Posted on 10/31/2005 5:47:11 PM PST by Chickenhawk Warmonger
While most people were absorbed in the Miers withdrawal and the bogus Plame case, the Associated Press pulled another fast one on the public. The Associated Press held a Managing Editors Conference in San Jose CA. As usual, the coverage of Iraq was a major part of the conference.
The Associated Press came under fire in August after newspaper editors questioned the negativity of the Iraq coverage. The public was putting the pressure on the editors to print stories about the “good news” in Iraq. The AP came up with excuses for the biased coverage – too dangerous for reporters, too difficult to calculate the number of hours of electricity available in Iraq, etc. Of course, the AP ended up with egg on its face when it was revealed that the author of the email that started the editors thinking about the coverage was just an average American who obtained the information from the Dept of Defense website (ahem – yes it was me).
The AP held a panel discussion at the San Jose Conference. The panelists included Seymour Hersh, Tony Castaneda (works for AP in Baghdad) and Kevin Begos (a Winston-Salem journalist that has reported on US reconstruction in Iraq). With Seymour Hersh on the panel the discussion was predictably negative about the US efforts in Iraq.
Like those that fanned the flames of Bush hatred post Katrina, Hersh invoked the “Bush did it” excuse. Hersh blamed the “Bush Administration secrecy” for the lack of positive coverage in Iraq. Not really a surprise from the author of a book detailing the Abu Ghraib “scandal”. Hersh revealed the simple coalition exit strategy – “fewer troops and more bombs”. He also disclosed his ability to predict the future when he claimed that the new Iraqi Constitution would incite a civil war.
Kevin Begos was just as negative. He claimed that the people in Iraq “who once welcomed us are much more suspicious now”. Despite the abundance of negative reporting, that claim rings hollow. Take a look at the pictures and videos from Iraq. Listen to the soldiers that return from Iraq. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Another panelist recommended readers force the government to maintain transparency by “better explaining situations where public officials operate in secret”. In an environment that is leakier than a sieve, there is not much in Washington that is a secret. Even classified information, meant only for top administration official eyes, ends up posted on some website on the Internet.
Kathleen Carroll, AP Executive Editor, encouraged editors to resist only one kind of news. In the next breath she uttered words that completely discounted her advice to the editors. Carroll said, “While it’s true that power is being restored and schools are being painted and progress is being made, it’s also true that Baghdad is pretty much still a sinking hellhole of violence.” Now that is certainly the way to encourage the editors to report on positives in Iraq. I do not know what exactly a “sinking hellhole of violence” is but I think it is over the top when describing the situation in Baghdad. Just reading her comments sends me into a “sinking hellhole”.
The Associated Press is still utterly clueless about why there is an outcry from the American public about negative coverage. After the August uproar, the AP vowed to present all sides of the stories from Iraq. They even went so far as to post FAQ about their Iraq coverage on the AP website. The reporters must not have received the memo.
A cursory review of AP articles from October 28, 2005, the same day the article about the panel was released, justifies the public’s outcry. Articles, with titles such as “AP Count Tallies Suicide Bombing Deaths”, “Syria: US Troops killed Syrian Soldier” and “A Look at US Military Deaths in Iraq”, were among those published on October 28. That is about as far from positive as one could get.
One article did mention the reconstruction efforts in Iraq but it was in the last 3 paragraphs of “AP Count Tallies Suicide Bombing Deaths”. Even so, it was far from a glowing description of reconstruction:
“There are nonetheless small signs that Iraq’s government is succeeding in rebuilding the country with the help of coalition forces. The electricity supply has risen steadily since April, from 3390 megawatts to 4117 megawatts in October – although well below the goal of 6000 megawatts, which was to have been reached by July 2004, according to a Brookings Institute count.”
It’s like one of those comments from your parents during your teenage years or your boss - “Great job, but…” You know whatever follows the “but” is not going to be good. May as well forget the compliment because the negative is the only thing remembered.
It is a disgrace that the AP, with a daily reach of 1 billion people around the world, would persist in promoting the negativity and consciously avoid reporting the positives. It is beyond the “if it bleeds, it leads” excuse. It is beyond the “it’s not safe” excuse. It is nothing more than partisan reporting that gives fodder to the anti-war, anti-Bush crowd. In the view of the AP, failure is the only option.
“sinking hellhole of violence”
Isn't that when Maureen Dowd and Judy Miller fight for
the last byline in the press room.
AP: Associated Pussies.
I NEVER read anything with an AP byline. Everyone else should do the same.
It's an effective countermeasure: BOYCOTT AP.
It's pretty hard to be worse than Reuters, but I think that AP has managed it.
Just as devastatingly negligent is the lack of analysis. Everyone wants our troops home quickly. How well are we moving along that path? Inquiring minds want to know. What are the trends that indicate our progress. Here are some metrics: the number of Iraqi police trained, the number of Iraq Army trained, the number of provinces turned over to Iraq for protection, the number of bases turned over to Iraq for protection, the number of tips called in to citizen hotlines. Have you seen any of that on the news or in the papers? You might see something on strategypage.com or Captains Quarters but never the MSM.
Is it significant that Zarqawi started off fighting Americans, then the Iraqi police, then recruits, and is now reduced to issuing bogus fatwas that blowing up Muslim children is OK. He has been backed into a corner and losing popularity all along. A responsible news organ would report on these trends.
The strategy of clearing towns and leaving Iraqi forces there to prevent reinfestation by terrorists is critical. It shows the strength and breadth of the Iraqi Army. The President and the generals have pointed it out. Any mention of this development in your home paper?
Has anyone in the media noticed that up-armoring our vehicles was not the panacea the war critics held it out to be? According to them, everyone who died in Iraq did so because Donald Rumsfeld didn't want to up-armor our vehicles. The truth is that the enemy changed tactics and we're still losing people at the same rate. Any paper that wanted us to actually win the war would point this out - that the anti-war critics don't have all the answers either.
AP = fifth columnists. They are against the troops, they are against the Iraqi's and they are against America and all it stands for, it is just that simple.
Great catch Dilbert on the humvee issue!
bttt
The AP is a propaganda outlet that selectively quotes, or deliberately rewrites, story's to fit their editorial propaganda lies.
For example. The AP released a story right after Katerina with a held line blaring how the NG response had been "Crippled" by the Iraq war. The actual quotes in the wire story BY the National Guard officers directly CONTIDICTED that spin.
When the story was actually put out, the AP had edit out the the NG Officers quotes and had their writer rewrite the story putting their own spin lines into the story and attributing those lines as if they NG officers had told them the propaganda. They had not.
Since virtually EVERY broadcast and published news source uses AP wire stores as background and filler, the Conservative Revolution's next step must be to find an Alternative AP and out the AP as the bunch of propaganda whores they are.
In a world if it was reported on by a sane, honest, educated and thoughtful press, they'd be having us celebrate their hard earned, achieved with the sacrifice of our brave and courageous young men and women, freedom and liberty. Instead our own news media is in a nasty debilitating funk and only want to celebrate our surrender to the murdering brutal terrorist scum.
I thank God everyday that there now exists a very powerful, dedicated, liberty loving, courageous group of Americans who stand before us with an optimistic, forward thinking, American loving attitude and is willing to take on the nay-saying doom-gloommers.
Lady Liberty's brilliant beacon of liberty shines for all to see despite those that would rather see her flame diminished.
modern Americans lack perspective.
if more of us were, say, Classicists... we would know that at the battle of Zama, on 19-October-202BC, the Romans inflicted 20,000 KIAs and took captive nearly another 20,000 Carthaginians...
IN ONE DAY.
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