# The Insurgents are spinning the war with the help of our media! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2005, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525 "2005-01-19T13:26:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Frankenstein\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ccd318/32.png) [@Frankenstein\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankenstein_Monster)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/41 "2005-01-19T19:24:12Z")
I disagree with this accusation against news outlets. I read all the disgusting news of the anti-occupation parties’ actions in the _Wall Street Journal_. It is all there. The Mahdi Army’s Sharia courts, tortures and executions. The weapons in schools and mosques. The tortured and assassinated Iraqi civilians, politicians, police officers, clerics, etc.etc.etc. The “success” stories about “50 insurgents killed today” and “4000 jigowatts of electricity capacity achieved this week” have been on [globalsecurity.org](http://globalsecurity.org) for as long as I remember. After almost two years, you’d think that all those so-called “successes” would have added up, right? What’s wrong with this picture? Here’s another reason why the press reports the stuff that it does, in addition to the reasons already mentioned. Reporters, for all their faults, are **much smarter** than this barbarian soldier. They have at least some slightly broader perspective. The stupidity and myopia of this guy is absolutely appalling, disgusting and revolting. He counts number of people killed as the metric of success!! Fortunately, most people outside of the military understand the idiocy of such a view. People also understand that you can’t balance the failures of the occupation against “successes” like number of schools painted. Here’s a nice recent quote by a certain famous blogger: “I sometimes get messages from readers who are excited by all the rebuilding work the US has done in Iraq and think it is unfair for it to be overlooked. This way of thinking is just wrong. The British in India built railroads and lots of infrastructure. By the 1940s, no Indians were grateful, and they just wanted the British out so that they could have their independent country. The railroads, they said, were after all mainly built to transport British troops and merchandise. When you mess with a people’s independence, they stop being grateful for infrastructure. Ask King George III.” This guy’s right, though, about how smartly certain groups of insurgents (like the former Tawhid and Jihad group) are able to manage their publicity. Those guys are not nearly as dumb as LTC Tim Ryan looks. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/42 "2005-01-19T19:40:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Did the author of this article bother to mention that Coalition troops killed 50 or so terrorists while incurring those seven losses? Lucky for us they were wearing their “I am a terrorist” T-shirts. " 'Cause I’d hate to think any innocent civilians were being counted. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/43 "2005-01-19T20:09:29Z")
> [@LTC Ryan](#): > > The inaccurate picture they paint has distorted the world view of the daily realities in Iraq. The result is a further erosion of international support for the United States’ efforts there, and a strengthening of the insurgents’ resolve and recruiting efforts while weakening our own. I wonder how many insuirgents watch our evening news. I also wonder how much is not merely a matter of perception. Turd-polish and all that. It seems that those who said Team Bush pre-war projections were ludicrous (down to US 30,000 troops by Sept 2003, flowers and candy, cakewalk, etc) are still right. Yet, despite the facts, certain of the"pre-fooled" and various politicos insist that the piss on their leg is rain. The question I ask myself is, “Do I trust politicians and the radio propagandists?” IMHO, it’s inherently un-American to trust politicians. As far as the tattered “Liberal Media Bias” crap re Iraq, it fails to take into the account the writings of Bill Buckley jr and Brent Scowcroft and other Realists. There’re still quite a number of conservatives who are a part of the reality based community. > [@Ravenman](#): > > We invaded (allegedly) to drain a swamp of terrorism; but what we’ve got now, according to the CIA, is the most dangerous training ground for terrorism since the fall of Afghanistan. I thought about this when reading a recent thread about treason and the media. The invasion of Iraq is the single most aiding and abetting thing that’s been done by Americans. I’m sure al Qaida says, “Thanks.” > [@Airblairxxx](#): > > I would ask why he considers the World Tribune a member of the “media”, when actually it’s just a [website run by the right-wing Unification Church, aka the Moonies.](http://newyorker.com/talk/content/?030908ta_talk_mcgrath) To be fair, they ran stories about how there’d been serious looting of dangerous materials since “the end of major combat operations”. (Nice to know that all we’ve had since are minor dust-ups. I’m sure many a soldier would be glad to hear that.) Of course, they tried to push the idea that this looting meant that Syria prob’ly had Hussein’s stockpiles of flying, poison-spraying robots that Mr. Bush was concerned about in Cinci a few Octobers back. