If there's "good news" in Iraq, why isn't Fox reporting it?

[Rose Siding]

This week Bush helped amp up criticism about how the media is covering the war. That's not a new complaint. In fact, a couple of years ago the chief at Fox News had come to a similar conclusion. "As is often the case, the real news is Iraq is being obscured by temporary tragedy" Moody groused in a memo to his on-air talent. If anyone could be depended upon now to get out the "real" stories, shouldn't it be Cheney's go-to news station?

From Orville Schell's Baghdad: The Besieged Press-

One evening while I was in Baghdad, a British security guard mentioned that Fox News was giving a "party" in the nearby Palestine Hotel, once the almost elegant, five-star Le Meridien Palestine on the banks of the Tigris River........Of the major bureaus, only Fox News and APTN are still here.
....
Inside its darkened lobby, a lone Iraqi sits dozing at a battered wooden desk under a caved-in ceiling that is hemorrhaging wires, electrical fixtures, and plumbing. A faded placard still marks the closed Orient Express Restaurant, once the meeting place of all the correspondents who used to live here.

In our search for the alleged Fox News party, we ask the attendant in the lobby for directions. He tells me and my guards to go to the fifth floor, but adds that in order to get upstairs, we must first go downstairs, evidently a strategy to prevent suicide bombers from going directly to their targets. In the basement, amid a stack of discarded cardboard boxes and heaps of broken plate-glass windows, an Iraqi man is kneeling on a rug in front of a cement block wall, presumably facing toward Mecca, in prayer. When we finally arrive on the fifth floor, we have to leave our guards at a checkpoint fortified with a steel door. Inside, we are greeted by the stink of disinfectant and stale air filled with the smell of curry and cigarette smoke. Down a hallway with a greasy carpet I find a small sitting room with shabby furniture and a soccer game playing on a TV. The Fox News staffers who are smoking and drinking seem glad to see almost anyone. The scene makes me think of a group of elderly retired people clinging to a residential hotel slated for demolition.

"Where are all the other guests?" I ask, as one of them thrusts a bottle of beer into my hand. Zoran Kusovac, Fox's bulky, unshaven bureau chief, takes a long drag on his cigarette and explains in his Croatian accent, "Everybody's gone home." He laughs. "It's Saturday. We wanted to have some fun. We used to be able to have parties until late at night. But now our security people told us that if we wanted to have a party, it would have to end no later than 6:00 PM, so that everyone could get home before dark. We started at 3:00!".........

Schell went to Baghdad specifically "to observe not the war itself, but how it is being covered by the press".
As conditions deteriorate, it's a wonder we know anything at all.

It's just a feeling I got reading this piece...
http://theseoultimes.com.nyud.net:8090/ST/db2/images/1853-20050429102928.jpg

[LynnTheDem]

1. The small anount of news wo DO get out of Iraq is due to incredibly

brave war correspondants who risk horrific death every second of every minute of every day they're in Iraq...and not just at the hands of the Iraqis, but also the occupiers.

More journalists have been killed in Iraq in just over 3 years than were killed during the entire decade-plus of Vietnam.

But hey, a school was painted! Funny thing, schools were built in Vietnam, too.

[Rose Siding]

2. You know what qualifies as news for me?

The fact that chaos ISN'T more rampant. Considering the unforgivably stupid things that were done in deconstructing Iraq's social structure, it's amazing that mere armored convoys offer any protection at all.

snip>
It has not helped that when Saddam Hussein fell, almost all ordinary governmental activities—such as registering cars and issuing drivers' licenses— ceased, and thousands of vehicles flooded the market in Iraq from other countries. Traffic lights rarely work since electric power is still sporadic; the only control comes from a few street cops who have been recently posted at key intersections to direct the relentless crush of vehicles. To make matters worse, after several attacks or bombings, the US military or the Iraqi government will often simply prop up a sign in the center of a main artery saying: "HAIFA STREET IS CODE RED! DON'T USE!" Moreover, as the city has become ever more violent and chaotic, people have begun blocking off streets on their own to create safety zones. Since there has been little law enforcement, there is no one to stop this private appropriation of public space.

[LynnTheDem]

4. Me too; if this had happened here in the US we'd have gone rabid.

Most nations's citizens would have, I think.

That the Iraqi people have kept as calm as they have amazes me.

[tularetom]

3. During Katrina, the weather was beautiful here in CA

but do you think the librul media would report that? On September 11, there were no attacks in any of the 50 states except in NY and DC. But they couldn't be bothered to report on that either. Why is it that they report only the bad news? Millions of people DIDN'T get blowed up in Iraq today after all.

[annabanana]

5. I double-dog dare them to get in there

and get that good news out there, boy!

[Rose Siding]

7. "We're not in the business of covering kittens that aren't stuck in trees"

Daou quoted Cronkite saying something like that on one of the shows today. It seems like such a basic, elemental truth. How in the world did the bushbots swing the conversation this way?

[Vexatious Ape]

6. Fox journalists might be a little safer

They don't have to worry about getting whacked by "coalition forces" like the others.

[Rose Siding]

8. Everything Lara Logan spoke about today is backed up in this article

snip>
It may well be that the besieged American press in Iraq will find that the main story is not about Americans fighting Iraqi insurgents, but Americans standing powerlessly aside in their armed compounds, Green Zone, and military bases, watching as Iraqis kill other Iraqis and the country disintegrates. It would be all too ironic if this were the result of the invasion of March 2003, which was promoted as a critical step in bringing peace to the Middle East.

[Gabi Hayes]

9. excellent clip! you did a better job than I did of presenting this

wonderful article, and your snippet is one of the highlights of the article

KR

[edbermac]

10. The old TV news adage "If it bleeds, it leads.."