U.S. troops continue to be mystified at the odd reporting coming out of Iraq. I'm mystified by the odd reporting coming from NY and DC. Katie Couric in the Cronkite seat? Really. Even if Wally was a commie, he was still a serious commie.
What the troops witnessed is not what reporters are sending back. The bylines on those stories are American, as are the talking heads they see broadcasting from Baghdad. Some troops attribute the inaccurate reporting to bias, with journalists sending back what they want to be the truth, rather than what is actually happening.
So do many Americans. Because it is consistent with what they see in domestic reporting.
The troops see a very different Iraq from the one journalists are reporting.
They see the real one, not the fake but accurate one.
But the fact of the matter is that few of these journalists are reporting much.
Well, now that's true domestically, too. Ever heard of an NGO press release making it into publication verbatim?
On any given day, fewer than a dozen reporters are embedded with combat units, and actually out there. A third or more of these are working for military oriented publications ("Stars and Stripes," Armed Forces Network). Most journalists are in the Green Zone, or some well-guarded hotel.
Actually they're in the bars, both here and there.
There, they depend on Iraqi stringers to gather information, and take pictures for them. In reality, these reporters could do this from back home, and many more media organizations are doing just that.
'Cause the liquor's legal and cheaper here.
Nothing new about using local stringers in dangerous areas.
And who learned to speak English under Saddam?
It's common sense, given that the bad guys are in the habit of kidnapping, or just killing, foreign reporters.
Hmmm. That's something we haven't tried domestically.
The problem is, the pool of available Iraqi talent is mostly Sunni Arab. Many of these folks side with the bad guys.
Sort of unfunded NGOs. I get it!
And all Iraqi journalists, especially those working for foreigners, are subject to intimidation, or bribery.
Sort of the way State Department employees get rich after a posting to KSA.
While some of the foreign reporters may be aware of all this, some aren't,
Those are the ones that work for the LAT, BosGlob and the STRIB
... and
It wasn't always this way, but that's the way it is these days. And, sadly, about the only people to notice the problem are the many troops who have been in Iraq, and don't have an editor telling them what to think, and report.