I really couldn’t come up with a better title than the headline of this insane AP article. Apparently, Americans have this insane idea that the coverage of the Iraq War is/was biased. And now everything’s okay; it must have been something we just imagined, because some think tank just said the coverage was not biased.
A study of news coverage of the war in Iraq fails to support a conclusion that events were portrayed either negatively or positively most of the time.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at nearly 2,200 stories on television, newspapers and Web sites and found that most of them couldn’t be categorized either way.
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Twenty-five percent of the stories were negative and 20 percent were positive, according to the study, released Sunday by the Washington-based think tank.
I can’t say I agree with the conclusion, but the project director for the think tank has made some stunning conclusions.
First, this gem:
Americans are now “news grazers,” the study said.
The image of bovine compliance and mindless consumption to define many American’s use of media has never been more apt. But thank goodness, there are many folks at places like dKos around the country. The tide will turn.
Despite the exhaustive look, the study likely won’t change the minds of war supporters who considered the media hostile to the Bush administration, or opponents who think reporters weren’t questioning enough, said Tom Rosenstiel, the project’s director.
Say Tom, maybe you would know someone named Judith Miller, one of the war’s biggest media supporters in a place that used to have credibility? She and known criminal Chalabi were force feeding lies to the public, giving Bushie his plausible deniability when the WMD’s never showed. Yeah, I sure as hell think someone needed to be questioning her a lot more throroughly. Like her goddamned editor! See, its not really about whatwas reported, but what wasn’t reported. Or what was reported that backed up the anti war position and then was summarily minimized and discredited by a myriad of other sources. So I guess its not really what was reported. Its the opinion pieces that were accepted as fact by an electorate unable to discern bullshit from reality. And the editors.
[Project Director] Rosenstiel said most people understand the complexities of what is going on in Iraq, how continued suicide bombings can happen at the same time as a successful election.
Well jeez, can you explain it to me? I can’t understand how forcing democracy onto a country we just invaded and pillaged could ever be considered a success. I guess most people must have greater capacity to understand these kinds of things, huh?
Tom, I’m not convinced.
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