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20. november 2005
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From StrategyPage:
American troops are developing a hate-hate relation with journalists. The basic problem is that soldiers and marines in Iraq have access, usually via the Internet, to what the mass media is saying about what they think is happening in Iraq. These news reports, all too often, do not reflect what the troops experience. It gets uglier when the troops realize that reporters are spending most of their time in the Green Zone or some well guarded hotel, leaving it to local Iraqi stringers to collect information and photos for the reporters stories. Relations are a bit better with the few embedded journalists who still travel with the troops out in field. But even the embeds are often mistrusted and disliked, because some of them are blatantly out for dirt, not an accurate story.
Few of the troops understand that the news business is driven by dramatic events, not the tedious kind of process the troops go through every day to defeat the terrorists. To the troops, the war is being won. They see bad guys killed in large numbers, and few Americans getting hurt (it’s fairly common for their to be about twenty enemy dead for each American loss). The troops see tangible evidence, every day, of Iraqis having a better life. The troops cannot understand why that is not news, and why journalists always seem to be looking for a negative angle. To the average G.I., the attitude is, “what are these reporters looking for?” They are looking for a story, and bad news is a story. Good news is not.
It is conventional wisdom for journalists that good news is no news. So we don't even have to point to the anti-military bias of the media to explain very loop-sided reporting on the Iraq war (or just about anything else). Journalism has become a de facto negative profession.
But is it really true that readers and news watchers only want bad news? That good news doesn't sell? I don't believe that. Think about the most popular shows on television; what people choose to watch. All the way from light-hearted (tempted to say '-headed') shows to comedy to Oprah, people are choosing to watch stories that make them feel good. It's just easier to write negative news. It's not us; it's them! People would actually love to hear the good news as much as they want to hear the bad news. Journalism has become a totally misanthropic discipline, so much so you don't have to be a soldier to totally distrust reporters.
9:27:51 PM 
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British armed forces risks being extended even further as the Dutch go wobbly over reinforcing the international peacekeepers in Afghanistan. The Dutch parliament has been persuaded that the country is too dangerous for its armed forces.
The Netherlands, which already has about 625 troops in Afghanistan, was due to provide a further force of 1,000 to be based in Uruzgan province, which stretches from the centre towards the south of the country.
But a report by the Dutch military intelligence and security service has warned of the extreme danger of operating in the area, which sources close to the country’s cabinet said “can’t be ignored”.
A Dutch withdrawal would place more of the burden on the British, who are taking over command of Nato operations next May.
Well, remembering how the Dutch 'forces' fared in Srebrenica, maybe it's just as well that the Afghans don't have to trust the clogs for security.
9:12:48 PM
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The Sunday Times:
The mysterious source who gave America’s foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at the centre of one of Washington’s biggest political storms was Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according to lawyers close to the investigation.
Woodward said his source had informed him about it casually, as if it was no big deal and no secret. Well, that is obviously true.
3:17:43 PM
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Iranian Kurd to be executed for drinking alcohol.
Karim Fahimi, a Kurd, who is married with two young children, was reportedly sentenced to death for drinking alcohol, by a court in the city of Sardasht, western Iran. It was at least the third time he had been convicted of the offence: under article 174 of the Iranian Penal Code, the penalty for consuming any intoxicant is 100 lashes; under article 179, this penalty may be handed down twice, but a third conviction carries the death penalty.
A sick conviction in a sick country.
It is interesting to note that early democracy only developed in societies in the context of the social drinking of alcohol.
4:08:46 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.12.2005; 01:34:54.
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