Thursday, September 29, 2005
What can New Orleans teach us about Iraq?
Horrific stories of murders and rapes spread like wildfire, reports of little girls with their throats slashed stunned Americans, and hysteria gripped many in the MSM. Weeks later the Los Angeles Times and others began to examine the collapse of the media's own levees that traditionally hold back rumor and urban myth.
Given this failure to capture the true story in New Orleans even with all of the combined resources of all the MSM working around the clock, why would anyone believe that American media is accurately reporting on the events in Iraq
from the Green Zone, in the course of a bloody insurgency fought in a language they don't understand? If the combined forces of old media couldn't get one accurate story out of the convention center, why for a moment believe it can get a story out of Mosul or Najaf?
I'll stick with Michael Yon, Major K, and Training for Eternity when it comes to Iraq.
I'm inclined to agree.
4 Comments:
By 
TigerHawk, at
Thu Sep 29, 12:52:00 PM:
Journalism's biggest conceit is that it represents "the first draft of history." Nonsense. The news that is reported by the mainstream media is nothing more than the raw material of history, and in that regard no different from diaries, correspondance, oral testimony, governmental records and other documents and, yes, blog posts. When has journalism's portrayal of any event corresponded with the settled historical perception of that event? Neither the war in Iraq nor Katrina will be any different.
By Catchy Pseudonym, at
Thu Sep 29, 01:36:00 PM:
The connections, or rather similarities, I see with the war in Iraq is the Keystone-cop style government, a lack of preparedness or strategy, and an attempted spin on what was obviously going poorly. "You're doing a heck of a job Brown!" Luckily the administration gave up fairly quickly on that, and unlike with Iraq, was forced to admit that they screwed up. Now I hear the obligatory attacks on the media. Everything seems to be falling into place.
By 
, at
Sun Oct 02, 01:48:00 PM:
"The connections, or rather similarities, I see with the war in Iraq is the Keystone-cop style government, a lack of preparedness or strategy, and an attempted spin on what was obviously going poorly."
Yet the mainline media has done its best to supress the information in one case, and to trumpet it in very selective reporting in the other. Could that be because the unprepared, Keystone-cops government of Louisiana is composed of Democrats, the chosen puppets of the MLM, whilst that of Iraq is viewed as a legitimate target?
By , at
Fri Dec 02, 10:15:00 PM:
I see similarities lately on CNN that demonstrate serious concerns that need to be addressed by the current administration. Many local, resident, black business owners in New Orleans had contracts with the city to provide services that are now needed in the clean-up and rebuilding effort. Somehow (wink-wink) they have been deemed unable and incapable when in fact these individuals are equipment ready and desperate for work. The out-of-state companies (Bush Buddies, we will call them) roll in, collect the dollars, and then leave and redistribute their earnings outside of the New Orleans economy. How can that be when Mayor Nagin is calling for the utilization of local business owners to increase...because a mayor is not the president. Just like in Iraq, there are local business people who could take on the reconstruction work, everything from infrastructure to economics, yet the administration doles out money to Halliburton, Microsoft, and many other Bush Buddies who then collect the dollars and redistribute their wealth into our economy. Then we have that stupid look on our faces and wonder why poor, unemployed Iraqi men are willing to strap a bomb to their chest. Talk about things that make you go hmmm...
