Another smackdown of USA Today’s Baghdad Bureau Chief;

The folks who have screamed the loudest about the biased and negative media coverage of the Iraq War are by and large people like myself, servicemembers who have spent their time in the dustbowl of Iraq and know firsthand what an exceptionally poor job the media has done covering our actions. How poor do those who have been to Iraq perceive the coverage? Well, speaking for myself, there have been many times I have wondered if the reporters in Iraq were on the payroll of the insurgency.
[…]
Considering that it is those who have been there in uniform spreading the word of the negative media coverage, I also take great exception to you talking about the ‘Chairborne Rangers advancing the vast “negative media” conspiracy from the safety and comfort of their parents’ basements’. Chairborne Rangers is a term used by those in the military, and since you are not there laying your ass on the line fighting it out every day, I don’t think you have any business using that term. I know, I know, you’re at risk, you’re in Iraq, so you are laying your ass on the line, but really, what do you do? You go to a briefing everyday in the Green Zone. You ignore all the good news and report on the negative. You spread the message for the terrorists better than they can. You want to use military terms and be one of the cool kids? Put on 100 pounds of gear and go chase terrorists through the streets and down alleyways. Be the first one through the door chasing a terrorist into a house.

Via Instapundit, where Glenn also points to this WaPo item;

The researchers counted direct references to terrorism between 1998 and 2005 in the New York Times and Neue Zuercher Zeitung, a respected Swiss newspaper. They also collected data on terrorist attacks around the world during that period. Using a statistical procedure called the Granger Causality Test, they attempted to determine whether more coverage directly led to more attacks.
The results, they said, were unequivocal: Coverage caused more attacks, and attacks caused more coverage — a mutually beneficial spiral of death that they say has increased because of a heightened interest in terrorism since Sept. 11, 2001.

That helps to illustrate why it is not unfair to accuse some in the western media of being “on the other side”. What has been obvious to so many uniformed soldiers reporting directly from the field must be known to those who make the decisions about what’s fit to print. Yet, they continue to be willing manipulants.
To quote Reynolds – “Terrorism is an information war disguised as a military operation. The press plays a symbiotic role, and isn’t willing to address that.”
David Warren corroborates;

So much of the credit for [Zarqawi’s] murderous successes, and those of other terrorists like him, must be given to the mainstream media — both East and West. Journalists assiduously advance the terrorist cause, by reporting almost exclusively on allied setbacks and mistakes, and by their ceaseless improvisation of destructive criticism against “Bush” and other Western leaders and allies. Heroic, and largely successful reconstruction efforts in Iraq have been ignored; instead we have an endless spool of meticulously-reported terror hits. The Western media attention to, and celebration of, such unstable characters as Cindy Sheehan and Michael Berg, make their alliances obvious. The New York Times has been the bellwether for this. Almost every news item touching Iraq is spun to maximize its demoralizing effect on the allied war effort. And across America itself, editors look to the Times nightly front-page line-up for clues on how to slant their own coverage.

Means double checking your sources;

In the original version of this story, TIME reported that “one of the most damning pieces of evidence investigators have in their possession, John Sifton of Human Rights Watch told Time’s Tim McGirk, is a photo, taken by a Marine with his cell phone that shows Iraqis kneeling — and thus posing no threat — before they were shot.”
While Sifton did tell TIME that there was photographic evidence, taken by Marines, he had only heard about the specific content of the photos from reports done by NBC, and had no firsthand knowledge. TIME regrets the error.

A few days ago, I sent the following to someone privately;

“Here’s a suggestion for those who “laugh” at the absurdity of a terror plot to behead a Prime Minister. Ask yourself what day-after press coverage would have ensued had US authorities aprehended the 19 responsible for 9-11, only to reveal their bizarre plot to take out, not only both towers of the WTC, but also the Pentagon and Capitol building.
There would have been a skit on Saturday Night Live.

Strategy Page expands on that theme – If the 911 Gang Were Caught, How Would It Be Reported?

Belmont Club quotes Pat Dollard’s film from Iraq;

Welcome to the only thing sleazier than overbilling lawyers, overprescribing doctors shilling for pharamaceutical companies, greedy coporate executives, and used car salesmen: the American Journalist. Flawed and crooked and self-centered as the rest of us, but riding around on a high horse, pointing out everyone else’s sins, but ignoring their own. This is the last great industry-wide scandal left uncovered in America. Because of course, they’d have to cover it themselves. And none of them have the bravery to take their own inventory, to list their own pathologically self-centered faults. They’d rather just go after yours. mine and those who disagree with them politically.

Dollard’s website – he’s the “Hollywood Agent/Producer turned Gonzo Filmmaker/Journalist in the Sunni Triangle of Iraq.”

To Mark Steyn!

