Distorting the State of the Union speech

This was the headline on the front page of the San Jose Mercury News on January 24, 2006:

BUSH'S PLEA: BACK NEW WAR STRATEGY

Anyone who watched the President's address knows that he didn't "plea". In fact, less than half of his speech even dealt with Iraq yet the Mercury News paints an image of the President pleading on behalf of his Iraq policy.

By contrast, the Seattle PI (which is a very liberal newspaper) had a more reasonable front page treatment of the President's speech:

BUSH: GIVE IRAQ PLAN A CHANCE - 'Let's us find resolve,' he urges Congress

Is this a news article or an editorial on the MSNBC site?

Kerry rules out joining presidential race

By Edward Luce in Washington

FT.com
Updated: 12:12 a.m. PT Jan 25, 2007

John Kerry, the losing 2004 presidential candidate, on Wednesday said he would not seek the Democratic nomination in 2008 but would instead remain in the Senate to fight George W. Bush's "misguided" war in Iraq.

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor, Mr Kerry, 64, who lost the White House by a narrow margin, admitted he had made a mistake in voting for the 2002 congressional resolution authorising the invasion of Iraq...

...Mr Kerry's decision leaves a field of nine Democrats running or likely to announce their names soon, including Senators Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois.

Among the leading candidates only Mrs Clinton has declined to admit her vote for the 2002 resolution was a mistake. Mr Obama, who opposed the war, was not a lawmaker then.

The use of the word "admit" implies that is a fact and is not an opinion that going into Iraq was a "mistake". If Edward Luce wanted to write a straight news article he would have written, "Mr. Kerry said he made a mistake".

I do not know who Edward Luce is or what is background is or where he learned journalism. But clearly he forgot or he does not care that there is a difference between reporting and stating opinion.

Abysmal media coverage of our troops

Here's an example of the often abysmal and agenda-driven media coverage of our troops that prompted my letter to the Mercury News.

I have sympathy for Nadia McCaffrey and respect for her son Patrick who was killed in action while serving in Iraq. A article entitled, "Grieving mom creating refuge for Iraq war vets" by Dana Hull of the San Jose Mercury News states that Patrick was shot by insurgents who had infiltrated the Iraqi unit he was training. But it makes no mention of what happened to the attackers or anything about the Iraqi unit. Who are they? What was the American response to this attack?

The article also lets McCaffrey's leftist views of the war to go unchallenged. The impression one gets is that she's just an ordinary American mom who lost her son in war. But she's not. The article makes no mention of the fact that she's an anti-war activist with links to America-haters such as Cindy Sheehan. It does mention she's "active" with Military Families Speak Out but Hull doesn't point out that this is a far-Left group that does not represent the views of most military families.

Organic gardens are not going to defeat radical Islam but the message of this "news article" is that all we have to do is leave Iraq and all will be well.

Patrick McCaffrey's death is given no context or meaning. He deserves better. Note also how the article gets in liberal/Democrat talking points about Haliburton. This is a good example of an editorial piece being disguised as news reporting.

My letter was altered by the San Jose Mercury News

Last month I wrote a letter to the Mercury News concerning recent articles they published about Iraq War veterans. All the articles focused on injuries, stress, mental trauma and other problems that these members of the armed services have suffered in connection to their service to our nation.

There certainly is nothing wrong with these articles in themselves but shouldn’t the old media provide some balance and context to these stories? A typical newspaper article or broadcast story will go like this: “In Iraq today, 2 more American soldiers were killed. 2,678 Americans have died in Iraq since the war started in 2003. In other news today…”Instead of merely providing a body count why doesn’t the old media tell us WHY these soldiers died? What battle were they in? Who were they fighting exactly? What was their mission? Did they accomplish their mission?

And why is it that we rarely hear about American victories? How many of the enemy we killed or captured? If we had today’s old media in 1944 I have little doubt that newspaper headlines about D-Day would have looked like this: “Thousands of Allied troops slain at Normandy. German resistance Strong”. While that headline would have been factually true it would have distorted what was actually going on at D-Day. We won on D-Day and the media in 1944 told us that.

The old media today has a habit of turning victory into defeat and that’s what they have been doing with regards to Iraq. Today's old media in 1944 would have focused on the number of soldiers we lost and NOT the victory they gained against the Nazi's. Back to my letter. This what the San Jose Mercury News published in their "Letters to the Editor: section on December 30, 2006:

Don't forget soldiers who quietly serve

The Mercury News has published articles recently about Nadia McCaffrey's proposed ``retreat center'' for Iraq war veterans and on the injuries suffered by Sgt. Frank Sandoval in Iraq. These kinds of articles seem to be typical of coverage of American soldiers by the mainstream media today. What's needed now is a series of front page articles detailing the bravery of our troops in Iraq who serve without regret and without injury. You shouldn't have a problem finding any, since that describes the vast majority of our troops who are protecting us in Iraq.

I thank the Mercury News for accepting my letter. But they altered what I wrote to change the point I was trying to make. Here’s the original letter I wrote:

The San Jose Mercury News has published articles recently about Nadia McCaffrey's “retreat center” for Iraq War veterans and on the injuries suffered by Sgt. Frank Sandoval in Iraq. These kinds of articles seem to be typical of any coverage of American soldiers by the mainstream media today.

I have two questions: 1) Is it the official policy of the Mercury News to portray members of the U.S. armed services only as victims to be pitied? 2) Will the Mercury News run a series of front page articles detailing the bravery of our troops in Iraq who serve without regret and without injury? You shouldn’t have a problem finding any since that describes the vast majority of our troops who are protecting us in Iraq.

See the difference? I understand that newspapers have the right to edit letters but they changed the point I was making. I was challenging the Mercury News to provide balance coverage but instead they tried to make my letter sound like nothing more than a mere suggestion that maybe they should write some articles about the bravery of our troops.

The point is the mainstream media or “old” media rarely does this today. They see Americans in Iraq not as America's finest who protecting us during a time of war but as victims to be pitied.