Journalist Margaret Friedenauer of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner has a very good piece on her experiences as a reporter in Iraq. She writes:
More than anything in the last few days I’ve heard from soldiers and commanders that people back home don’t quite get it. They don’t see the real picture. They don’t get the real story. Some of them, like Lt. Col. Gregg Parrish, look seriously pained in the face when he says only a part of the picture is being told; the part of car bombs and explosives and suicide bombers and death. It’s a necessary part of the picture, but not a complete one, he says.
I’ve listened to the soldiers and Parrish about the missing pieces of the puzzles that don’t reach home. My selfish, journalistic drive immediately thinks “Perfect. A story that hasn’t been told. Let me at it.â€
But I have a slight hesitation; I need to keep balanced. I can’t be a cheerleader, even if I have a soft spot for the hometown troops, especially after the welcome they’ve shown me. I still need to be truthful and walk the centerline and report the good or bad.
But then I realize it’s not a conflict of interest. If I am truly unbiased, then I need to get used to this one simple fact; that the untold story, might in fact, be a positive one.
The divide between the opinions of the journalistic intelligentsia and those people who are actually in Iraq and experience Iraq first-hand couldn’t be wider. The fact remains that the vast majority of reporting on Iraq is excessively agenda-driven and horrendously biased towards the negative. It isn’t that car bombings and suicide attacks aren’t news, it’s that they represent only one side of the story, a side which doesn’t tell the whole picture of the situation in Iraq. People here can’t make informed opinions if they’re not getting the whole picture, and the media isn’t giving them the whole picture – which is why so many of the popular opinions about Iraq have little if any basis in the truth.
When the history of this war is written outside the viciously partisan atmosphere of the mainstream media, this war will likely be looked at in an entirely different light. In an age of blogs and other forms of alternative media, the opinions of the troops and the average Iraqi are no longer hidden by the agendas of the mainstream media who have traditionally acted as both conduits and gatekeepers of the news. That means that the contradictions between the media’s groupthink on Iraq and the reality on the ground is exposed in a way it never could have been before.
Friedenauer deserves credit for being willing to put aside ideological blinders and report what she sees as she sees it without the desire to downplay the positive. What’s truly sad is how few journalists are willing to do the same.
“I’ve heard from soldiers and commanders that people back home don’t quite get it. They don’t see the real picture. They don’t get the real story.”
And soldiers getting their marching orders from commanders are getting “the real story”? My best friend just returned from Iraq last week. He didn’t know anything more about Iraq than I do because his role was to follow orders and keep his mouth shut. Perhaps some soldiers are better equipped to pontificate on the at-large situation in Iraq than my friend was, but the average 19-year-old National Guard member rebuilding a school in Baghdad should not be elevated to the level of military pundit.
“the part of car bombs and explosives and suicide bombers and death. It’s a necessary part of the picture, but not a complete one, he says.”
Car bombs and suicide bombers meet the definition of news. I’m sure there were plenty of “good things” happening in the Red Lake Indian Reservation last spring as well, but they didn’t make the news until a kid with a gun shot 10 of his classmates, a story more worthy of recurring headlines than profiles of the newest Habitat for Humanity volunteers building a new home on the reservation. The media has no obligation to be changing the definition of news to accommodate Republican partisans who want to make George Bush look good above all else.
“vast majority of reporting on Iraq is excessively agenda-driven and horrendously biased”
How quickly you people forgot when the media accepted questionable pre-war intelligence because they were offered “way cool” rides inside U.S. military tanks.
“People here can’t make informed opinions if they’re not getting the whole picture, and the media isn’t giving them the whole picture ”
We know that schools and hospitals are being rebuilt. We know that U.S. soldiers are generous to Iraqi children. Some good things are going on in Iraq besides four soldier deaths per day…..we get it. There’s no point in continuing to tell us we don’t know the “whole story” just so you have an excuse to remove inconvenient facts from the headlines.
“When the history of this war is written outside the viciously partisan atmosphere of the mainstream media, this war will likely be looked at in an entirely different light.”
You’re out of your mind. Never in American history has a war been waged based on a false threat. History books are unlikely to mimick Bush’s false analogy of this war as a response to the 9-11 attacks, a ploy that has effectively convinced a third of the country to his side, taking away whatever credibility Bush currently clings to. For decades, history teachers in American classrooms will have to try to explain to young minds why our country invaded a country to get their WMD when none existed. As many historians are already predicting, George Bush will go down as the worst President in American history.
“Friedenauer deserves credit for being willing to put aside ideological blinders and report what she sees as she sees it without the desire to downplay the positive.”
Has she uncovered anything that Americans don’t already know? If all she has discovered is that schools and hospitals are being rebuilt, electricity is being slowly restored, and U.S. soldiers are generous to Iraqi children, then we’ll all be turning the channel looking for real news about Iraq….like how many of those generous soldiers building schools were blown to pieces by roadside bombs TODAY.
I wonder if its just the fact that Mark would have us believe he actually has a friend in the military industrial complex (military) or the fact that he looks at all the poor news reporting as balanced or in context. But lets take a look at that monumental story of a historical vote by the Iraqi people who just 3 years ago where under the tyrannt Saddam. Whats the front page on the NYT today ? A year old story about the NSA for a book that an author is sleaping. And yet Mark we are being saturated with “good news” stories, “everybody knows about the schools and such, the good we do”. Gee I wish I could live in the warm rhetorical bubble to withstand reality.