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/44 "2005-01-19T20:12:48Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > How ironic. If we would EVER HEAR positive reports then the negative reports wouldn’t be so overwhelming. WTF? If you want positive reports about Iraq, just tune in Fox News. They run them practically every day. If the rest of the media don’t follow Fox’ example – maybe, just maybe, that **doesn’t** mean that everybody’s out of step but Johnny. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/45 "2005-01-19T20:15:46Z")
> [@Larry Borgia](#): > > Lucky for us they were wearing their “I am a terrorist” T-shirts. " 'Cause I’d hate to think any innocent civilians were being counted. The Vietnam bodycounters’ motto: “If it’s dead, it’s Cong”. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/46 "2005-01-19T20:21:17Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > More; > _"While the media was busy bashing the Coalition, Muqtada’s boys were kidnapping policemen, city council members and anyone else accused of supporting the Coalition or the new government, trying them in a kangaroo court based on Islamic Shari’a law, then brutally torturing and executing them for their “crimes.” What the media didn’t show or write about were the two hundred-plus headless bodies found in the main mosque there, or the body that was put into a bread oven and baked. Nor did they show the world the hundreds of thousands of mortar, artillery and small arms rounds found within the “sacred” walls of the mosque. Also missing from the coverage was the huge cache of weapons found in Muqtada’s “political” headquarters nearby. No, none of this made it to the screen or to print. All anyone showed were the few chipped tiles on the dome of the mosque and discussion centered on how we, the Coalition, had somehow done wrong. Score another one for the enemy’s propaganda machine. "_ I recall seeing all that stuff reported in detail on CNN, and in the _St. Petersburg Times._ Where is LTC Ryan getting his news? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/47 "2005-01-19T20:33:39Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > **Ryan** also says; > _"More recently, a major news agency’s website lead read: “Suicide Bomber Kills Six in Baghdad” and “Seven Marines Die in Iraq Clashes.” True, yes. Comprehensive, no. Did the author of this article bother to mention that Coalition troops killed 50 or so terrorists while incurring those seven losses? Of course not. Nor was there any mention about the substantial progress these offensive operations continue to achieve in defeating the insurgents. Unfortunately, this sort of incomplete reporting has become the norm for the media, whose poor job of presenting a complete picture of what is going on in Iraq borders on being criminal. "_ > > So, not only does the media report on the negative issues but they don’t even do that _completely_. Ever heard the term “Sometimes it’s what you _don’t_ say.”? > > Why should we have to _look_ for alternative positive news sources **Wrath** , **Fear Itself** , wouldn’t it make sense to have that included in the regular news? Hold the phone! Let’s remember the situation here! You’re assuming that “positive news sources” would be those that report on the number of Iraqi deaths in any engagement and call attention to how overwhelming they are compared to American casualties. But it ain’t so. Those would not be “positive news sources.” This is one of those “we’re here to help these people” wars. And “these people” **includes the insurgents and their sympathizers,** like it or not. So American combat deaths are unambiguously **bad** news – but deaths of insurgents, or of suspected insurgents, are not necessarily **good** news, and should not be reported as such. It is a plain fact, as you have pointed out in this thread, that many, many more Iraqis than Americans are being killed; but it’s not something to gloat over, nor is it a good sign. Every dead Iraqi, whether insurgent or “collateral damage” noncombatant, will leave dozens of living relatives who will hate America passionately for the rest of their lives. I do agree that it’s sloppy reporting for the media not to mention Iraqi deaths at all when they give the number of Americans killed in a given battle – but I’m more inclined to attribute that, not to a liberal American media bias that wants to show the war is going badly, but to a nationalistic American media bias that doesn’t think Iraqi deaths really count as news, the way American deaths do. ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/48 "2005-01-19T20:39:03Z")
Fox and FreeRepublic, I’d wager. 😉 _Sidebar:_ How come the pro-war apologists who keep touting the number of new schools built in Iraq never answer the question of how many of those were destroyed by the US bombing campaign? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/49 "2005-01-19T20:39:16Z")
