Either Way the Press Sucks

Really, there are two competing themes about our media's coverage of the Iraq War.

On NPR the other day, I heard an analyst who opposes the war say our press doesn't report on how bad it is there. She said the press is six months behind in its tone of how it is going. That is, the doom of today actually corresponds to the better situation on the ground of six months ago.

The other side says Iraq is better than the press reports with its focus on pyrotechnics and conviction that we are wrong to fight in Iraq.

I clearly think the latter is right. But I'm not there, so I could be wrong. Still, I trust my ability to evaluate the reports based on my overall knowledge and access to trusted sources of public information. I also have the examples of past wars--including Operation Iraqi Freedom--where the press displayed clear lack of understanding on what it was reporting on. I have to throw my opinion on the side of those who argue a "journalism" degree is pretty worthless. They'd be better off getting education on the world in school.

And I evaluate our situation as one of a slow path to victory--a democratic Iraq that can put down the insurgencies with limited US support. But the progress may be too slow to sustain for long enough to actually reach that victory. I've worried about this race between victory and weariness since November 2003. On the other hand, we've been at this long enough that I don't worry about the Baathists or jihadis shooting their way into power. The Iraqi government can crush those guys if it has to, though that may delay democracy for a generation or more.

But we must wait and see if the press has been too optimistic or too pessimistic about the war.

Still, either way the press is sucking at its theoretical job of reporting on the actual situation accurately.

I hear the Baker commission members are free. Perhaps they can get on this question and issue another report with 79 recommendations for the press to accept with no picking and choosing, please.

Will the press go all doe-eyed over that report?

UPDATE: Lowry says war supporters have been too quick to dismiss reports of problems. Perhaps. I don't think I've been guilty of that. I think I have a higher tolerance for accepting that the enemy fights back and so defeating them will be hard and will not proceed smoothly through the various phases of the plan you adopted before the first shot was fired.

As I've noted before, you can report on difficulties without seeming to wish for our defeat.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Back Talk provides a useful reminder of all the things our press predicted would go wrong that did not. It is too soon to give the press credit.

And as I've written many times, once we win the war, these problems will be seen as just bumps on the road to victory. Who belittles our victory in World War II despite the blunders recounted in books like this? And more important, had these blunders been broadcast live to the world, would we have concluded we were doomed to lose at any time from 1942 to 1945 and given up short of victory?