I though Bush was the worst president because of the economy, I didn’t get the new memo that he’s the worst president because he liberated some 50 million people of 2 oppressed countries. Oh because it was a lie that got us in there right. Let see if that was done against any of the US presidents that led America to war based on a LIE. WW2 yup, Wilson knew about Pearl Harbor but let it happen anyway. Spainish American War, yup “remeber the Maine” (sinking the battleship Maine) was actually done by Americans to get us into Cuba. You stand with the historical figures that have an axe to grind, feel proud Mark. Oops wait, we were at war with Iraq already, hmm thats why the 19 resolutions and the 9 years of Saddam’s disregard of the Cease-fire Agreement (cease fire doesn’t mean that the war is done, Mark its a set of conditions that the vanquished need to follow or else a state of war still exsists) that he had signed with Bush 41. So I guess historians will have to overlook your key points.
Ray, never before has a war been waged based upon a false premise. No amount of spin will turn Bush’s foreign policy blunders into a historical positive. And are you seriously suggesting that I’m lying about having a friend who just got home from Iraq? If so, there’s not really any point in you continuing to respond to me.
Getting sensative Mark ? You trash the US armed forces as the only force of bad in the world today, and then you give the “I have a friend in the military..” speel to refute an arguement. Spare me the feigned outrage ! Come up with some counter points and don’t try and argue on the cheap.
There is always a faction of people who try and rewrite history to either whitewash the actual events for some political gain or to make sure that their opposition to it sound so noble. Your blind adherence to the Bush lied mantra shows that you are more an idealoge than a “concerned citizen” or historian.
Ray M, I know it may come as a big surprise to robotic Fox News stooges like yourself that a large share of America’s servicemen and women in Iraq are members of the National Guard who signed on for financial aid for college and ended up fighting in a war they don’t support. My friend falls into this category, much as you like to believe he’s imaginary. Why are you denigrating our troops, you unpatriotic bastard?
“bastard and unpatriotic”, ouch Mark did it take you long to come up with that, robotic Fox News stooge, when in doubt go after fox news or call names. as compared to what all the alphabetic MSM or NYT (hey there is a non-ideloged bunch) or WaPo or how about CNN (we knew Saddam was torturing but couldn’t report it or we would lose our acess) wouldn’t be so tough on Fox, maybe you should watch it sometime, I see more Democrats and liberals on it than I have ever seen conservatives on any of the “pedigree” station. Except maybe Russert.
But again no valid point just call everybody names and hold your breath or cry until an adult comes along and gives you your talking points. My best friend in the military, gee sounds like I’ve nothing against gay people some of my best friends are.. Whether Mark has a friend in the military industrial complex or not really wasn’t the point but that he places the opinion of his imanginary friend to refute Jay’s point is absolutely asanine. Thus disputing Jay’s point with a supposed firsthand, undisputable point of view as if Mark and his liberal ilk would even have some inkling about what the military is about let alone its opinion. So when boxed in a corner come up with the first hand view approach, I had a PFC tell me its all sh!# over there and the military knows nothing and shouldn’t have their votes counted in national elections. Come up with why you guys need to see us fail, why are you again on the wrong side of history. Like in Vietnam, like in the Cold War, like in every foreign policy decision that has been made in the last 50 years.
Try to stay away from the bad words Mark I think this is a family site, but if you can’t come up with more creative ones, Like reactionary b–tard or nazi or something I can get a chuckle out of.
“Whether Mark has a friend in the military industrial complex or not really wasn’t the point but that he places the opinion of his imanginary friend to refute Jay’s point is absolutely asanine.”
Ray M, you’re denigrating our troops again! Have you no shame?!
Yup, that’s right. The troops don’t support this war. They’re just a bunch of poor deluded fools who got suckered into all of this.
This is a family site, but I’m calling bullshit on that.
If that is true, why are the rates of reenlistment highest in groups who have seen significant combat in Iraq?
And if Mark can come up with a few anti-war troops, I can come up with several more – and I can prove those examples.
Sure, those Democrats support our troops – by calling them deluded and insinuating that they will be defeated by a bunch of headlopping terrorists – if one can call that “support”.
And of course, then the Democrats prove the old adage about patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels – trying to wrap themselves in the flag that they would burn.
“Yup, that’s right. The troops don’t support this war. They’re just a bunch of poor deluded fools who got suckered into all of this.”
You’re not the sharpest tool in the shed are you? All I’m saying is that when you proceed to speak for “the troops” as a monolithic unit of one-dimensional Bush-bots who think exactly alike, you are falsely representing a solid minority who are disgusted with the course Bush has laid out for them. Validating this theory is the fact that Iraqi war veterans seem to be enlisting as Congressional candidates for the Democratic party almost within hours of returning home.
“This is a family site”
Yeah…..Bush’s family.
“And if Mark can come up with a few anti-war troops, I can come up with several more – and I can prove those examples.”
“Prove” those examples. I guess I can see why people like you and Ray find it so hard to believe I have a friend who served in Iraq. The concept of actually being a soldier in this war rather than merely a tough-talking armchair chickenhawk is foreign to you guys. But it’s true. Actual people who I and others know really do fight in this war….on the battlefield. To them it’s more than just an abstract game of chicken meant to protect the egos of people like you and Ray M who choose not to serve.
“And of course, then the Democrats prove the old adage about patriotism being the last refuge of scoundrels – trying to wrap themselves in the flag that they would burn.”
By a margin of about 14-1, Iraqi war vets are running for Congress as Democrats next year. Again, why do you and Ray insist on denigrating American troops this way?