Monday, October 24, 2005

The Media's bias on Iraq.

Brent Bozell brings us this:

" On Saturday, (the 15th) millions of Iraqis walked with determination to the polls to vote for a new constitution. The turnout was high. The violence was down dramatically from the triumphant elections of January. But the network found all this boring. On the night before the historic vote, ABC led with bird-flu panic. CBS imagined Karl Rove in a prison jumpsuit. NBC hyped inflation."

Bozell goes on:

"A massive new study by Rich Noyes of the Media Research Center reviews every Iraq story on the evening news programs of ABC, CBS, and NBC from January through September of 2005. That"s 1,388 news stories. He titled it "The Bad News Brigade," because 61 percent of the stories were negative or pessimistic, while only 15 percent of the stories were positive or optimistic - a four-to-one ratio. The trend in coverage has also become increasingly negative during 2005, with pessimistic stories rising to nearly three-fourths of all Iraq news by August and September, with a ten-to-one ratio of negative stories over positive ones."

TEN TO ONE!!!! That is an incredible number. What it becomes is not news, but propaganda, in my opinion. We here in the tiny world of the blogosphere, can read Michael Yon (who has a new post on the elections btw) or any of the milblogs and get the real deal. The journalists can as well of course, and probably do. They just don't want to report that part of the war because it doesn't fit their agenda.

And the most sickening of all the left leaning media stories involve our soldiers themselves:

"Noyes found that 79 stories focused primarily on allegations of wrongdoing by American forces in Iraq, including this year's Abu Ghraib hangover stories, compared to only eight that focused on the heroism of American soldiers. Is that still a story? Sure. But what about positive stories about the military? There were only eight stories that focused on the heroism of American soldiers, and only nine on soldier acts of kindness or generosity. The TV news titans not only suggest the mission in Iraq is a waste of money and lives, they are painting our soldiers as a big problem there, not a part of the solution."

Did you get that number? Out of 79 stories only a total of 17 showed our soldiers in a positive light. That is especially shameful since it is easier now more than ever for the journalists to get positive stories straight from the soldiers themselves via the milblogs.

If that isn't left wing propaganda, I don't know what is.