Two journalists whose writings do not try to march in lockstep with the mainstream media last night were presented with the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism.
Mark Steyn, a syndicated columnist whose work – on topics ranging from politics to diplomacy to popular culture – appears in National Review, The New Criterion and The Atlantic Monthly, among many other publications, won the eighth annual award, and a check for $20,000, following a reception at the New-York Historical Society.
And Matt Mireles, a junior at Columbia University and contributor to the Daily Spectator, took home the first annual award for excellence in college journalism, which includes a $10,000 check and a summer internship at the Fox News Channel.
This award honors The Post’s late editorial-page editor, who died in 1998 at age 42. It is bestowed by the Eric Breindel Memorial Foundation and endowed by News Corp., The Post’s parent company.
Each year, the prize recognizes the work of a columnist, editorialist or writer whose work best reflects love of this country and its democratic institutions. Steyn, though a native of Canada, clearly reflects these virtues, as a reading of one of his prize-winning columns, “Be Glad the Flag Is Worth Burning,” demonstrates: “One of the big lessons of these last four years is that many, many beneficiaries of Western civilization loathe that civilization,” he wrote, “and the media are generally inclined to blur the extent of that loathing.”

Today’s CBCWatch Quiz – How many CBC employees does it take to build a website?
Answer here.
Speaking of CBCWatch, I received this kind note from the webmaster today;

Kate, You sent 1000+ hits with that CBC post*. Zerbisias – 30.

Larry Zolf – “Harper, you’re breaking our balls here. You’re breaking our balls!”

Harper is winning his war with the media because the media is hated by the public. Harper is loved by the public, so he is on top of the fold.
The media war has been a total Harper victory. The media will have to learn to play by Harper’s rules or they won’t be in the great game at all.

It sounds like Mr. “The Media Made Him And We Can Break HIm” may have read the reader responses. (Scroll down.)

Bill Roggio via Instapundit

I would compare Kandahar Airfield to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq: a large, well protected rear operating area (there are about 8,000 troops here. There are Dutch, Canadian, British, French, American, Bulgarian and a host of other countries based out of KAF. The Canadians maintain two other Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) and a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Kandahar province. I plan on pushing out to the FOBs & PRT as soon as I can, but it may take a day or two. I will get out on some patrols from the base in the mean time. The Canadian military was pleased to discover I actually wanted to go out to the field, as that is the exception, not the norm.
An interesting sidebar on the Canadian military view of the media: They feel the media hangs out at Kandahar Airfield to maintain the “death watch” – waiting for news of soldiers killed or wounded. I spoke to several members of the Canadian military and they freely admitted this, and complained they are prisoners of their media organizations. They have to stay at the airfield to cover news from there, lest they miss this “news”. They can get out on daily patrols from the main base but this is a strain on resources (the death watch would be unmanned). I will say the Canadian members of the media have been very friendly and are interested in what I do. One gentleman gave me a great set of maps which will help with my reporting. They aren’t pleased with being on the death watch.
Combined with the issue of the war not being covered in the proper context and the importance of education, it is for these reasons I believe it is important to be out here.
It’s been relatively quiet around here, so there will be no update today, other than this email. Here is a link to a recorded radio broadcast on Pundit Review radio.My friend Matt from Blackfive is also on the program, and Haditha and Iran are also discussed, as well as Afghanistan.

Emphasis mine. Listen to the interview at Pundit Review.
Related: “Show Me The Bodies”.
In the comments – Bill replies to “Tony the media moley”.

From the UK Times, June 1:

Problem is, the photo has already appeared in Newsweek – 6 months before the alleged massacre in Haditha.

Holy crap.

QUESTION: Why did the president pick a man who is so contemptible of the public servants in Washington to be his domestic adviser, saying, People in Washington are morally repugnant, cheating, shifty human beings. Why did he…
SNOW: Apparently an opinion that’s…
QUESTION: Why would he pick such a man to be a domestic adviser?
SNOW: You meant contemptuous as opposed to contemptible I think.
QUESTION: Pure contempt.
SNOW: I’m not sure it’s pure contempt. I know Karl Zinsmeister pretty well and he is somebody who expresses himself with a certain amount of piquancy. You’re perhaps familiar with that, aren’t you, Helen?*

Heh.

Comfy Fur;

There is nothing more hilarious than the media defending itself against Harper’s charge that they are biased against his party. In its editorial opposite Simpson’s column, the Globe and Mail pleads (again behind subscriber wall) that:

This kind of petulance might be excusable if there were any evidence that the media really were out to get him. In fact, he has pretty good press. A recent poll gave him an 18-point lead over the Liberals, hardly evidence of a media conspiracy.

If I understand their argument, the fact that the Conservatives are now ahead in the polls proves that the media are not biased. Such hubris. But then, does that mean when the Conservatives were behind in the polls (i.e., for most of the previous decade) it was because the media was against them? You can’t have it both ways.

There’s that “p” word again. Well, I suppose something had to fill the vacuum created when the word “scary” was retired from the media lexicon.
Over at BBG, Andrew introduces Godwin’s Law, Canadian Variant;

As a online discussion about Canadian politics grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving the United States of America or a member of the Republican party approaches one.

