Monday, March 20, 2006

A dangerous bias


I know it's not universally accepted that the media has a very left leaning bias but I think there is something far more sinister than just effecting opinion when bias, or pure conjecture, is reported as truth or inevitability. I'm not going to suggest this is a conscious effort on the part of the media bosses, but I do blame them for allowing their personal biases to show up as rooting for failure in Iraq. It takes only a little homework to see that the number of Iraqi's (not foreigners who are terrorist insurgents) out of the 25 million who still employ violence, or who fight against a democratic Iraq, is very small. Yes, a very small number of people hell bent on violence can keep killings in a country the size of California a daily event. Yet the infrastructure of Iraq has vastly improved since Saddam's ouster. The economy, private enterprise, health care, education and equality has progressed tremendously. The terrorists and freedom haters who number maybe in the tens of thousands dominate the media coverage. You can hardly find a story on progress out of the thousands of stories each week. So what is sinister? What is dangerous in this negative bias on Iraq? Well, things have a way of becoming true if its pounded into us relentlessly. The media has been promoting the notion that Iraq is on the verge of civil war for months with a new flurry of stories today. Just exactly how long does something sit on the verge, or brink, or edge? And is there really the organized armed opposing factions ready to go at it in Iraq so as to fit the definition of a civil war? I think this is bias at its worst. Not only does it not serve the Iraqi people well it doesn't serve our people and our military well....Whose side are these media reptiles on anyway?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am from the UK. I believe that the media should be as free as civilians. We are as civilians are not free to deliberately put other peoples lives at risk, but for some reason, the media is. For example, Here in the UK and around the world alegations about the British army being cruel to civilians were published in the media. Next day, road side bombs put casualties in to ... 3 figures. Yes that's right, only just over a hundred soldiers lost in 3 years. That to me is pretty good going.