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August 15, 2005

Editors Ponder How to Present a Broad Picture of Iraq

As a liberal I am concerned in general about fairness and equality. I think it's important to consider arguments from the dark side in order to better understand where they're coming from. I also think it helps me to develop my own ideas more fully.

Which is why I understand the cries of bloggers like Chrenkoff, who've attempted to put out the "good news from Iraq". Oddly Chrenkoff blog contributor Arthur finds discomfort in Iraq's whole picture, but that's a story for another post.

Recently, a group of newspaper editors whose papers subscribe to the Associated Press, pondered why so little good news makes the headlines or the news stories coming from Iraq. A sort of "bunker mentality" by AP reporters was blamed in part for not getting the "whole story" of Iraq in the papers.

A bunker mentality? In other words they're hanging out in the green zone, hunkered down and not getting out very much.

It seems reasonable to conclude that reporters aren't writing about hospitals getting electricity and schools teaching kids when the reporters don't even bother to leave their hotel. Until you get to this part:

Mr. Silverman said the wire service was covering Iraq "as accurately as we can" while "also trying to keep our people out of harm's way."

"The main obstacle we face," he said, "is the severe limitation on our movement and our ability to get out and report. It's very confining for our staff to go into Baghdad and have to spend most of their time on the fifth floor of the Palestine Hotel," which is home to most of the press corps. The hotel was struck by a tank shell in 2003, killing two journalists.

Iraq remains the most dangerous place in the world to work as a journalist, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 13 media workers have been killed in Iraq so far this year, bringing the total to 50 since the war began in 2003.

"Postwar Iraq is fraught with risks for reporters: Banditry, gunfire and bombings are common," the committee's Web site says. "Insurgents have added a new threat by systematically targeting foreigners, including journalists, and Iraqis who work for them."

So Iraq is in many ways a lawless place where bandits attack journalists and other foreigners almost at will. That would seem to be in line with what we're hearing from journalists.

It's an obviously pressing problem that would justifiably trump stories on hospitals and schools. If patients and kids are dodging bullets on their way to and from hospitals and schools..it kinda makes it tough to report how great the hospital or school might be.

We have great schools and neighborhoods throughout the US as well. But we don't hear a lot of that in the news headlines either. Maybe I'm missing it..but I haven't heard the rightwing wax indignant about the lack of domestic blissy-type stories that litter the local schools. In fact they latch on to the bad stories in an effort to push through their own brand of alledged reform.

The calls for reports of positive progress in Iraq ring rather hollow, under those circumstances.

Posted by Carla at August 15, 2005 11:33 AM