I suppose its something akin to "See no evil, hear no evil..."
See no war, hear no war...:
“The war has gone on longer than a lot of news organizations’ ability or appetite to cover it,” said Jane Arraf, a former Baghdad bureau chief for CNN who has remained in Iraq as a contract reporter for The Christian Science Monitor.
Joseph Angotti, a former vice president of NBC News, said he could not recall any other time when all three major broadcast networks lacked correspondents in an active war zone that involved United States forces.
Except, of course, in Afghanistan, where about 30,000 Americans are stationed, and where until recently no American television network, broadcast or cable, maintained a full-time bureau.
At the same time that news organizations are trimming in Iraq, the television networks are trying to add newspeople in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with expectations that the Obama administration will focus on the conflict there.
If any of the news nets or major newspapers had reporters on scene in Iraq, they would be forced to report on the success of our strategy. This just simply won't do. Better to go to Afghanistan and report on how we're failing there - at least until Obama takes office. Then stories of Obama's brilliant strategy in adding a few thousand troops will be pushed and progress - even the tiniest glimmer of it - will be the storyline.
I would recommend that the media take a good, long, hard, look at their performance in Iraq - the rush to print or broadcast every story that might be construed as America failing; the swallowing whole of al-Qaeda and insurgent propaganda; the dishonest reporting of overblown and debunked casualty figures to name a few - but I doubt the press is capable of any such introspection.
The fact is, the press blew it in Iraq.
Some of it was clearly not their fault as reporting from the war zone was incredibly hazardous. But clearly, the reliance on "stringers," the unreliable "sources," and their own silly, stupid biases all contributed to make the media coverage of the Iraq War the most shameful episode in the history of American journalism.
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