SENSATIONALISM HAS GOT TO GO... PUT SOME RESPONSIBLE,
LEVEL-HEADED PRODUCERS IN THE MEDIA
CNN Sucks... And Has Idiotic Polls Too!

Last night I was channeling surfing and came across a news blip on CNN. They were presenting a recent poll that "revealed" 50% of people in the U.S. now believe that Saddam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. The angle that the news anchor was presenting it from, or maybe just the way the polling question was worded, was that there has been a shift in public opinion that Saddam had no connection with 9/11. Hello?! Who did these pollsters poll? People who can't watch or read the news intelligently? Who in the U.S. initially thought Saddam had a strong connection with 9/11? It was known to be al Qaeda and bin Laden and possibly an indirect relationship with Saddam, but was 9/11 ever the primary reason for the attack on Iraq? And what was the purpose of this poll? It seemed to be a totally loaded polling question that tries to present that 9/11 was a primary reason for attacking Iraq. And since a growing majority of the population doesn't believe Saddam has anything to do with 9/11 anymore, President Bush is losing credibility now. Yes, I'm reading in-between the lines, but this poll was so obviously biased against Bush and useless that I had to write about it. Whoever the producer was that commissioned that poll is retarded and let's his political biases influence his work too much.

Additional criticism on the media was discussed in The Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal and a great op-ed by Congressman Jim Marshall (D-GA), which I pasted below. The criticism is along the same lines that I wrote about back on April 2, 2003. The media places too much of a negative spin on the events in Iraq and needs to brings more positive news into the light or just none at all. Again, I don't need to be updated on every single little occurance in Iraq:

Dems to Media: Quit Bitching!
Jim Marshall, a freshman Democratic congressman from Georgia, is just back from Iraq, and he's penned an op-ed for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution blasting the media for its negativism toward Iraq:

On Sept. 14, I flew from Baghdad to Kuwait with Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg from Dearborn, Mich. He was in a body bag. He'd been ambushed and killed that afternoon. Sitting in the cargo bay of a C 130E, I found myself wondering whether the news media were somehow complicit in his death. . . .

In Mosul last Monday, a colonel in the 101st Airborne put it to me quite simply: "Sir, this is worth doing." No one I spoke with said anything different. And I spoke with all ranks.

But there will be more Blumbergs killed in action, many more. So it is worth doing only if we have a reasonable chance of success. And we do, but I'm afraid the news media are hurting our chances. They are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded, the Blumbergs. Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with "the rest of the story," the progress made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy.

Other Democrats agree, reports The Hill. Rep Ike Skelton (D., Mo.): "The media stresses the wounds, the injuries, and the deaths, as they should, but for instance in Northern Iraq, Gen. [Dave] Petraeus has 3,100 projects--from soccer fields to schools to refineries--all good stuff and that isn't being reported." Rep. Gene Taylor (D., Miss.): "In fairness, the war is neither going as well as the administration says it's going or as badly as the media says it is going."


Media's dark cloud a danger
Falsely bleak reports reduce our chances of success in Iraq

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
by Jim Marshall
September 22, 2003

On Sept. 14, I flew from Baghdad to Kuwait with Sgt. Trevor A. Blumberg from Dearborn, Mich. He was in a body bag. He'd been ambushed and killed that afternoon. Sitting in the cargo bay of a C 130E, I found myself wondering whether the news media were somehow complicit in his death.

News media reports about our progress in Iraq have been bleak since shortly after the president's premature declaration of victory. These reports contrast sharply with reports of hope and progress presented to Congress by Department of Defense representatives -- a real disconnect, Vietnam déja vu. So I went to Iraq with six other members of Congress to see for myself.

The Iraq war has predictably evolved into a guerrilla conflict similar to Vietnam. Our currently stated objectives are to establish reasonable security and foster the creation of a secular, representative government with a stable market economy that provides broad opportunity throughout Iraqi society. Attaining these objectives in Iraq would inevitably transform the Arab world and immeasurably increase our future national security.

These are goals worthy of a fight, of sacrifice, of more lives lost now to save thousands, perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands in the future. In Mosul last Monday, a colonel in the 101st Airborne put it to me quite simply: "Sir, this is worth doing." No one I spoke with said anything different. And I spoke with all ranks.

But there will be more Blumbergs killed in action, many more. So it is worth doing only if we have a reasonable chance of success. And we do, but I'm afraid the news media are hurting our chances. They are dwelling upon the mistakes, the ambushes, the soldiers killed, the wounded, the Blumbergs. Fair enough. But it is not balancing this bad news with "the rest of the story," the progress made daily, the good news. The falsely bleak picture weakens our national resolve, discourages Iraqi cooperation and emboldens our enemy.

During the conventional part of this conflict, embedded journalists reported the good, the bad and the ugly. Where are the embeds now that we are in the difficult part of the war, now that fair and balanced reporting is critically important to our chances of success? At the height of the conventional conflict, Fox News alone had 27 journalists embedded with U.S. troops (out of a total of 774 from all Western media). Today there are only 27 embedded journalists from all media combined.

Throughout Iraq, American soldiers with their typical "can do" attitude and ingenuity are engaging in thousands upon thousands of small reconstruction projects, working with Iraqi contractors and citizens. Through decentralized decision-making by unit commanders, the 101st Airborne Division alone has spent nearly $23 million in just the past few months. This sum goes a very long way in Iraq. Hundreds upon hundreds of schools are being renovated, repainted, replumbed and reroofed. Imagine the effect that has on children and their parents.

Zogby International recently released the results of an August poll showing hope and progress. My own unscientific surveys told me the same thing. With virtually no exceptions, hundreds of Iraqis enthusiastically waved back at me as I sat in the open door of a helicopter traveling between Babylon and Baghdad. And I received a similar reception as I worked my way alone, shaking hands through a large crowd of refinery workers just to see their reaction.

We may need a few credible Baghdad Bobs to undo the harm done by our media. I'm afraid it is killing our troops.


U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Ga.) of Macon, a Vietnam combat veteran, is a member of the House Armed Services Committee.