The Pentagon has a formal policy of not announcing Iraqi death total estimates, and that certainly makes reporters’ jobs even harder. Perhaps some reporters don’t think other sources for such estimates are reliable enough to report? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/50 "2005-01-19T20:40:27Z")
> [@NiceGuyJack](#): > > Every country he lists had change come about from the inside. The Chileans, the Bulgars, the Serbs, the Russians, all wanted change, and they changed it from the inside. It was not changed by invading forces. Just to point out here that Ryan’s lumping in Chile with the USSR is rather telling. Salvador Allende was freely elected. It was not a dictatorship. He was overthrown, and killed, with US backing, and replaced by a brutal dictator. (But not a socialist, so it is okay!) If Pinochet is healthy enough he will be tried for crimes against his people. What a great example of American benevolence at work! ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/51 "2005-01-19T20:41:17Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > Fox and FreeRepublic, I’d wager. Possibly mostly the latter (what channels can one watch there?), which would mean he’s summarizing Freeper posts secondhand. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/52 "2005-01-19T20:45:40Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > The Pentagon has a formal policy of not announcing Iraqi death total estimates . . . :eek: 😕 :eek: Is any reason given? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/53 "2005-01-19T20:52:28Z")
1. That’s been true since early in the war. 2. You can guess why. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/54 "2005-01-19T21:22:47Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > 1. That’s been true since early in the war. > > 2. You can guess why. But has the Pentagon ever **said** why? I mean, they have to give some kind of pretext, like calling the Iraqi casualty figures “vital strategic intelligence” or something, don’t they? They can just tell reporters, “It’s our policy not to disclose those figures, next question.” Can they? ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/55 "2005-01-19T21:30:22Z")
Wow, I pull my thumb out of the dike for a couple of hours to get some work done and I’m overwhelmed with responses. Most of them informative, some inflamatory. I tried to steer away from the ‘Liberal bias slant’ route that I could have taken but it seems to have just gone that way by itself. Some of your posts have been extremely helpful in countering the link in the OP. I will attempt to digest the more helpfully critical posts and conjure up a response that will summerise a sort of middle ground if you will. A few of the responses did cause me to re-think my position in support of LTC Ryan to the extent I did when I opened the OP. I will try to address the posters who influenced me the most by tomorrow morning. A thanks to those of you who were _pleasantly_ critical. Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2005, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/56 "2005-01-19T21:58:37Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > Wow, I pull my thumb out of the dike for a couple of hours to get some work done and I’m overwhelmed with responses. What do you expect when you post an inflammatory OP? Duh. > [@](#): > > I tried to steer away from the ‘Liberal bias slant’ route that I could have taken but it seems to have just gone that way by itself. I don’t understand this comment. That the media has a liberal bias was the ENTIRE POINT of your OP. If you were trying to steer clear of the issue, you did a very poor job of it. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/57 "2005-01-20T01:52:33Z")
You know, these “the media is being excessively negative about the war in Iraq” threads would make a lot more sense to me if someone could explain why the media keeps making up fictional positive stories about what’s going in Iraq. To cite the most obvious example, virtually every media source in the world reported, in May of '03, that a crowd of jubilant Iraqis in Bagdad had toppled a statue of Saddam to celebraqte their ‘liberation’ by American troops. The media knew full well, at the time, that the falling statue was actually a propaganda stunt arranged by the American military. So if they wanted to be negative, wouldn’t the media have reported the truth about the military misleading the public, as opposed to parroting the lie that the military wanted? ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/58 "2005-01-20T13:42:56Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > **U.S.