Michael Moran : Media takes heat from administration over Iraq

I love Michael Moran's writing - the article linked below is quite long - but what the heck is he doing on TV on each Tuesday night at 10 PM ET on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country? I would need a multiple showers after such work!

:-)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5023564/

Media takes heat from administration over Iraq
When the going gets tough, the messenger gets shot By Michael Moran


(Some great Quotes from the article)

"Spiro Agnew, who decried the “doom and gloom” over Vietnam and said: “We have more than our share of the nattering nabobs of negativism. The have formed their own 4H Club, the ‘Hopeless, Hysterical Hypochondriacs of History’.” "

"As the Pew report points out, those in the national media identify themselves, increasingly, as centrist or left-of-center. “In terms of their overall ideological outlook, majorities of national (54 percent) and local journalists (61 percent) continue to describe themselves as moderates. The percentage identifying themselves as liberal has increased from 1995: 34 percent of national journalists describe themselves as liberals, compared with 22 percent nine years ago.”

And the one I liked best:

"The uniformed guys warned about it and were told to can it."

New York Press
Volume 17, Issue 20
May 19-25, 2004

HELP JUSTIN NOW
It’s time for us in the media to start listening to the public.

By Matt Taibbi

I READ AN hilarious letter to USA Today last week. It went like this:

WHERE IS THE GOOD NEWS?

I can no longer take the way the media are reporting the situation in Iraq.

I was under the impression that it was the media's job to report both sides of a story, which can and should include the good, bad and sometimes ugly.

I am so tired of seeing all of the bad things going on in Iraq. We all know that the situation can be much better.

Are you really telling me and everyone else that there is nothing good happening there? Why have I not heard any reporting from the Kurdish section in Iraq?

Every day, I read stories about the deaths of soldiers, civilians and even the enemies. Are you telling us that this is the only thing going on?

Why don't you let us know about some of the good things going on over there?

Justin Ringling, Westerly, R.I.

I looked up Justin after reading this. He is indeed listed in Westerly, RI, so he appears to be a real person. There is another Justin Ringling somewhere in the St. Louis area who made the honor roll at St. Dominic High in St. Charles County several years in a row, but I don't think that's my guy.

I called up Justin and left several messages, explaining that I thought I could help with his problem. No answer.

So I'm left to make this public appeal to Justin to come forward. The reason is that I have a proposal for him. I would like to offer to send him to Iraq at my own expense. I would also like to offer him (assuming my editors cooperate) all the column inches in New York Press that he desires to send the missing good news back to the deprived readership of the United States. (Editors' note: Consider it done.)

I have two conditions. The first is that he goes unarmed and unescorted. The second is that he wear, every day, a t-shirt emblazoned with the American flag on the front, and also bearing an Arabic inscription on the back that reads, "God Bless the U.S."

<more>
http://www.nypress.com/17/20/news&columns/taibbi.cfm

Sound bites for the media need not be logical as long as the media acts as a reprint machine.