Can We Trust the MSM?
I have a friend who just returned from a nine month mission to Iraq. Needless to say, this friend of mine had a different view of the situation than does the MSM. He was stationed in Tall Afar which is east of Mosul. There he trained Iraqi soldiers to help them prepare for the time when there will be no American soldiers in their country. He told me that after listening to the MSM, he would have thought that the Iraqi people do not want us there, that we are losing the war, that we need to pull out our troops. All of this, he assured me, was false.
First, the Iraqi people do want our soldiers there. In fact, the mayor of Tall Afar begged the commander keep his troops there. The mayor was scared of terrorist attacks stemming from the withdrawal of the Americans. He was right, the day our troops left, a suicide bomber blew himself up. My friend assured me that he was thanked several times a day by Iraqis for being in Tall Afar. Most of the people want the Americans to stay. It is the noise made by the few to which the MSM listen.
The Iraqi army needs to be trained. According to my friend, before being trained, the typical soldier in Iraq, if fired upon, would twirl around in circles firing his rifle the whole time killing both civilians and his enemies. If running, the soldier fire his rifle off to the side while running and without looking. The soldiers were soldiers in name only. With the help of the Americans, for the first time in decades, the Iraqi soldiers can finally be professional. For Iraq to be a stable country requires a commitment from the United States to keep their troops in Iraq.
Because of the professionalism of our soldiers, Iraq is becoming a more stable country. How can the MSM say we are losing in the face of these facts? If a reporter ignores those facts which do not mesh with his beliefs, then he has a story more to his liking. Which begs the question, can we trust the MSM? Michael Baron has a great article in Real Clear Politics as he discusses the trustworthiness of the press when so many of them represent only one political party. His post is worth reading.
I remember a conversation I had with a broadcast news executive many years ago.
“Doesn’t the fact that 90 percent of your people are Democrats affect your work product?” I asked.
“Oh, no, no,” he said. “Our people are professional. They have standards of objectivity and professionalism, so that their own views don’t affect the news.”
“So what you’re saying,” I said, “is that your work product would be identical if 90 percent of your people were Republicans.”
He quickly replied, “No, then it would be biased.”
The MSM can not be trusted to report the news. Sure there are some reporters who do report the news as news, without bias, but there are others who see a chance to score political or policy points against President Bush. The MSM need to learn to tell the truth, at least while we have troops on the ground in Iraq, or for that matter, anywhere our troops are sent to fight in the war on terror. To marginalize our soldiers now, while they are in harm’s way, is to do the very thing Jane Fonda did during the Vietnam War. Our soldiers deserve better than that.
Our troops are winning, they are needed, and the Iraqi people are thankful for them. I for one, am very proud of our troops, thanking God every day for their sacrifice.
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