** :It’s not bias, it’s what people want to read about. Put out two newspapers, one with all the negative news and one with all the positive news, and guess which one is going to sell and which one isn’t. How can we possibley know that? When has this ever happened? You really think that people buy the daily news to read depressing stories? If the public really wanted depressing sensationalism, then why do most movies, books, etc, all have happy endings? OR, is that just what the norm is and we expect to see it splashed across the front page everytime we grab a newspaper? And, if it’s the bad depressing news that sells, then maybe we should be asking, why? > [@Airblairxxx](#): > > I think it’s pretty clear that the OP is fairly immune to counterarguments. > > I would ask why he considers the World Tribune a member of the “media”, when actually it’s just a website run by the right-wing Unification Church, aka the Moonies. > > I’d also ask Uncommon Sense if, given that the WMD search ended quietly and unsuccessfully last month, there is any justification now for the 1,370 American soldiers who have died in this endeavor so far. Besides the hockey equipment, of course. First, it doesn’t matter who ran the column, it would have had the same content if it were posted on any other website. Second, this thread is not about the reasons for this war so you can dispense with presumed judgements of the OP and kindly stick to the fairly narrow topic that WAS outlined in the OP. In the OP I did not take a stand one way or the other on the reasons for this war. > [@Ravenman](#): > > I don’t blame Colonel Ryan one second for his writings that lament the bad news out of Iraq. He seems like a fine officer. And, as I have been told by many fine officers, their first responsibility is to their troops. That means that whatever they can do to keep morale up, they do. If officers start grousing in front of the men, I’m told, it’s all over, discipline breaks down, etc. > > So do I blame Ryan for seeing the glass as one-eighth full? Not at all. But I’m not so gullible as to believe that a career-track officer is going to tell the American people the full story of what’s going on over there. > > We did not invade Iraq because there was a shortage of schools there, or because Saddam was developing a new capability to produce new textbooks that contain a dangerous new strain of anti-Israeli hate propaganda. We invaded (allegedly) to drain a swamp of terrorism; but what we’ve got now, according to the CIA, is the most dangerous training ground for terrorism since the fall of Afghanistan. > > I’m happy for the schoolchildren, but holy cow, you’ve got to have a major-league agenda not to recognize that the situation is going from bad to worse in Iraq. Lt Col Ryan’s agenda is obvious, and from my point of view, admirable. I appreciate your frankness. > [@](#): > > The OP’s agenda appears to be political wishful thinking. There’s a big difference between the two. Maybe, but I think it’s more likely that I wanted to believe that it’s not as bad as the news is reporting. I haven’t read elsewhere such testimony from someone the likes of LTC Ryan. I try to be an optimist, and naturally assume that the media will report mostly negative. **NiceGuyJack** , thanks for the informative post. > [@Frankenstein Monster](#): > > I disagree with this accusation against news outlets. I read all the disgusting news of the anti-occupation parties’ actions in the Wall Street Journal. It is all there. The Mahdi Army’s Sharia courts, tortures and executions. The weapons in schools and mosques. The tortured and assassinated Iraqi civilians, politicians, police officers, clerics, etc.etc.etc. I didn’t say ALL news outlets. The fact that you _only_ mention the WSJ might actually strenghten my point, not yours. > [@PatriotX](#): > > I wonder how many insuirgents watch our evening news. > I also wonder how much is not merely a matter of perception. Turd-polish and all that. Good point. I do suspect that they have knowledge of the fear that the average American has for their own safety, and play off that. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I do agree that it’s sloppy reporting for the media not to mention Iraqi deaths at all when they give the number of Americans killed in a given battle – but I’m more inclined to attribute that, not to a liberal American media bias that wants to show the war is going badly, but to a nationalistic American media bias that doesn’t think Iraqi deaths really count as news, the way American deaths do. I suppose that could be true, although I haven’t heard that theory yet. I think the ‘liberal’ slant is a more stable theory. **Lissa** , would it really be \*that \* difficult for the media to tell us what the soldiers were doing when they got killed? We don’t usually get the full story. Were they helping old ladies cross the street when the car bomb went off? Or were they in the middle of a gunfight with insurgents and died in a crossfire? These are the kind of ommissions that irk me. You made it sound like I was asking for a detailed biography of every soldier that was killed. Again, I don’t expect the media to spoonfeed _ME_. The media knows it’s spoonfeeding the majority of American already, who don’t bother to look further for news. My point again, why should they have to look further? (I know the answer, just being facetious) > [@blowero](#): > > What do you expect when you post an inflammatory OP? Duh. Inflammatory towards whom? The media, not you. > [@](#): > > I don’t understand this comment. That the media has a liberal bias was the ENTIRE POINT of your OP. If you were trying to steer clear of the issue, you did a very poor job of it. Wrong, I was not adressing the liberalness of the media but rather it’s inability to report more of the positive experiences in Iraq. That seemed to whooosh right over yours and **Lissa’s** heads. But as **Elvis** points out those appear to be few and far between. I did a search for Green Zone and came up with some pretty depressing first hand stories of the usual daily occurances there. ---
