October 23, 2007
Re-tell News
I was rather amused by some of the comments made by bloggers and commenters from the community-based reality yesterday in response to Michael Yon's Resistance is Futile. Many seemed eager to dismiss Yon as a partisan with an agenda, or dismissed his work as anecdotal in nature only.
In their minds, it is obvious that wire services, network and cable television news channels and major newspapers are providing "better" and "more accurate" news out of Iraq than embedded journalist-bloggers such as Yon, Totten, Roggio, Aradolino, Emanuel, and Johannes.
Those that would continually downplay the accounts from these citizen-journalists make the argument that these men are only reporting anecdotes of what they see with their own eyes, and therefore cannot be trusted to present "the big picture."
Really?
With all of the citizen-journalists listed above, you are typically getting first-hand reports from people at the scene of the news. With a few notable exceptions, you will not get that from most western news agencies operating in Iraq.
When you see a story by a Western reporter bylined in Baghdad, in the overwhelming supermajority of instances you are not getting a firsthand account of what he or she saw. Wire services and news agencies send out local Iraqi reporters called "stringers" that have unknown allegiances, alliances, competencies, and track records, to do the field work of reporting. They take (and occasionally stage) pictures, talk to witnesses (or make them up), and compose a rough account of the events (or completely fabricate them) for the agency they work for. These stringers then turn over the rough-draft information to "reporters" who write news accounts on events they have not witnessed, relying on information they often cannot verify.
This is the normal state of affairs of media reporting in Iraq. Those who have their names on many stories aren't reporters, they're essentially transcriptionists who have very little idea at all if the stories they report are true, or just "truthy."
So you tell me who is providing the better news: is it the guy relating what he can see, or the guy relaying a story he can't verify?
Now consider the fact that the "big picture" so many rely on is built out of hundreds of accounts where some or all of the information being presented as the truth is uncorroborated or unverified by the writer with his name on the byline, and you start to understand how there can be such a huge discrepancy between what citizen-journalists and soldiers blogging from Iraq see, and what the "professionals" relay in our media outlets.
The dirty truth of modern mass-market journalism is that it is retail news, and re-told news, and often anything but reporting.
What sort of "big picture" are we getting from the hotel journalists who push away from the bar to attend press conferences in the Green Zone where they regard everything they're told as either U.S. spin or a pack of lies ?
Posted by: Banjo at October 23, 2007 10:04 AMWho are you gonna believe? Yon's lying eyes, or 50 miles removed rigorously fact checked rumorporting from Jamil Hussein?
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 23, 2007 10:16 AM"overwhelming supermajority"??
Posted by: iconoclast at October 23, 2007 10:54 AMSo why do these journalists never venture from their hotels? Why do they have to rely on local stringers for reports and photographs?
Could it possibly be that the greater part of Iraq is simply far too dangerous for a Western journalist to venture out and do proper reporting? More than four years after Iraq was "liberated" by the US?
Posted by: Max at October 23, 2007 10:54 AMCould it possibly be that the greater part of Iraq is simply far too dangerous for a Western journalist to venture out and do proper reporting?
Better booze at the al-Rashid than the stuff the troopers cook up in humvee radiators. Reporters ain't stupid - they know where the good hooch is.
Posted by: Purple Avenger at October 23, 2007 11:03 AMMax (10:54am) --
Could it possibly be that the greater part of Iraq is simply far too dangerous for a Western journalist to venture out and do proper reporting?
In all seriousness, the answer is Yes, Iraq is extremely dangerous for Western reporters. That has to be figured into the mix.
Equally obviously, it is not the only factor at work, or the discrepancy that C.Y. is writing about would not exist.
Off-topic, perhaps, compare the stories that Bill Roggio filed today at "The Long War Journal" on Pakistan (Bhutto, NWFP, ISI, Taliban) with what you read on these subjects in your favorite newspaper. Which give the reader a better appreciation of the tactical and strategic forces at play there?
Posted by: AMac at October 23, 2007 11:06 AMAMac
I read Bill Roggio's story on Pakistan. It's a detailed and comprehensive analysis of a complex situation. Whether I agree with his prescription is a different matter, but that's neither here or there. When you ask me to compare his story with what I read on these subjects in my favorite newspaper, you are perhaps assuming that I live in America, and depend on American media. Not so. I live in Europe, and I would have access to media that regularly give excellent and detailed coverage of these topics.
In my opinion, the problem with American media is not (as is often claimed in this and similar blogs) that it's dominated by left-wingers, defeatists, self-hating Americans etc. etc. The problem is that it's dominated by trashy content, entertainment news, trivia of all kinds - a complete distraction from the real issues.
Posted by: Max at October 23, 2007 11:30 AMGeez, Max reads newspapers that are actually more anti American than the New York Times.
Posted by: Capitalist Infidel at October 23, 2007 11:45 AMThanks for the thoughtful response, Max (11:30am).
I think both sets of potential problems that you catalog in your second paragraph are, unfortunately, real contributors to the unfortunate state of much of American media.
Posted by: AMac at October 23, 2007 01:15 PM"I live in Europe, and I would have access to media that regularly give excellent and detailed coverage of these topics."
Unless you get your news from France 2 (Al Dura) or the BBC (anti-Israel).
But I agree, the US media is "dominated by trashy content, entertainment news, trivia of all kinds - a complete distraction from the real issues." Our media is ad fueled so they have to sell the spectacle. Which is sad really.
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