The Secret War

[bloodyminded]

Well you probably have a point there. I can remember hearing that the BBC and others like it were pretty negative about Iraq.

Yes, you heard it from the types of people who think less than 100% propaganda support is too harsh.

But according to Media Tenor (NOT some anti-war, leftist organization, but rather PR experts FOR Big Business and Government: website here:

http://www.mediatenor.com/

...according to their study, the BBC gave 2% of its coverage to war-opposition or dissenting views.

2%!!!

And that's "pretty negative," apparently.

The second-worst propaganda offender they looked at was America's ABC news, which gave a whopping 7% oppositional/dissenting coverage to the most controversial war in recent times....wow! 7%! That practically makes them fifth-column Saddam supporters, hey?

In short, those media outlets considered (by people who don't pay attention, and who don't understand media) to be "too negative" were actually far, far more supportive of the war than was the general population.

Stenographers for Power. Awesome.

You know propaganda is being at least partially effective when the war's cheerleaders are referred to as "too negative."

[sharkman]

You only linked the homepage of your site, and I could not find this study after a few minutes of searching. It appears you have to register with them and give your email address. No thanks, I don't need to pass my email address around.

Perhaps that is the reason why you didn't link to the study you mention, but you have included absolutely no time frame to your results. If you would cast your eyes back to my original post, I specifically mentioned a time frame. Somehow I hesitate to have full confidence that you focused your results on that time frame, since you saw fit to only copy the first sentence of my comments.

Why even include a link if it doesn't show the evidence you claim it does?

Edited July 11, 2010 by sharkman

[bloodyminded]

You only linked the homepage of your site, and I could not find this study after a few minutes of searching. It appears you have to register with them and give your email address. No thanks, I don't need to pass my email address around.

Perhaps that is the reason why you didn't link to the study you mention, but you have included absolutely no time frame to your results. If you would cast your eyes back to my original post, I specifically mentioned a time frame. Somehow I hesitate to have full confidence that you focused your results on that time frame, since you saw fit to only copy the first sentence of my comments.

Why even include a link if it doesn't show the evidence you claim it does?

Yes, I got to the study without paying, but now I can't do so, and the link goes to the home page as you say. So that's a bit strange.

But what "time frame" were you so specific about? You say that you "remember hearing that the BBC and others like it were pretty negative about Iraq," before going on to talk about Bush's second term.

This isn't a "specific time frame," I don't think.

At any rate, if the BBC were so negative about Iraq, where do you get this information? While I concede that my link has been rendered quite useless to my point, you are the one who made the original claim, so you should be able to back this up rather than relying on some impression you seem to have.

[sharkman]

There is only one time frame I mention, therefore that is the one I am referring to. Please understand, I wasn't responding to you in this thread, but AW. I would like to see if she responds, I am not interested in backing up my claims to your satisfaction, there would be no point.

Edited July 11, 2010 by sharkman

[bloodyminded]

There is only one time frame I mention, therefore that is the one I am referring to.

You don't mention a timeframe...except that it's the Iraq War, so it must be between '03 and today.

Please understand, I wasn't responding to you in this thread, but AW. I would like to see if she responds, I am not interested in backing up my claims to your satisfaction, there would be no point.

Christ, you respond to me, i respond back, and you respond to me again....and now this? What the hell??

As to "backing up [your] claims to [my] satisfaction...I only asked for evidence. Nothing too insane about that, I don't think.

You don't have any evidence...zero. That's why you're going in this "I'm not not talking to you" direction.

Edited July 11, 2010 by bloodyminded

[Guest American Woman]

Well you probably have a point there. I can remember hearing that the BBC and others like it were pretty negative about Iraq. But in considering the US media, focusing now on Bush's second term, they were VERY critical of everything about it, and condemned the surge, which was what won the day. Even now, with Iraq becoming an obvious success, you don't see the US media saying that Bush was right. You see Biden claiming success in Iraq for Obama, and the US media doesn't call him on it.

I think you make some points. I, too, think the media coverage of Iraq was negative for the most part. I'm not so sure Iraq is becoming an "obvious success," however, so I don't see why the media would be saying that "Bush was right." Fact is, no matter how things turn out, Bush was wrong, because Iraq didn't have the WMD that Bush claimed Saddam was in possession of. I didn't support going to war in Iraq, but always hoped for a good ending since the attack did happen. I still hope for the best, of course, but feel it's way too soon for such predictions. I have read of Biden giving Obama credit for Iraq, and that just makes me shake my head in wonder. At any rate, I do think the media was quick to criticize bush, and if not quick to give Obama credit, at least remained silent.

I see an actual trend where the US media is covering anything to do with Obama (generally speaking, of course) in very favorable terms. Now it seems that Afghanistan is not going very well, and hasn't been for some time and to such an extent that the US general in charge there beaks off about it. But Obama gets a pass for it(lack of success in Afghan.), and his administration is allowed, by the US media, to take credit for the success in Iraq. So to me the reason we don't hear about the Afghanistan war with as much intensity and negativity as we did Iraq is because of who is in the white house.

Again, I think there's some truth to that.

Perhaps Bush was right about Afghanistan too, staying away I mean.

It's too soon to tell what will happen in either Iraq or Afghanistan, ultimately. I think if things are going bad now it's because there's more action. Of course things aren't going to be "as bad" if there's not much going on, so I don't think that's any kind of proof that Bush was right to stay away. In fact, if he hadn't stayed away, things might be going a lot better now.

Bloodyminded:

I couldn't read your link, either, of course, but have to say I really question that the majority of the coverage was positive. I suppose it depends on one's definition of positive, but I also think that one negative, bold headline gives a more negative result than two short, buried positive articles, so I'd have to see what criteria the results were based on, too.

As to why the news is often so negative, here's another take: Who's Responsible for Losing the Media War in Iraq?

It's from 2004, but the points he makes are interesting. He claims that the military itself is not cooperative and that embedded journalists often aren't getting the true picture, as that comes from higher up.

Excerpt:

Military officers constantly lament that most of the successes in Iraq and Afghanistan went unnoticed, while every little setback or problem seemingly received national attention. Many believe national policy is set by the media intent on painting every U.S. military commitment as an unwinnable quagmire.

They are right.

But who is responsible for this state of affairs? While it is easy to blame the media for failing to get the true story or to accuse journalists of a liberal bias against military operations, this fails to identify the true culprit.

I think it's worth the read.

Edited July 11, 2010 by American Woman

[sharkman]

I wonder what happened to the OP? Anyway, I suppose you're right about the wars, they can not be declared successes or failures yet. But watching what the MSM's take/coverage of them has given me a healthy dose of skepticism. Although that started for me back when George Sr was raked over the coals during a campaign interview by one Dan Rather and his use of 'the wimp factor'.

I heard a theory recently about media outlets in the US. Fox's coverage may have some outlets trying to counter them and provide a more left of center bias. The coverage of the Black Panther story being one very telling example(almost complete silence so far by the major players). This is ironic to me because it is the MSM's unbalanced bias that provided a niche for Fox in the first place.