Myers Challenges Editors to Tell Full Story in War Coverage
In Media Bias
The Command Post
From Defencelink.mil :
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The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff encouraged newspaper editors today to tell America the full story of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
”It’s particularly important today … because the American people need to know the full story,” said Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, “because it is going to be their resolve that is so critical to our ability to confront the extremist threat.”
Myers told the editors that he reads far more about the problems of servicemembers’ equipment and the latest insurgent attack than about “the thousands of amazing things our troops are accomplishing.” This concerns him, he said, because American resolve is key to success.
The chairman said that part of the problem lies with the military. He said commanders must be more responsive and give more access to reporters. “We’re working on that,” he told the editors.
But still, “a bomb blast is seen as more newsworthy than the steady progress of rebuilding communities and lives, remodeling schools and running vaccination programs and water purification plants.”
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Apologies for a link to a military site dealing with events of last week, but a Google News Search shows that a speech by the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the US’s media on their bias wasn’t worth publishing.
Kudos to the honourable exceptions : the Pakistani PakTribune, the conservative MichNews, the Australian Big News Network, i-Newswire, the Military family Network, the Iraq War-supporting BlackAnthem.com, and the Christian Watchman Herald of Texas.
The observant will notice a few omissions. Not just “the usual suspects” such as the New York Times or Washington Post, but even the Washington Times and all of the small-town newspapers that usually run stories that most MSM don’t want published.
Of the MSM, only the Indianapolis Star reported this. Their complete coverage is as follows:
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Editors heard from President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and California Sen. Barbara Boxer.
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That’s it.
command-post.org
defenselink.mil
news.google.com
paktribune.com
michnews.com
feeds.bignewsnetwork.com
i-newswire.com
emilitary.org
blackanthem.com
texaspanhandleplains.com
indystar.com |
