Media Bias? Of Course Not! Really! I Mean That!

Folks,

I found this bit last month. I'd have posted this earlier but am only now able to access my scanner.

Los Angeles Times December 4th, 2008. Page A9

"Attacks at lowest level of Iraq war"

That's it. Nothing more. Two little columns, each about three and a half to about four inches long. The article itself being next to the "World Briefing" section which contained a notable article about the fact that George, Ecuador's famed Galapagos tortoise is apparently sterile. Oh, and the article is directly above an ad for Gold Toe socks on sale at Macy's.

In a perfect world then perhaps the handling of this sort of news would be fitting. It would demonstrate just how expected and natural and right such a thing was and how it was not at all controversial.

But this isn't a perfect world. And the LA Times has been anything but unbiased in its handling of the Iraq war. The LA Times has been among the most vocal of the national newspapers in damning the enterprise from its outset, in damning the handling of the war, and in being absolutely adamant that we had failed in Iraq. Not that we were going to fail or that we might be headed in that direction. No, they were loudly screaming in print that we already had failed there. It was a quagmire. It was a religious civil war. It would never get better. That the US was playing the fool by trying to bring peace and democracy to Iraq. That we should simply cut our losses now and run away.

That was what passed for "journalism" at the LA Times.

Their coverage of the Surge was equally as "factual." According to the LA Times, the Surge had failed before it even began and once it did begin it would only prove to be an even more colossal failure than anything else the Bush administration had yet dreamed up.

A year ago - hell, six months ago even - no learned, professional, and purely unbiased journalist at the LA Times would've even printed a parody of the idea that the Surge might work and that the insurgency might be beaten.

Now that we have absolute, factual, on the ground proof that we have crushed the insurgency? Oh, well, uh, hrmm...

The best they can do is print some brief minor notice of this landmark event and move on. Oh, and they can't even have the decency to celebrate the achievement for what it is. Instead, they make sure to make it seem like the insurgency is still going full blast in Iraq - but that it's now aimed solely at Iraqi forces, not Americans.

This is yet more proof of just how appallingly wretched and worthless today's "news media" has become. It's just par for the course when coming from such a bunch of ideologues who can't bring themselves to practice even the most basic tenets of actual journalism.

Look for more of this in the coming four years.

And it's no wonder so many newspapers are going bankrupt either.

Madoc