Monday, August 15, 2005

MSM Editors Ask AP About Positive Iraq Stories

Is it possible that the Editors of MSM newspapers really did not know how to find “positive news” stories to run in their papers:

NYT

From the NYT article:

"The bottom-line question was, people wanted to know if we're making progress in Iraq," Ms. Goudreau said, and the A.P. articles were not helping to answer that question.

"It was uncomfortable questioning The A.P., knowing that Iraq is such a dangerous place," she said. "But there's a perception that we're not telling the whole story."

She also said that as Mr. Silverman and Kathleen Carroll, The A.P.'s executive editor, responded to the concerns, the editors realized that some questions were impossible to answer. For example, she said, the editors understood that it was much easier to add up the number of dead than to determine how many hospitals received power on a particular day or how many schools were built.


Bloggers have been finding the good news articles for along time now, so it’s a bit strange that the pajama journalists are capable of this feat while the professional MSM did not know where to look. I’ll suggest that the person who wrote the emails asking why the positive stories about Iraq were not being covered, could very well have been a blogger.

It does bring a valid question to mind however, is the overwhelmingly negative news reported on Iraq based somewhat in herd mentality and separate from the liberal bias? Seems that could be plausible to me.

There are days that the local paper has almost 100%leading AP stories verses those written by staff reporters in section A. Since causalities will always be the lead AP story, finding positives news on Iraq requires more than skimming the top of the AP offering. If the tried and true process of reporting news is to simply paste the lead AP stories, one would have an offering that was just about 100% negative reporting when it comes to Iraq.

Who knows, maybe this might lead to a change and a more balanced reporting approach on Iraq. Time will tell…………………………..