coverage. He says not only American television, but Arabic satellite TV, such as Al-Jazeera and the Abu Dhabi station, have mis-portrayed the great success that is Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.”

Arnot, MRC analyst Geoffrey Dickens noticed, documented how “Iraqis themselves are angrier than the American administration about the barrage of negative stories coming out of Iraq” on Arab television.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Reader Steve Hornbeck emails:

Regarding the Hardball story on Iraqis being angry over US media coverage, isn’t it way past time that the news media started looking into the possibility that some of the negative feelings that the rest of the world has about the US are the result of the US news media’s behavior? If you were an Iraqi who for years saw American reporters playing ball with the Hussein government and then saw that those same reporters had mostly negative things to say about your liberation, how would you feel about Americans?

Hmm. About like that, I imagine.

UPDATE: Here’s an interesting letter from a soldier in Afghanistan, with more comments on the media coverage.

Meanwhile reader John Nevins emails:

With regards to Steve Hornbeck’s comment on International opinion being against us because of media coverage, I think he is right on. In my travels to other countries, I find a lot of their opinions of us come straight from our own media coverage (because that is really all they have to base their opinions on). However, the problem is not just biased media coverage, but also our (good) quality of being very self-critical. I have found that dissent is a very American thing and not really found in other countries to the extent that we have it here. For the most part, though, dissent is good and important, because it forces us (and our leaders) to really watch what they do. (e.g. your constant critiquing of the Patriot Act for an American is a constant critique of one thing our government is doing that you disagree with, for outside observers not used to American self-critique, it would be seen as another example of how awful our government is). My favorite example was watching a German review of the movie Legally Blonde 2, in which the reviewer found it fascinating to see all the corruption in the U.S. government and how horrible our politicians are. Now, I’m no fan of politicians, and I do believe that there are issues of corruption in our government, but I think it’s telling that the Germany reviewer is focusing on U.S. corruption (since it is put right there in
front of her in a movie), as opposed to the far more extensive corruption in the German and EU governments (about which, I’m not expecting much European comment or even a light-hearted comedy anytime soon).

I think it’s telling that — although we’re always hearing how much more sophisticated and knowledgeable Europeans are — a German reviewer thinks he can learn something about the actual operation of the U.S. government from watching Legally Blonde 2.