**Author:** ![sinical\_brit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/48db29/32.png) [@sinical\_brit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sinical_brit)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/59 "2005-01-20T14:09:32Z")
U Sense: If i can generalise LTC Ryans comments (and your take on the link ), i think you’d get a statement something like: Group X uses the way the media will focus on the worst aspects of a situation, to further thier own goals. I could replace ‘group x’ with ‘Terrorists’, ‘Pressure groups’, ‘Enviromentalists’, ‘Democrats’ or even (dare i say) ‘The current US administration’ and the statement will still be equally valid. If this is the case, how can one term hold more sway than the rest? And if they all hold equal weight, then isnt the argument , well a bit daft? Personally , i agree that its pathetic that the media does this. But its pathetic across the board from court reporting to global warming. \: I was listening to C-Span on BBC Parliament last sunday (16th Jan ) and there was a question and answer with one of the USs’ main reporters - perhaps someone can remember who it was. He was asked about this very point - he said it was sad, but as soon as reporters start publishing good news, you/me/us start switching off by the million. So, its your fault for being human, i guess 🙂 \ The US and the UK used the media to spread fear and I.N.T.E.L.I.G.E.N.C.E ( yeh i saw it last night !) info in order to justify invading Iraq. How is this different? Sin ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2005, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525/60 "2005-01-20T14:23:47Z")
> [@Uncommon Sense](#): > > **Lissa** , would it really be \*that \* difficult for the media to tell us what the soldiers were doing when they got killed? We don’t usually get the full story. Were they helping old ladies cross the street when the car bomb went off? Or were they in the middle of a gunfight with insurgents and died in a crossfire? That’s probably because the Pentagon doesn’t want such information released. The soldiers may have been on a mission to quell insurgency which could be threatened by the release of information as to what, exactly, they were doing when killed. Besides, what does it matter? The kids are dead just the same whether they were helping kittens out of trees or on patrol. > [@](#): > > These are the kind of ommissions that irk me. You’re doomed to a very frustrated life, aren’t you? > [@](#): > > You made it sound like I was asking for a detailed biography of every soldier that was killed. No, you made it sound like the media should be out scouring the earth for Happy News, or positively-slanted stories, and that they were biased for not doing so. (They _are_ biased, but that’s not the point-- the media always has been biased and always will.) Look, if there was a market for it, there would be the Happy News Network. Since there is not, you will have to search the internet, just like I have to do for books. > [@](#): > > Again, I don’t expect the media to spoonfeed _ME_. Apparently, you do, because you don’t think you should have to look for stories outside of the mainstream. You think you should be able to see the stories you want on the CBS Evening News, regardless of whether those stories are what the rest of the public want to see. > [@](#): > > The media knows it’s spoonfeeding the majority of American already, who don’t bother to look further for news. Why don’t you let them worry about that? You don’t have much faith in your fellow Americans, do you? You seem to think that they’re sheep-- if they’re exposed to bias, they will immediately buy into it, fooled utterly and completely. Don’t you think Americans, for the most part, are smart enough to think for themselves and can weed out the bullshit? Sure, there are the stupid ones, but they were doomed anyway. Even with “pure” media, they’d still be stupid. > [@](#): > > My point again, why should they have to look further? (I know the answer, just being facetious). _stares blankly_ You do? Then what has this whole thread been about, anyway? > [@](#): > > Wrong, I was not adressing the liberalness of the media but rather it’s inability to report more of the positive experiences in Iraq. That seemed to whooosh right over yours and Lissa’s heads. Say huh? In this exact same post you said, > [@](#): > > I think the ‘liberal’ slant is a more stable theory. So, you’re saying there’s a liberal slant. But that’s not why they don’t report the Happy News. Personally, I think they do it just to piss you off. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-insurgents-are-spinning-the-war-with-the-help-of-our-media/285525.md?page=4)