Seeker Blog

The new centrist blog Donkelphant has an excellent survey of press performance on Iraq coverage - surveying the AP photo wire as a reference. It is not a pretty "picture":

So how are we doing in Iraq? What are those tens of thousands of our sons and daughters, brothers and wives, doing in that distant land? We went there to help build freedom and make the world safer for all. What’s the progress report?

I checked the Associated Press photo wire today to get an overview of the war as it is seen through the eyes of the Associated Press. I looked back through all the pictures for the previous week. Here’s what I saw keywording “soldier” and “Iraq” on the AP:

…

Are desertions and deaths newsworthy? Yes, they are. (Moby I’m not so sure about.) But the stories I’m missing from Iraq are about the reconstruction, and the daily business of U.S. troops in-country. When we invaded Iraq we said we’d do three things: overthrow Saddam, install a responsible government, and get the country back on its feet again after years of neglect.

That third “leg” of the mission has gone AWOL in the news coverage. Really, it never showed up in most news outlets. This is not a plea for “good news.” It can be bad news — such as the number of hours the power still isn’t on in some places — but, please, tell me about it. It’s just as important as Abu Ghraib.

To ignore it is bias by neglect.

When I want to know what U.S. men and women are doing in Iraq on a daily basis, I don’t turn to the AP or Fox or CNN. Thanks to the Internet, I can go right to the sources (many good Milblogger links at those sites).