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12 Responses to “U.S. General issue new calls for resignations”
Once again, Lee misses the point. But he does not miss the opportunity to engage in name calling. But to Lee’s credit he did not sink to his lowest common denominator and use a reference to the Nazis. In my high school debate class my instructor told me that if your argument does not hold water just resort to name calling.
Lee says :
“But one thing we can’t blame them for is exaggerating the bad news in Iraq. The WingNut wing wants to blame the media for our perception that Iraq isn’t in the best shape.”
According to a Media Research Center study of broadcast network news coverage of the Iraq war in 2005 :
MRC analysts reviewed all 1,388 Iraq stories broadcast on ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News from January 12005 through September 30 2005. Here are the results :
Network coverage has been overwhelmingly pessimistic.
More than half of all stories (848, or 61%) focused on negative topics or presented a pessimistic analysis of the situation, four times as many as featured U.S. or Iraqi achievements or offered an optimistic assessment (just 211 stories, or 15%).
News about the war has grown increasingly negative.
In January and February, about a fifth of all network stories (21%) struck a hopeful note, while just over half presented a negative slant on the situation. By August and September, positive stories had fallen to a measly seven percent and the percentage of bad news stories swelled to 73 percent of all Iraq news, a ten-to-one disparity.
Terrorist attacks are the centerpiece of TV’s war news.
Two out of every five network evening news stories (564) featured car bombings, assassinations, kidnappings or other attacks launched by the terrorists against the Iraqi people or coalition forces, more than any other topic.
Even coverage of the Iraqi political process has been negative.
More storie s(124) focused on shortcomings in Iraq’s political process — the danger of bloodshed during the January elections, political infighting among politicians, and fears that
the new Iraqi constitution might spur more civil strife — than found optimism inthe Iraqi people’s historic march to democracy (92 stories). One-third of those optimistic stories (32) appeared on just two nights — January 30 and 31, just afterIraq’s first successful elections.
Few stories focused on the heroism or generous actions of American soldiers.
Just eight stories were devoted to recounting episodes of heroism or valor by U.S. troops, and another nine stories featured instances when soldiers reached out to
help the Iraqi people. In contrast, 79 stories focused on allegations of combat mistakes or outright misconduct on the part of U.S. military personnel.
It’s not as if there was no “good news” to report.
NBC’s cameras found a bullish stock market and a hiring boom in Baghdad’s business district, ABC showcased the
coalition’s successful effort to bring peace to a Baghdad thoroughfare once branded “Death Street,” and CBS documented how the one-time battleground of Sadr City is now quiet and citizens are beginning to benefit from improved public services.
Stories describing U.S. and Iraqi achievements provided essential context to the discouraging drumbeat of daily news, but were unfortunately just a small sliver of TV’s Iraq news.
It is probably predictable that journalists would emphasize bad news, but network TV’s profoundly pessimistic coverage has shortchanged the accomplishments of both the U.S. military and Iraq’s new leaders and has certainly contributed to the public’s growing discontent with the war. Just as it would be wrong for reporters to conceal any bad news, it is wrong for journalists to downplay the good news that is being made in Iraq. Reporters have the responsibility to fully inform citizens about progress that is being made amid great sacrifice, and they are not doing so.
Post Number 4 is supposed to show an excerpt of Lee’s post number 3 before my reference to the results from the Media research Center. Well, you can go and see what Lee said yourself first.
Dave, there is an error on the “Some HTML allowed:” — the blockquote part in particular. I’ve edited your comments when you’ve used what is suggested. What you should do is only use the blockquote tag, don’t include the cite portion. Use blockquote at the start of what you are quoting, and then slash-blockquote tag at the end.
I can’t figure out how to correct this in the WordPress template…
April 19th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
It’s the media’s fault. Righhhhttttttt.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:16 pm
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/20060409_report_text.pdf
(hosted on the NYT site, info on article here:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002920238_report09.html
)
April 19th, 2006 at 12:17 pm
Here’s a more clickable link:
Seattle Times article about this PDF.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Rich. Come on now. The media organizations referenced are totally unbiased and are not just mouthpieces for the Democratic party. Righhhhttttttt.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
I got post impaired here, so I got more organized over here.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Once again, Lee misses the point. But he does not miss the opportunity to engage in name calling. But to Lee’s credit he did not sink to his lowest common denominator and use a reference to the Nazis. In my high school debate class my instructor told me that if your argument does not hold water just resort to name calling.
