Bookworm links to an excellent article which describes just one of the reasons why the media’s insistence on using stringers for stories is a huge mistake:
January 15, 2007 — JUST outside Um al-Qasar, a port in south east Iraq, a crowd had gathered around a British armored car with a crew of four. An argument seemed to be heating up through an interpreter.
The interpreter told the Brits that the crowd was angry and wanted U.K. forces out of Iraq. But then a Kuwaiti representative of Amnesty International, accompanied by a journalist friend, approached – and found the crowd to be concerned about something quite different.
The real dispute? The day before, a British armored vehicle had an accident with a local taxi; now the cab’s owner, backed by a few friends, was asking the Brits to speed up compensating him. Did these Iraqis want the Brits to leave, as the interpreter pretended? No, they shouted, a thousand times no!
So why did the interpreter inject that idea into the dialogue? Shaken, he tried a number of evasions: Well, had the Brits not been in Iraq, there wouldn’t have been an accident in the first place. And, in any case, he knows that most Iraqis don’t want foreign troops.
The author goes on to detail the fact that interpreting has become a cottage industry in Iraq with many of the interpreters being former Saddam loyalists.
One of the more important aspects to the article is how the author, a Iranian named Amir Taheri, describes the bias in our MSM:
From the start, the war was also waged in Western circles, with their pro- and anti-war camps. A newspaper that had opposed the war would not tolerate "positive reporting" from Baghdad. One young British reporter who didn’t understand that was surprised to see himself shifted to Paris to become a European correspondent. He had made the mistake of reporting that Iraq looked almost like a success, given where it had come from.
With the bulk of the media having opposed Saddam’s ouster, negative reporting from Iraq became the norm. (Afghanistan gets a better press; Western elites are at worst ambivalent about the Taliban’s fall.)
Another problem is that Iraq has become the focus of anti-American passions. Millions want Iraq to fail so that the United States will be humiliated. And Iraqis watch satellite TV – including channels from Iran, Egypt and Qatar that make a point of presenting post-liberation Iraq as a tragic quagmire. When CNN and the BBC send a similar message, Iraqis can be persuaded that their country is lost.
Imagine a resident of, say, Mandali or Nasseriah, who is told day and night that Iraq is sinking in a sea of fire and blood. He looks around and sees no evidence of that – but one can’t blame him if he thinks that what the media say must be true in other parts of Iraq.
The fact that more than 90 percent of the violence that dominates reporting from Iraq takes place in five neighborhoods in Baghdad, plus one of the 18 Iraqi provinces, is neither here nor there. The perception is that all of Iraq is lost.
And there you have it. As I’ve said over and over again our media would like nothing else then to force another Vietnam type retreat on this Country to prove a point. That point being that Bush was wrong. Facts be damned. Do I think it’s one huge conspiracy? No. But I do know that the liberal bias in each individual reporter or editors mind seeps out in what they decide to report on.
I mean why else would they not report these recent events?
- Approximately 270 km of village roads have been completed. These projects are directly contracted with local firms and assist in the economic development of smaller communities. The Village Roads program is expected to be completed in July 2007 and will provide 424 km of improved roads.
- Completed water treatment projects have added over 430,000 m3 of daily water treatment capacity, which potentially benefits 2.2 million Iraqis. At the end of the program, an additional 1,136,000 m3 of water treatment capacity will benefit approximately 5.2 million Iraqis(and all USG agencies projects will benefit 8.4 million Iraqis).
- Medical care has improved with the renovation of 15 hospitals. Additional hospital renovation projects are ongoing. Each completed facility sees approximately 500 patients per day for a total of 11,000 patients nationwide.
- Education opportunities improved with 838 of 849 schools completed. Each completed school serves approximately 400 students for a total of 335,200 students nationwide.
- Khor Zubair New Power Generation – Construction began at the power plant in December 2004 and ended in January 2006, as scheduled. This generation project, located south of Basrahprovides additional plant capacity of approximately 246 mega watts to the grid, which is enough power to serve 220,000 Iraqi households.
I’ll tell you why, it’s because these kind of stories would tell the world that maybe Iraq is not that bad off as they have let on. Why else would they not report the fact that almost ALL of the violence is in 5 sectors of Baghdad?
But alas the media won’t hear our calls for reform because they understand what they are doing when they use stringers like "Jamil Hussein", they are spreading misinformation for a purpose. The defeat of the United States.
See author page