Media reporting bad news from Iraq because that's the reality (KR)

[ovidsen]

The next time a "well meaning" Bush apologist trys to tell you that the MSM is trying to sabotage the Iraq war effort by intentionally ignoring the good news and playing up the bad stuff, show him or her this.

Media reporting bad news from Iraq because that's the reality

BY DICK POLMAN
Knight Ridder Newspapers

PHILADELPHIA - As conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate, and as President Bush's popularity at home continues to wane, administration leaders and their conservative followers have been busy honing a provocative message:

It's the media's fault. (SNIP)

But these attacks are proof that the war itself is going badly; there would be no need to point fingers if it were going well. And many nonpartisan observers dismiss the conservatives' media-bashing as an attempt to pin blame to the wrong people - while exonerating Bush, whose handling of Iraq draws support from only 35 percent of the citizenry, a record low, according to the new Associated Press-Ipsos poll.

Michael O'Hanlon, a Brookings Institution analyst who follows the reconstruction effort and opposes U.S. troop withdrawal, said the other day: "The media has it about right, and public opinion has it about right. It's Bush and Donald Rumsfeld who won't admit they are not handling the war effectively, and that it has gone badly. Vice President (Dick) Cheney, in particular, is living in positive-spin dreamland."

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthsuperior/news/nation/14302954.htm

[Erika]

1. They need to check out

the site www.icasualties.org for a reality check

[ovidsen]

2. Nice link

The article I linked to has a nice qualitative assessment of the "doom and gloom press" fallacy.

Your link has some cold hard facts.

Thanks!