Let's Focus the Criticism Where It Belongs
Media Blog
Stephen Spruiell Reporting
Whenever supporters of U.S. policy in Iraq criticize the media's coverage of the conflict, networks and newspapers are quick to showcase their Baghdad correspondents and point out the risks they are taking to bring us news from the war zone. This is not the debate we should be having. By and large, correspondents in Iraq are doing their best to report what's going on, and when conservatives attack them, we lose.
In his column today, Howard Kurtz puts the emphasis back where it belongs: on reporters here in the United States who spin the news coming out of Iraq in an attempt to frame the war in a negative way. He compiles a list of questions such reporters asked the president last week. Questions like:
<<< ABC's Jessica Yellin: "Are you willing to sacrifice American lives to keep Iraqis from killing one another?"
CNN's Kathleen Koch: "Do you believe [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld should resign?"
USA Today's David Jackson: "Are you concerned that the Iraq experience is going to embolden authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and make it tougher to get democracy there?"
Bob Deans of Cox News: "Is there a point at which having the American forces in Iraq becomes more a part of the problem than a part of the solution?"
The Washington Post's Jim VandeHei: Polls show "a growing number of Americans are questioning the trustworthiness of you and this White House. Does that concern you?"
Hearst columnist Helen Thomas: "Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounds of Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true."
In his CBS interview with Cheney, Bob Schieffer said: "Let me ask you about this charge of incompetence, because we hear that not just about Iraq, but we hear it more — and being raised sometimes by members of your own party on a variety of issues — the bumbling after Katrina, the Harriet Miers nomination, the failure to see the political implications of the Dubai Ports deal." >>>
Media-watchers and the journalists they criticize need to stop talking past each other. More than the correspondents, the stateside reporters and editors filter the war coverage through the prism of domestic politics, and we should focus our criticism on the ones whose questions and articles amount to little more than anti-war spin.
media.nationalreview.com
washingtonpost.com |
