Diary Of A Hollywood Refugee

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

MSM confirms Michael Yon's observations.

From The New York Observer " 60 Months In The Red Zone"

Five Years Later, the American Press Corps in Iraq Is War-Weary and Depleted—Also Committed, Engaged and Desperately Seeking a Narrative to Wake Up Readers; ‘The Press Redeemed in Baghdad,’ Says George Packer, ‘What It Missed in Washington’

From John Burns, NY Times:

“War is surprisingly easy to cover,” Mr. Burns said. “I always said this. The story dictates itself. There’s never one morning when you get up and wonder what you’re going to do today.”


Richard Engel of NBC News acknowledged the recent drop in violence, and said it gave reporters more room to report.

“How much you can move is impacted by the level of danger. … I recently went down to Najaf, which is south of Baghdad. I was walking around the city doing interviews, without any kind of security protection or back up at all. That felt great. I hadn’t done that in years. A Chinese restaurant, takeout, just opened up down the street from our bureau. There were no businesses opening in ’06 and ’07. People are getting out more. You see more people on the streets going to markets. When I go to do interviews, I can stay longer.

From ABC News:

There’s a marked drop-off in the appetite for stories from Iraq,” said ABC News correspondent Terry McCarthy. “That’s partly due to the election, partly because of fatigue, and partly because things have started to go right here. The spectacular car bombs, the massive attacks, you just don’t see them anymore. A drip, drip story that’s getting a little bit better day by day doesn’t make a headline.


Seems like the MSM has finally caught up to Michael Yon That's sure to send the loons at Firedoglake into a tailspin!

As the American press corps gets older, wearier—and simultaneously younger and more untested as the veterans leave—there are truths that some of the reporters of Baghdad have learned about the war in Iraq.

Chief among them is that even if you grab hold of a part of the truth, it has a way of becoming false. Second: If you manage to find a true story, don’t depend on anyone back home wanting to hear it.


From Fox News:
Because the press put out all that stuff in the early days in 2003, the press is now blamed,” said Courtney Kealy of Fox News. “People say to me, what’s the real story in Iraq? I say, read the books that have come out and won Pulitzers. Look at my friends’ articles. Look at the stories I’ve done. They’re not looking, and they’re not reading; they don’t want to.

People who like Fox have said, ‘Well, I like your stuff, but I won’t read that paper.’ I say to them, anybody who has covered Iraq for a serious time frame, they’re a solid reporter. You can pretty much trust and read their stuff and forget about thinking there’s some great media conspiracy that we’ve all been co-opted by some right-wing or left-wing agenda. But no one can get their heads around that anymore.
“There is a chance for this place to remain quiet. There is a chance for the Iraqi army to get better. There is a chance for a timetable for withdrawal that could work. The only issue I have is when I talk to people in the States … they really just ask me, what should we do, have we won or lost, how long are we staying? I think that winning and losing should be struck from the lexicon right now.

Ever cautious and wise, John Burns echoes sentiments that Mike Yon, also cautious while optimistic, has frequently expressed
"But this war is a long way away from over. We may be taking the temperature of this a little too soon. The numbers will come down and the surge will end and the Iraqis themselves will become less assured of an American presence, and there will once again be a great risk of the politics of ethnic schism in Iraq. We may not have seen the worst of it yet.”
One look at the comments from left wing loons & you see just how blinded by hatred they continue to remain.

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