Agenda Media: Truth Averse?
To say that I’ve been wary of the Agenda Media is understatement. After reading Ralph Peters’ latest account from Iraq, though, I’m now asking a more important question: Are the Agenda Media averse to the truth? Here’s the part of Col. Peters’ column that’s got me asking that question:
I’m trying. I’ve been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I’m looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can’t find it. Maybe actually being on the ground in Iraq prevents me from seeing it. Perhaps the view’s clearer from Manhattan. It could be that my background as an intelligence officer didn’t give me the right skills. And riding around with the U.S. Army, looking at things first-hand, is certainly a technique to which The New York Times wouldn’t stoop in such an hour of crisis.
Let me tell you what I saw anyway. Rolling with the “instant Infantry” gunners of the 1st Platoon of Bravo Battery, 4-320 Field Artillery, I saw children and teenagers in a Shia slum jumping up and down and cheering our troops as they drove by. Cheering our troops. All day, and it was a long day, we drove through Shia and Sunni neighborhoods. Everywhere, the reception was warm. No violence. None. And no hostility toward our troops. Iraqis went out of their way to tell us we were welcome. Instead of a civil war, something very different happened because of the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra. The fanatic attempt to stir up Sunni-vs.-Shia strife, and the subsequent spate of violent attacks, caused popular support for the U.S. presence to spike upward. Think Abu Musab al-Zarqawi intended that?
I’ve preached alot about getting your information and analysis from the Right blogosphere and from dedicated reporters. Peters’ column is proof that the American Agenda Media isn’t willing to take risks to get the story that paints the accurate picture. They’re more than willing to just ‘phone it in’ from their hotel rooms.
It’s insulting to have the ‘Paper of Record’ tell us that civil war had broken out in Iraq, then find out from a soldier-turned-journalist that the NY Times’ article wasn’t accurate, which leads to another pet peeve of mine: Why is it that the clowns who won’t even make an effort to report are considered reporters but great investigators from the Right blogosphere like Ed Morrissey, Brian Maloney and others aren’t considered journalists?
Quite frankly, it’s insulting to hear the out-of-touch media ‘giants’ like Dan Rather and Marvin Kalb declare bloggers as out-of-control but then state that people who have editors ‘check’ their work are true journalists.
You owe it to yourself to read Col. Peters’ columns from Iraq. Without his reporting, we wouldn’t get the true picture of what’s happening over there.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
March 5th, 2006 at 2:07 pm
[...] California Conservative [...]
March 5th, 2006 at 2:49 pm
The Problem is not “The Agenda Media” — The Problem is Honesty
The premise, that the mainstream media has an agenda, is tragically laughable. I have some questions that I’d like to pose, and
I’d like to see this forum respond. Well, if we can keep from the name-calling, vitriol and finger-pointing, that is.
Exactly what is the agenda of the media?
For example, Ralph Peters, and others quoted on this blog, describes Iraq as a virtual utopia, ad nauseum. The schools are open! Women are voting! But what should the media report when extremists
(of any stripe) blow up a mosque? Is it not news? If not, what is news… that a reporter can ride around with a platoon and see schoolchildren jump up and down for joy? How is it more representative of what’s really going on when he reports of people dancing in the streets when they see a military convoy, yet not news when another reporter sees Iraqis protest the
occupation?
Let’s view it from a different angle. What is the truth?
– Michael Tomasky, writing in The American Prospect
I’d add to that list a few domestic issues, such as “No one knew the terrorists would fly planes into buildings” when, in fact, enough branches of government were sufficiently worried about such activity that they lead the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing with the headline “Bin Laden Determined to Strike
Inside the United States”; “no one knew the levees were going to break” when, in fact, everyone from days-in-advance Michael Brown (scapegoat who’s looking more and more like a hero) to the years-in-advance
Times-Pacayune warned that the levees were at risk.
This is the most honesty challenged administration in history. They make Bill Clinton lying about sex with an intern look like, well, the Saturday Night Live skit it was: a lie about sex, marital fidelity and impropriety in the White House. But contrast Clinton’s lie with Bush’s, and ask yourselves, how many people died when Clinton lied, and how many have died when Bush lied?
The Bush Administration just can’t seem to tell the truth. If lying weren’t at the very core of this administration, why can’t Dick Cheney report — immediately — that he was involved in an accident? You see, everything that they do is suspect
because they have an honesty problem. If, as the Vice President says, it was merely an accident, why the delay and subterfuge? Why, instead of facing the media head-on, dispelling the rumors and cutting the speculation off at the knees, does Cheney delay, ignore and ultimately spin the matter?
There is one bright point in this example, however: the proliferation of “I’d rather hunt with Cheney than drive with Kennedy” buttons, pins, bumper stickers, et al, with either a link to sites selling them, or my personal favorite, the cartoon that switches between a picture of Cheney in hunting-orange vest with his trademark scowl to a picture of Kennedy, drink in one hand/steering wheel in the other.
It only took 35 years, but the Right has finally admitted that accidents happen to politicians, too. (Turn about is fair play. I say “how many people died when Bush lies”, you say you’d “rather hunt with
Cheney…” And before you scream “but Mary Jo Kopeckne died and Worthington walked away on his own!” let me reference my question again: how many people have died since Bush lied about those illusive WMDs in Iraq?)
Its clear, and I expect nothing less.. the Right blogsphere is going to support the administration. This administration, if you
read California Conservative, Michelle Malkin, NewsMax.com, etc., can do no wrong, can make no mistakes. So here’s the big question: Just how bad do things have to get before you’re willing
to admit anything is wrong?
