U.S. media still hiding bad news from Americans

[KingChicken]

U.S. media still hiding bad news from Americans

ANTONIA ZERBISIAS
Toronto Star

And now the good news from America's accomplished mission in Iraq ...

The other night on ABC News Nightline, Ted Koppel asked National Public Radio war correspondent Anne Garrels, who has been in Iraq throughout the war, "When you hear people in this country, Anne, say, look, the media is only giving the negative side of what's going on there, why don't they ever show the good side, what do you tell 'em?"

"I tell them that there isn't much good to show," she replied, describing how even military commanders have only bad news to share.

Two weeks ago on CNN, Time's Michael Ware, who has been covering Iraq for two years, gave an alarming account of being trapped in his Baghdad compound, which is regularly bombed and encircled by "kidnap teams."

He reported that the U.S. military has "lost control" and that Americans are "the midwives of the next generation of jihad, of the next Al Qaeda."

At the end of the exchange, anchor Aaron Brown warned, "(O)ther people see the situation there differently than Michael. We talk to them as well."

The next day, when the interview was repeated, anchor Carol Lin closed with, "And of course there are others who disagree with that."

Never mind that those others never had Iraqi sand in their shoes, let alone been under fire there.

"Freedom is on the march!" "We're making progress!" "The terrorists will do all they can to disrupt free elections in Iraq, and they will fail."

These are just some of the slogans that U.S. President George W. Bush now spouts, while the American cable channels duly carry his speeches live and the American print media give them front-page play.

Not that they aren't sneaking in a little bad news, mind you. But not much. This week, we learned, mostly via a text crawl at the bottom of the screen, that the milestone of 1,000 U.S. troops killed in combat had been reached.

If you blinked, you would have missed news of a Pentagon "strategic" report to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld revealing that U.S. actions "have not only failed, they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended."

There was a bit in some newspapers about a damning classified cable from the Central Intelligence Agency's station chief in Baghdad that painted a dismal picture of Iraq's economic, political and security prospects.

And, while it got notice when published in October, there's been no follow-up on a study in an esteemed British medical journal suggesting that up to 100,000 civilians had died since the invasion. No follow-up, that is, except to trash the research.


More:
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1102547410018&call_pageid=968256290204

[saigon68]

1. This needs a kick

Read the article-- enlightening

[acmavm]

2. Once upon a time any administration who lied like this one would have

been pilloried in the press and thrown out of office, possibly even charged with a crime. Now we have a press that's so totally cowed that they're aiding and abetting these liars. Are they so stupid that they think that their children or grandchildren will escape the horrible mess that this administration has set up for future generations? Did they all skip school on the day the Constitution was reviewed. They sure as hell couldn't pass a test on it.

[rooboy]

3. Like the pick-me-up drink that turns out to to be just caffeine and sugar

the news networks will suffer a steady decline in their ratings and credibility until they come up with a quality product. It's their funeral.

[leftchick]

4. my favorite BS line from bushco*

justifying the deaths and sacrifice of our soldiers for war profiteers...."The are fighting for our freedoms"

:puke:

[TransitJohn]

5. kick

:kick:

[texpatriot2004]

6. Thanks so much for this article and link, it's so true n/t

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

7. this needs a

KICK!!!!!!!