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July 11, 2006
Are journalists patriots?
Well, they sure don't seem to have an interest in what happens to our GIs, preferring to voice outrage over the treatment of the enemy at our hands.
The folks at Powerline note a revealing statistic.
A friend in Washington decided to research the Washington Post's coverage of the kidnapping and murder of Privates Menchaca and Tucker in comparison of alleged misdeeds by American troops:
I asked my intern to do a little research today because yesterday's WashPost outlook section was just so over-the-top in its anti-American soldier articles.
I asked him to check how many article/editorials the Post did regarding the two soldiers who were grotesquely tortured, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, Texas and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore.
There are 7 news articles in all. 2 or 3 of the articles are actually amalgamations of Iraq-related news stories. There are no editorials. One of the articles actually groups the kidnapping of the 2 soldiers together with a story about US soldiers charged with murdering Iraqis. When I put in a search for the names of the 2 soldiers plus the word "torture" nothing came up. The last of the 7 was published on 6/28/06.
I'm sure you'll be gratified to know that when I typed in the word "Haditha" the search turned up 149 Washington Post hits, including editorials and news items. Since June 19th (the day after the first news story re: the 2 soldiers appeared), there have been 12 items published in WaPo on Haditha, compared to 7 on the soldiers.
When I typed in "Abu Ghraib" the search engine stalled because the search would've returned more than 1000 documents.
I think the over-the-top coverage of Abu Ghraib, the prison where no one died after it was reclaimed from Saddam Hussein, is the definitive proof of the American media's bias against its own soldiers.
So, back to my question, "Are journalists patriots?" Let me ask another question. If the MSM is rooting against the GIs -- not an unreasonable conclusion, given the smidgen of ink spilled over the GIs, versus the torrent over Haditha and Abu Ghraib -- who do you think they're rooting for?
What do you think? Are they patriots?
Posted by Mike Lief at July 11, 2006 12:34 AM
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Comments
Journalists should never have opportunity to debate the P word on a public platform. Without assumption to any agenda, it's clear they do pursue their chosen field based on idealism, be it liberal or conservative. The worst case example is Mary Mapes.
Posted by: Vermont Neighbor at July 11, 2006 07:39 AM
I'm pretty sick and tired of the American's with Anti-American sentiment. No, I don't want bad deeds covered up or ignored, but a little F#$%ing balance would be nice.
Posted by: jim at July 11, 2006 10:36 AM
You have answered your question with the nature of your post. I suppose I see in some ways that the MSM may be worse than the enemy. Journalists choose to deliberately violate all we believe in.
Posted by: jng at July 11, 2006 09:00 PM