Christopher Hitchens and ABC on the MSM's Iraq War Coverage

Following up on yesterday's post on the German MSM, two other items caught our attention today.

First, again from David's Medienkritik:

This is not on German media, but it is relevant to German media. ABC News just ran a video report questioning whether media coverage of Iraq is too negative. This is LONG overdue.

Unless the mainstream media catches on to this conversation soon, it will continue to lose viewers and readers in droves because far too many people realize they are getting a negatively biased picture of events. WATCH THE VIDEO. (Note the loud standing ovation after the woman's initial question.)

Make sure to read the rest of Ray's post, which ends with, "Turn off, Tune out, Log In." Good advice!


The other item is Hugh Hewitt's interview with Christopher Hitchens, transcript at Radio Blogger.

Hugh asks Hitchens if he thinks the media is doing a good job covering Iraq:

CH: Not really, I don't. I mean, I can think of some outstanding reporters who've done their very best to cover it.
( ... )
It's just that I've been doing this business for a long time. I've been a journalist for most of my life, and it must be nearly 40 years now, and I know a press herd mentality when I see one. I really do.

And sometimes, I approve. I mean, I remember when I was in Bosnia, all of the press was hostile to Milosevic in one way or another, and as it happened, I thought that was the right bias to have. But I did realize it was a bias.

And when I've been in the company of people covering Iraq, I notice this... another herd mentality, and it's been there since before the war, and it's placed a bet on quagmire at best. ( ... ) And defeat at worst. And in some ways, it doesn't want its prediction to be falsified.

(emphasis added)

Later, they discuss whether the media realize the implications of their reporting:

I'll just tell you something a very senior person at a well-known network. ( ... ) He called me the other day.

This is not a guy who's in any way a conservative, and said you know, we've known each other for a bit. He said you know, I'm beginning to think you must be right, because it really worries me what we're doing, when we are giving the other side the impression that all they need to do is hang on until the end of this administration.

Do people know what they're doing when they're doing this? One doesn't have to make any allegation of disloyalty, but just... if it worries him, as it really does, I think it should worry other people, too, and it certainly worries me.

(emphasis added)

Now just try to imagine how our soldiers and their families must feel. To know that their sacrifices are so cheap, and so meaningless that they are not even taken into account in the crusade of many reporters to serve their own vested bias. In the rush to prove themselves right about the war, because they don't want their "prediction to be falsified".

I can think of few things more shabby and repugnant.

Hitchens is brilliant, as always. Make sure to read the whole thing.

Update: Brian at Iowa Voice notices the same thing.

Update 2: Via Mudville Gazette, this from American Citizen Soldier:

But soldiers don’t watch the news, we make it. That is why the MSM refuse to tell our story, that is why they continue to poison the well back home, and that is why soldiers have taken it upon ourselves to “tell it like it is” on the internet.

Buck Sargeant has created a wonderful video for this post with lots of images the MSM won't show you either.