Inspired by this fabulous post by Stephen Taylor. As a bonus, it has all the hallmarks of a first-rate drinking game!
(Why, oh why, do the yack artists continue to trot out tired political cliches like Jim Travers and Jane Taber when there’s commentary like Taylor’s at their fingertips?)
More from Lorrie Goldstein;

If the PPG cares so much about this issue now as an infringement on press
freedom, why didn’t it object just as publicly and loudly when the precedent was established by Martin and his staff in the 2004 and 2006 federal election campaigns?
Never mind Harper’s allegations that the PPG are closet liberals. Surely the more relevant point is that the PPG has undercut its own credibility in this confrontation – and lent credence to Harper’s charge that a Liberal PM would not be subjected to the same attack as he has been because … well … because that appears to be what happened.

Reader Trent Lalonde emails;

I just listened to CBC’s “The Current” on 540 AM, where heard Anna Marie Tremonti refer to the “Conservative Clan” and how they must pull together Federally and Provincially in order to win. Tremonti goes on to say that Alberta and Ontario are very important members of “The Clan”, not “The Conservative Clan”, but “The Clan”.
I know what she meant.

So does she, Trent.
Contact info for the Current.
Stephen Taylor has the audio.

Ouch.

The Press Gallery of 1945, with its fifty or so members, was important. Its coverage was the only way people got the news from Ottawa, and, in those days, this news was very important. The gallery of today is not the gatekeeper of anything. Want the best coverage of Question Period? Tune into CPAC from 2:15 to 3:00 Monday to Thursday, 11:15 to noon Friday (and at rebroadcast times) and see it yourself. Want coverage of debates, written up the old fashioned way? Go to www.parl.gc.ca and look over the electronic Hansards. At least someone will be reading them. Reporters aren’t.
You barely need to be here to cover Parliament. Quite possibly, you could so a good job witha phone, a computer and a TV in Flin Flon. In fact, most reporters never go into the Commons. They watch Question Period on TV, then hike over to collect quotes in the post-Question period scrums. The TVs go off, the handful of reporters in the galleries leave the Commons along with 95% of the MPs, and debate on real laws goes on, with a handful of people talking about bills and no reporter covering what they have to say. Small wonder so many MPs are frustrated.

Read it all, and the comments, too.
Via Hacks and Wonks
See also Stephen Taylor, who has lots of discussion going.

(Click on image for full sized version)

Update: A reader sends this item by a decidedly paranoid Greg Weston, in which he claims there exists an;

“… orchestrated Internet campaigns by Conservative partisans, designed to harass, intimidate and even threaten journalists into backing off a party of such fun-loving people.”

Well, Mr. Weston – an “orchestrated internet campaign” should be pretty easy to find, what with it being orchestrated on the internet and all. Instead of whining about negative feedback from unhappy customers, why not sharpen up your investigative skills by collecting the hard evidence of this vast right wing conspiracy and presenting it the old fashioned way?
As we like to say here in Interweb Land – Google is your friend.
Because, you know – presenting a collection of random quotes as evidence that a conspiracy exists is the type of nonsensical crap you’d expect to see from some amateur blogger on the internet.

A reader has asked a very good question – is there a list anywhere of the names of the members of the Ottawa press gallery who walked out on the Harper news conference on Darfur?
I’d appreciate the information, if someone has it to send along or drop into the comments section. The media demands transparency from politicians – Canadians should expect no less from them.
Let’s have the names, and those of their employers.
While we’re on the topic – 75% of callers in an informal poll on John Gormley Live this morning disagreed with the host and believe Harper should tell the OPG to go pound sand. I think the word “crybaby” came up multiple times. The very public pity party the media are holding for each other may be backfiring.
Stephen Taylor;

As I’ve noted before, the press gallery has evolved past its primary role of reporting the news to dictating how the Prime Minister should disseminate information via reporters to the electorate. The Prime Minister refuses to relinquish control over his communications strategy to an unelected and unaccountable body which he has now deemed biased and frankly, that’s his prerogative.

He suggests the Ottawa Press Gallery has more to fear from their impending obsolescence than they do a PM who won’t play by rules designed for a communications age that has long passed them by.
G&M poll

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has accused the national media of being biased against him, do you agree?
Yes (57%) 17477 votes

h/t Hans Rupprecht in the comments.

My goodness. Can the country withstand a repeat of the national outpouring of disinterest that erupted during last year’s CBC strike?
In parliamentary press gallery story #1,356 about the parliamentary press gallery…

Prior to the start of a news conference in which Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that Canada would contribute $40 million in humanitarian and military assistance to the war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur, members of the press gallery simultaneously got up and left, moments before the prime minister arrived in the room, in an act of defiance against new news conference rules imposed against the media.

Seems a perfect time to present the SDA Quote Of The Week – “Ural” on the Media Opposition Party;

“Greens would kill to get the press that the press gets”

If I were Stephen Harper, I’d use the opportunity to change the locks.

“I just play one at the Ottawa Citizen”.

Breaking: RCMP buy new car. Busharper!!