Media Bias in Iraq
by Michael Connelly

The last month has certainly been interesting. Newsweek magazine did its "mea culpa", sort of, but the damage had already been done. People had died in riots, American soldiers had been attacked, and the terrorists had a new recruiting tool. It would have seemed to be in the best interest of everyone to just let the story die, but that's not what happened. Instead the usual suspects decided to come to the defense of Newsweek and keep the story alive.

The first article I read following the magazine's admission that the original story was untrue was on the front page of the Dallas Morning News. It came from the Washington Post and was the first in a series designed to try and shift the blame away from the media and onto the Bush Administration. There was no mention of the fact that the Washington Post and Newsweek are owned by the same company and that this was like having Kenneth Lay write news articles about the Enron scandal.

That was followed by the angry editorials in the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times trying desperately to not only divert the blame, but to prove that there was at least some grain of truth to the story. It didn't matter of the sources were the former prisoners who had already been discredited, and it didn't matter who got hurt.

The question isn't why is this happening, it's why is anyone surprised that it's happening. The point is that for the liberals in the so-called elite media, their side has been chosen. It is imperative that they do whatever is necessary to discredit our President, our military, and our nation, and if we lose the war against terrorism in the process, so be it.

Of course, if you want to really know what's going on with the news media just ask the people who are the primary targets of their one sided, inaccurate reporting; our troops in harm's way. I have and I don't need to keep my sources anonymous, they are my oldest and youngest sons who have both been overseas during the war on terror.

The youngest is a Military Police Sergeant in the Army Nation Guard. He served two years on active duty including a six month tour as a guard at Guantanamo Bay. He's prohibited from saying much about his tour there, but I do know that he went ballistic when the Newsweek article originally appeared. He was in Guantanamo during that time and he knows what happened and didn't happen. What's never been reported is the incredible abuse our guards had to endure from the prisoners.

The oldest son is an Army Captain who has done two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. He's thoroughly disgusted with the news media because he's seen the reporting first hand. Actually the wouldn't even call it reporting since he says most reporters n Iraq hide out in the Green Zone or on relatively secure bases. They won't go anywhere if it might be dangerous. (There are just a few exceptions such as Oliver North of Fox News.)

A good example was a New York Times reporter who was on my son's base in Mosul during the time of the Iraqi elections. There had been numerous occasions when my son and others had tried to persuade this reporter to accompany them to see some of the many projects they were working on to benefit the people of Iraq. She refused to leave the base and was simply not interested in reporting on anything that was positive or favorable to our troops.

She finally went out with an armed escort early on the morning of election day and stayed out for about an hour. My son was out in an area of Mosul that was considered to be one of the most dangerous. He saw thousands of Iraqi citizens lined up to vote despite the obvious danger. Our intrepid reporter never saw that or at least thought it unworthy of reporting. She spent the rest of the day hiding on the base as usual and sending reports to her paper that the voting turnout in Mosul was low because everyone was too scared to vote. What was even more amazing to the troops was that she said the same thing in her reports about Baghdad, even though she was no where near the capital.

Another first hand example occurred several weeks prior to the election. During the battle for Fallujah there had been an incident where several Iraqi police stations had been attacked in Mosul. The police had fled and I listened to the news reports that down town Mosul had been overrun by terrorists who had escaped from Fallujah. I was concerned and e-mailed my son to find out if he was OK. He happened to be in his headquarters at the time and called me immediately. He told me that he was in downtown Mosul and hadn't been overrun by anyone. In fact the American forces were letting the Iraqi Security forces handle the situation.

Yet the story being reported continued to be one of complete disaster. The news media pundits kept the story alive for days and trumpeted it as proof that the U.S. training of Iraqi police and security forces was failing and that the terrorists were winning. This favorable reporting apparently impressed the bad guys and convinced them of their own invulnerability because several weeks before the election they launched a similar attack against the Iraqi police in Mosul.

This time the outcome was entirely different. The police didn't retreat, but stood their ground and gave an impressive beating to the terrorists. Unfortunately, none of the reporters stationed in Mosul at the time found that story news worthy. I ever saw any mention of it. This was typical, according to my son. The standard for reporting is to only report those stories that cast a negative light on the war.

There are apparently numerous instances where the press will report that several U.S. servicemen have been killed or wounded in a fight. What is specifically and deliberately left out of the article is the fact that during the same fight large numbers of the enemy are killed and captured. That would turn the tragic story of American deaths into a report that the casualties were not in vain, but resulted in a U.S. victory. That's something the media doesn't want the American people to know.

I've been told to disregard virtually any story reported by the reporters in the Green Zone. Since they never leave the base they rely entirely on rumors and reports of anonymous sources. It appears that those sources are often other reporters who never venture out of the zone. The graphic videos and photographs taken of suicide bombers and attacks are usually done by stringers, camera crews and photographers that work independently and provide their products to anyone who'll buy it. Therefore there is no control over the accuracy of what they're providing.

I've noticed some footage being shown over and over. A car bomb explodes and we see footage of the carnage. A few days later there is similar footage of another bombing. If you watch closely you'll often find that it's the same footage just taken from different angles. And by the way, the Iraqis that you see dancing around the destroyed U.S. vehicles in celebration are often the same people each time. They show up when the camera crew arrives and leave when it does. It makes one wonder if they're on retainer.

Of major concern is the fact that the major news organizations no longer even attempt to be fair in their coverage. The debacles at CBS and Newsweek have made it clear that they have no qualms about lying to the American people, particularly since there are few repercussions if they get caught. As I finished up this article two things occurred that served to emphasize my points.

First ABC's lead story on its nightly news broadcast was the airing of a propaganda video prepared by Al Qaeda. The video was pure propaganda designed to show how strong Al Qaeda is and how weak our efforts to catch Bin Ladin are. The very next morning the front page of the Dallas Morning News carried a story from the New York times. The headline was "Soldier Kicks Quran" The problem was this inflamatory headline was accompanied by a story that didn't mention any such incident.

The two questions I now have are; when will people realize what's going on and react to it? And even more important, do they even care?

Email the Editor