BRUCE CHAPMAN WRITES IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
BAGHDAD, Iraq–Basking in the sun by the Al Hamra Hotel swimming pool, a Spanish journalist complained to me that “all my editors want is blood, blood, blood. No context. No politics.”
Such editors are cruising to be scooped by such local Iraqi blogs as Iraq the Model, which last summer debunked a Los Angeles Times story on the departure of Coalition Provisional Authority head L. Paul Bremer. The Times told its readers that Bremer had fled abruptly, “afraid to look in the eye the people he had ruled for more than a year.” In fact, as Iraq the Model reported, Mr. Bremer before leaving delivered a television address that gave a moving account of his tenure and his hopes for the new all-Iraqi interim government.
The bloggers had heard it, the L.A. Times reporter had not. The paper ultimately had to correct its account, though never acknowledging the indignant Iraqis who caught its snide oversight.
Read the whole thing, which profiles a number of Iraqi bloggers.
UPDATE: Yes, the “blood, blood” without context bit above is exactly the kind of thing I was complaining about in this post. Interestingly, I got this email from a Big-Media reporter whose name you’d probably recognize, though I’m asked not to use it:
Personally, I’d never feel so comfortable in my certainty on matters such as Iraq if I hadn’t ever been to the place; indeed, even Andrew, who I presume gets his information about Iraq from the MSM, has often turned on a dime and accused those very same news sources of revealing clear biases in their eporting. And it’s been apparent from reading reports from many independent sources on the ground – not least the soldiers themselves – that the situation looks far better than it is portrayed in the mainstream press. Look, I don’t know what to think, though I’m cognizant of the very reasonable possibility that in 20 years Iraq may be a thriving democracy, that the Middle East may be far less a source of radicalism and terrorism, and that we will all be talking about the miraculous accomplishment of the U.S.-led coalition, which managed to do the job in a couple of years with “minimal” casualties. That’s the most optimistic way to look at things right now, but it’s also a viewpoint that takes historical perspective into account. It’s frankly impossible to imagine what might have happened to FDR’s presidency if WWII was covered the way the various news media do the job right now. Someone in the blogosphere recently pointed out that 750 American troops died in a training accident during preparations for D-Day. Can you imagine that? Today such an occurrence would have an almost apocalyptic impact in this country, if you consider the way it would be conveyed to the public through television. (Bear in mind that I’m part of the MSM, so I think I speak with a modicum of authority here.) If the blogosphere has a weakness, it is in its tendency to amplify the significance of current events, often without any sense of proportion or perspective. . . .
Well, though it leads some people to suggest that I “lack fire,” I do try to maintain that degree of historical perspective, and to avoid excessive excitability and shrillness. Sometimes I succeed. Meanwhile, I do think that the excitability — and outright, dishonest partisanship — of many Big Media outlets in reporting on the war is doing incalculable damage at home and abroad, and I think that the FDR example is a good illustration of why. The “zero defects” approach to war is, I think, born of a combination of military ignorance and partisanship.
MORE: Related thoughts here.