Be specific. Tell me, for the record, how many Americans have to die before the Right finally admits that this Administration is incompetent, ignorant, and corrupt? Will it take the loss of another major American city? Will it take a dirty bomb? Will it take the destruction of our way of life?
March 5th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
To me, the biggest problem with the media is that, not that it has an agenda, but that it doesn’t tell a complete picture. Sure there’s bad news, sure bad things happen but why do they ONLY tell that story? There are almost no stories of good things going on.
Is life in Iraq a utopia? Heck no! Is it a hell hole with civil war breaking out everywhere? Heck no as well! Why can’t we tell a story that’s closer to the truth and not one of these extremes?!
March 5th, 2006 at 8:19 pm
“Exactly what is the agenda of the media?”
To repeat the same storyline that negatively affects the Bush Administration. Mind you now, not all major news outlets are part of the Agenda Media.
Examples of agenda reporting: When reporting on the NSA intercept program, EVERY article that I’ve read from the AP, NY Times, Washington Post, CNN.com, CBS.com and LA Times characterizes the program as “domestic wiretapping”, which we know is patently false.
When we read about the DPW deal, they started by saying that we were selling our ports. Hillary even called it “outsourcing our security”, which she knew was false. Did the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, CBS, etc., call her on it? NOPE. That’s dishonest.
“For example, Ralph Peters, and others quoted on this blog, describes Iraq as a virtual utopia, ad nauseum. The schools are open! Women are voting! But what should the media report when extremists (of any stripe) blow up a mosque? Is it not news?”
You think that his reporting describes Iraq as a virtual utopia? You’ve got to tell me what type of drugs you’re using cuz they must be incredible.
As for the Agenda Media reporting about the bombings, yes they should report that. But they shouldn’t stop there. They should report all of the news. And they shouldn’t hide in their hotels like a bunch of chicken*****. If they wanted to do real reporting, they have to be embedded with the troops so they can see reality instead write about what their Iraqi ‘helpers’ spoonfeed them.
Oh and how about getting the facts right while they’re at it. Saying that there are 1,300 dead from the ‘civil war’ lying in the morgue without them physically verifying it is unconscienable. That isn’t reporting.
It might’ve even been nice for them to get it right that civil war had broken out. It hasn’t.
Thus far, the so-called mainstream media has painted the bleakest picture on Iraq. That isn’t accidental. Michael Yon, Austin Bay and now Ralph Peters have all gotten the story straight.
Let’s not forget the wretched job these idiots did in covering Katrina, either. The Agenda Media told us that there were rapes happening inside the Superdome, that there was a particularly gruesome rape of a little girl, that there was an entire cooler full of dead bodies and that there were likely to be 10,000+ dead as a result of Katrina. They didn’t find hundreds of rapes committed in the Superdome. There were less than a dozen. Thankfully, there weren’t 10,000 people fatalities because of Katrina; it was 974. There wasn’t a cooler full of dead bodies. PERIOD.
Shall I continue with the disgustingly incompetent reporting that we’ve seen in the past 6 months or should I drag in Rathergate, Easongate and other ‘reporting’ atrocities, too?
If that’s your idea of good reporting, then you’ve got ridiculously low standards, standards that barely evade the accusation of utter propaganda.
After all the lying that the Agenda Media has done, you dare call this Administration bigger liars than the man who couldn’t tell the truth if his life depended on it? Don’t make me laugh.
March 5th, 2006 at 10:36 pm
How anyone can continue to be so blind as to deny liberal bias and agenda-driven news reporting is beyond me. Part of it is anti-Bush liberal bias; another is “if it bleeds it leads” tragedy tv-style reporting. You’d think that violence were happening all across Iraq rather than concentrated in the Sunni triangle/3-4 of the…what is it? 18 provinces? It’s like LA. My relatives in Japan 20 years ago thought we had nothing but driveby shootings happening over here. It’s about balance and perspective and context. I watched 60 Minutes tonight like I always do. Tell me how their segments are not agenda-driven. They do one anti-military, anti-war piece week in and week out, in between slamming President Bush. The lead up to the 2004 Election was filled with one negative Bush story after another on 60 Minutes.
How many more research studies have to be conducted, showing the majority of journalists slant left, that there is liberal bias in the media, before someone such as “Stop Bush” finally acknowledges such? I don’t mind partisan newspapers. What drives me nuts is hiding their partisanship behind a facade of reporting straight news without a political bias.
March 5th, 2006 at 10:39 pm
Reading the first comment and his “Bush lied people died” mantra, this guy is a product of the very same agenda-driven news that he denies exists.
March 5th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
If the agenda media applied the same news filter it uses on Iraq that it used on say, Los Angeles, all able bodied citizens would evacuate the city in preperation of a carpet bombing.
March 6th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Still No Iraq Civil War?
There are at least two sides to every story, and if you haven’t yet read Dude, Where’s My Civil War? by Ralph Peters (New York Post, March 5, 2006), you’re missing a big part of the current story in Iraq. Ralph Peters has been riding in Baghdad with…
March 7th, 2006 at 2:55 pm
Dude, Where’s My Civil War?
“I’m trying. I’ve been trying all week. The other day, I drove another 30 miles or so on the streets and alleys of Baghdad. I’m looking for the civil war that The New York Times declared. And I just can’t find it. Maybe actually being on the groun…