Columnist Carol Daniels
Just in time for Christmas, along came the debate to send up to 50-thousand more troops to Iraq to quell the sectarian violence (or civil war, depending on our language of choice). Meanwhile, First Lady Laura Bush blamed the media for reporting news that she called “discouraging” and for missing the fact that schools are being built and parts of Iraq are rebuilding.
It’s the old blame-the-media game for not reporting the good news, especially when that good news just might supports your position. I happen to agree that the media doesn’t always report good news, but there are clear reasons for it. Some of those reasons I agree with, and others I don’t.
For one, listeners, viewers and readers are drawn to bad news. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. Secondly, when it comes to a war that our elected officials have decided to send our military men and women into, I believe the primary story is whether those men and women are in harm’s way for a just cause or an unjust cause. And I find there to be a bit of selective memory being exhibited with this notion that the “liberal” media is only reporting the bad news in order to make President Bush look like he’s failing.
A recent study by the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, a U.S.-based human rights organization, reports that the unemployment rate is highest among Iraq’s young males, at an estimated 70 percent. Here is where the selective memory and selective action comes to mind. Has the first lady ever said that the coverage of African Americans, particularly black males, is skewed and the media only reports the “discouraging” news about black males? If she ever said it, I completely missed it.
Unemployment among young black males is around 35 percent! Have any of those who support this war and sending thousands more troops into the region ever said, “There are good things happening in the black community, parts of the black community are rebuilding, schools are being rebuilt in the black community, so I’d like to see the media give a more balanced view of the black community”? Forget the media – has anyone on her level ever turned to Hollywood or network television executives and said, “I’d like you to present a more balanced view of the black community”?
And what is even more maddening is it’s not just the national media, it’s local media as well. This newspaper is perhaps the only consistent source for a balanced view of the black community. I mean the good, the bad and the ugly.
We have our problems, very serious ones, and we can’t shy away from them and try to present a sanitized version of us. But the fact is that viewers, readers and listeners are human flesh and human flesh revels in bad stuff. Would you rather read about the latest ridiculous behavior of East St. Louis or St. Louis public school officials or would you rather read about the schools being built in East St. Louis or the elementary schools in St. Louis that do have 98-99 percent first-day attendance?
The difference in the Iraq war and the alleged war on terrorism is that someone else made the decision to send the military to Iraq. Therefore, we have to know if the cause makes sense because thousands have already died. So, in this case, we have to hear about the BAD news because it might be the result of BAD decisions that have become unnecessarily deadly.