Lee says :
According to a Media Research Center study of broadcast network news coverage of the Iraq war in 2005 :
MRC analysts reviewed all 1,388 Iraq stories broadcast on ABC’s World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News from January 12005 through September 30 2005. Here are the results :
Network coverage has been overwhelmingly pessimistic.
More than half of all stories (848, or 61%) focused on negative topics or presented a pessimistic analysis of the situation, four times as many as featured U.S. or Iraqi achievements or offered an optimistic assessment (just 211 stories, or 15%).
News about the war has grown increasingly negative.
In January and February, about a fifth of all network stories (21%) struck a hopeful note, while just over half presented a negative slant on the situation. By August and September, positive stories had fallen to a measly seven percent and the percentage of bad news stories swelled to 73 percent of all Iraq news, a ten-to-one disparity.
Terrorist attacks are the centerpiece of TV’s war news.
Two out of every five network evening news stories (564) featured car bombings, assassinations, kidnappings or other attacks launched by the terrorists against the Iraqi people or coalition forces, more than any other topic.
Even coverage of the Iraqi political process has been negative.
More storie s(124) focused on shortcomings in Iraq’s political process — the danger of bloodshed during the January elections, political infighting among politicians, and fears that
the new Iraqi constitution might spur more civil strife — than found optimism inthe Iraqi people’s historic march to democracy (92 stories). One-third of those optimistic stories (32) appeared on just two nights — January 30 and 31, just afterIraq’s first successful elections.
Few stories focused on the heroism or generous actions of American soldiers.
Just eight stories were devoted to recounting episodes of heroism or valor by U.S. troops, and another nine stories featured instances when soldiers reached out to
help the Iraqi people. In contrast, 79 stories focused on allegations of combat mistakes or outright misconduct on the part of U.S. military personnel.
It’s not as if there was no “good news” to report.
NBC’s cameras found a bullish stock market and a hiring boom in Baghdad’s business district, ABC showcased the
coalition’s successful effort to bring peace to a Baghdad thoroughfare once branded “Death Street,” and CBS documented how the one-time battleground of Sadr City is now quiet and citizens are beginning to benefit from improved public services.
Stories describing U.S. and Iraqi achievements provided essential context to the discouraging drumbeat of daily news, but were unfortunately just a small sliver of TV’s Iraq news.
It is probably predictable that journalists would emphasize bad news, but network TV’s profoundly pessimistic coverage has shortchanged the accomplishments of both the U.S. military and Iraq’s new leaders and has certainly contributed to the public’s growing discontent with the war. Just as it would be wrong for reporters to conceal any bad news, it is wrong for journalists to downplay the good news that is being made in Iraq. Reporters have the responsibility to fully inform citizens about progress that is being made amid great sacrifice, and they are not doing so.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
Post Number 4 is supposed to show an excerpt of Lee’s post number 3 before my reference to the results from the Media research Center. Well, you can go and see what Lee said yourself first.
April 19th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Hey, once I made post number 5, my reference to Lee’s post shows up.
Rich, there is a bug in this software. Or I am just too dumb to use it correctly. (Lee, hold your tongue. :-))
April 19th, 2006 at 1:48 pm
Dave, there is an error on the “Some HTML allowed:” — the blockquote part in particular. I’ve edited your comments when you’ve used what is suggested. What you should do is only use the blockquote tag, don’t include the cite portion. Use blockquote at the start of what you are quoting, and then slash-blockquote tag at the end.
I can’t figure out how to correct this in the WordPress template…
April 19th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Got it. Thanks.
So something like this.
Lee says something :
April 19th, 2006 at 2:10 pm
Opps, I think I forgot the backslash. Well maybe Lee has a point. Let me try again.
Hypothetical Lee says :
Hypothetical Lee, I cannot argue with that. Your logic is flawless.
Finally!
April 21st, 2006 at 6:49 pm
I’m glad you see it my way.