A guy shoots five people in the mall but all you want to hear about is Anna Nichole

What a dumbass interviewee. She tells us Britney's mood, how she was acting, what she felt like but oh she's not going to let it be known how many tattoos she got.

 

No motive known is exactly why it is apparent. They know that he his Muslim, yet they aren't assigning that has having to do with motive.

The whole issue about bringing up someone being a muslim when violence committed, is a fake issue invented by the likes of Savage. When someone's muslim background plays a part, it gets publicity. It got publicity on 9/11, in the case of the school with the Chechen rebels, in the case of the uproar over the Danish cartoons, etc.

There is never a reluctance to discuss the background of perpetrators when their religion is plays a role in the story. Savage is, as usual, making stuff up.

The fact that we know the shooter was Muslim just shows that it was mentioned. At this stage that is plenty of discussion of the matter as it isn't relevant right now. If it turns out that was a motive, then I am sure it will be discussed more then, as it deserves to be.

 

I will try not to get sucked in to an argument about how "bad" the war is going, but there is a LOT of good things that are completely ignored: Voter turnout, female governing participation that is unprecedented in any region let alone the middle east, American University being opened in Iraqi Kurdistan (BTW, named such by Iraqis in appreciation), freedom of speech on a level NEVER experienced in the region.

There is a place for negative news. There's plenty of it. I wouldn't be so naive to argue against that, but it is unprofessional for journalists to decide not to share such information. I'm not calling for fluff pieces. I'll happily settle for balanced, truthful coverage.

 

Actually there is quite a bit of good news about Iraq that gets reported but not many people pay attention. The elections in Iraq were widely reported, the killing of Al Zaqari, stories of soldiers helping Iraqis and in the past few days many major news services were reporting on the relative calm in Baghdad in the first few days of the surge. News like that doesn't get much discussion for the same reason that news like new school openings don't get foster much discussion since we are naturally drawn to the sensational.

 

I think to say that NO good news has been reported is an exageration on my part, but I would vigorously argue that it has not been balanced. I believe most journalists (like many Americans) are against the war and it shows in the coverage of it. That, IMO, is unprofessional.

 

A couple of things here. Yes its true that a majority of journalists have a liberal bias. That didn't stop them from reporting very negatively on John Kerry or reporting that the US drove insurgents out of Fallujah. First is that there is an inherent bias within news at almost any level to report the sensation. If you knew nothing about a city but from its local nightly news you might wonder why anyone could live there when most nights all you're going to see is about bloody crimes, fires, horrible accidents, or bad weather. If it bleeds it leads. That might be unprofessional but hardly representative of some sort of political bias.

Second, is how do you measure if things are overal going good or bad? As I've said good news does get reported out of Iraq but have you considered that maybe not so much good news gets reported out because things are that bad? Would you rather have journalists not reporting on car bombs and instead spend there time reporting on school openings? To me that would be extremely unprofessional and would truly be a bias.

Third another problem with reporting the so called good news in Iraq is that the military makes it difficult themselves to report on the good news. CBS reporter Lara Logan addressed this a few months ago when she said in response to why things like school openings weren't being reported so much is because the military won't help out with getting that because they fear that if they have a camera crew out there that might make it the target of insurgents. Also I saw a story a few nights ago about Iraqi translators helping Americans, something that should be considered good news, but the problem was that the translators had to carefully conceal their identities since if it got who they were they would be killed.

So rather than it being some sort of political bias there is a range of reasons why you don't see more good news get reported out of Iraq.

 

Let's not wast time about the bias. It's obvious. There have been a multitude polls of journalists, lexus/nexus studies, etc. to illustrate this point. Also, at some point, when the entire media establishment is beating the same drum, it would be sensational to take the contrarion view. Do the enemies of our troops not bleed? Why don't we hear about their death counts? The absolute victory the troops accomplish in every skirmish deserves much more play than it receives.

My original point was that pure nonsense that gets MAJOR time on the news pales in comparrison to the accomplishments that get ignored in the war in Iraq. As I've said before, there is plenty of bad news to be reported. It should be reported. I'm not asking for propaganda.

I'm going to assume that the journalists aren't on the scene at the car bombs, road side bombs, etc. The majority of the reporting is based off of reports being released by the Iraqi government and the military. Somehow after the fact, they are able to get video of the carnage. First, since these school openings are also reported, it stands to reason that the media could report on it if they chose to. Secondly, if the journalists can manage to get video footage of a war zone, I think they could manage to handle the hazardous environment of school children saying their ABC's.

 

As a follow up there was a report on one of my local news affiliates tonight regarding the question of why good news doesn't get reported as often from Iraq. They showed a quote from the US embassy in Iraq saying that they didn't think the benefit from getting positive spin out of reporting good stories outweighed the dangers and costs of getting reporters with sufficient security to the schools.

Further they cited a study analyzing news stories from Iraq and indicated that 25% were negative, 20% were positive, 35% were neutral and 20% covered multiple topics that could be considered positive or negative.

 

To answer some questions. The US military has said itself it doesn't keep death counts of the enemies so there isn't any information to report. As for sensationalism why then don't local news outlets instead of reporting on car crashes report that traffic was just fine today? If it bleeds it leads. That saying has been around long before Iraq. US victories are routinely reported. I don't recall Fallujah and Ramadi not being reported as victories. The absolute victory in every skirmish is rather exagerated on your part. If that was the case then there would be no more fighting. For that matter most skirmishes victory is hard to determine as most of the fighting is hit and run attacks where the military can't determine how many enemy fighters they are facing or how many casualties they have inflicted. For that matter how do you win a skirmish when it consists of an IED going off under a Humvee?

Are you saying that reporting on US casualties or acts of terrorism against Shiites or Sunnis is nonsense? It sounds to me like you are asking for propaganda. Further though you haven't answered the original point of that maybe things really are that bad. It is your assumption that things are really going better than what is displayed in the media.

First off video of school opening has been shown but at the same time it doesn't seem like the US embassy or the military is that interested in providing good footage of school openings since they think that any positive spin is outweighed by the risk to camera crews. Anyway even if video is provided this goes back to the dictum if it bleeds it leads. What you seem to be asking for is for journalists in Iraq to behave differently than journalists in Minneapolis or Houston would behave. Ask yourself why doesn't your local news affiliate report more good news. Its not like Houston, or whatever city you live in, is overrun by murderers, arsonists and rapists or your streets clogged with bloody accidents yet if you watch your local news they are reporting on those a lot more than they are school openings.