Iraq reporters hit back at Bush (Lara Logan and others)

[Cocoa]

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002236478

NEW YORK After the latest round of blaming the media for distorted coverage in Iraq, which emerged this week from top Bush administraton officials, war reporters and editors strongly defended their coverage this weekend in a variety of venues.

Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru, who recently completed a 14-month stint in Iraq, commented: "Everyone wants to read their view of the war in your story. To me the only issue is whether our stories are real or not. I never got complaints from the people who were involved in the subject matter of the stories.

"The job of soldiering over there is incredibly difficult. I have tremendous respect for those guys. The criticism completely misses the point. Iraq is on the verge of civil war. Where's the good news?"

Writing in The New York Times, Jeffrey Gettleman traced the recent upsurge in sadistic killings, then commented: "If this all sounds depressing, it is. That's how people here feel. I've been looking hard, but in two weeks I haven't found an Iraqi optimist.

more...




and a joke:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/story?id=1769625

Bill Maher: "Well, the president was everywhere this week, wasn't he? I tell you, he doesn't give a press conference in three years and now we can't get him to shut up. And of course, he was blaming the troubles in Iraq on the media, saying they are not reporting the good news. And maybe that's true. For example, today in Baghdad — this is true — it was widely reported that gunmen killed four workers in a bakery. But no one mentioned that their banana bread is delicious!

[LynnTheDem]

1. "Iraq is on the verge of civil war. Where's the good news?"

Good question.

Myself, I always prefer plain ol' REALITY, whether it makes bush look good or bad.

But then, I'm not a MFing stupid bootlicking bush-uber-alles rightwingnut.

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Ah, but Lynn, you forget . . .

We're an empire now. We make our own reality.

[LynnTheDem]

4. Or bush & Cabal do; and of course the incredibly stupid rightwingnuts

faithfully swallow the bullshit.

When reality catches up -and it will do, it always does- there's gonna be a HUGH clean-up of exploding heads.

Yuck.

[snacker]

3. That Lara Logan is one gutsy young lady.

You can always tell how angry and disgusted she is just by looking at her face. She seems to be one tough cookie!

[lumpy]

5. Lara Logan is great.

http://www.crooksandliars.com/

She is one intelligent young lady. I loved the ending of the video when told Ingraham had been in Iraq for 8 days. Her reply "8 days?". Then a rather perplexed little smile.

[jbnow]

6. In a way bush is correct to blame

the media for giving us a negative view of the war.

If they all just said it was going great, found scripted happy soldiers or civilians to give happy hopeful interviews about how great things were and if no one ever reported on the bad things, ever, we'd have a less negative view.

Unfortunately for bush it's the truth that gives us a negative view, not the reporting.

This administration keeps looking for a better spin, a better cover-up and then call names and blame others when we don't accept the spin.