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Contributors
Cliff Kincaid- Contributor
Cliff Kincaid, serves as editor of the Accuracy
in Media (AIM)
Report. A veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff has
appeared on the Fox News programs Hannity & Colmes and
The O'Reilly Factor, where he debated O'Reilly on global
warming, the death penalty,
and the homosexual agenda. He was a guest co-host on CNN's Crossfire
(filling in for Pat Buchanan) in the 1980s, where he confronted
the then-Libyan Ambassador to the U.N. with evidence of Libyan
involvement in international terrorism. Through his America's
Survival, Inc., organization (www.usasurvival.org), he has been
an advocate on behalf of the families of victims of terrorism
and has published reports and held conferences critical of the
United Nations. His articles have appeared in the Washington
Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events, Insight, and
other publications. He served on the staff of Human Events for
several years and was an editorial writer and newsletter editor
for former National Security Council staffer Oliver North at
his Freedom Alliance educational foundation. He has written or
co-authored nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign
policy issues. Cliff is married and has three sons.[go to
Kincaid index]
 U.S.
Media Lose Big In Iraq Vote
What do those illiterate Iraqis know?…
[Cliff Kincaid] 2/2/05
The Iraqi
people were the big winners on their election day and the U.S.
media were
among the big losers. Despite all the
negative coverage and gloom-and-doom reporting about Iraq, it
can now be argued that the Bush administration’s strategy
to stay the course is working. It will be impossible for the
media to insist, in the face of what happened on January 30,
that all is lost in Iraq.
U.S. television coverage,
with its unrelenting emphasis on violence and bad news out
of Iraq, had suggested that the election
was going to be a disaster. The story line was that the terrorists
were on the march, U.S. troops couldn’t provide enough
security, and not enough Iraqi forces were trained to protect
voters.
To their credit, the
millions of Iraqis who turned out to vote must not have been
watching American TV. If they had tuned into
that day’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, they
would have seen John Kerry, the former Democratic candidate for
president, undercutting their commitment to freedom and democracy
by saying that the Iraqi election was not fully legitimate because
some people from terrorist-infested areas might not go to the
polls. It was another demoralizing message from the U.S. media
and one of their favorite politicians. For host Tim Russert,
it was a case of bad booking and bad timing.
Iraqis must also
not read the New York Times, which had editorialized about
how the Bush administration had “foolishly” passed
up opportunities to postpone the election so conditions could
be made more stable. The Times had criticized the Administration
for “holding to the original election timetable” in
a “gamble” that could easily backfire.
One day after the
election, the Times said that it appeared that the turnout “may have exceeded the most optimistic
predictions.” The Times said that, “we rejoice in
a heartening advance by the Iraqi people. For now at least, the
multiple political failures that marked the run-up to the voting
stand eclipsed by a remarkably successful election day.”
This remarkably successful
election day occurred with no thanks to the U.S. media. But
the Times was not alone in recognizing
that a success had taken place. Many reporters in Iraq described
how impressed they were by the Iraqi turnout. They couldn’t
ignore the reality that was unfolding before their eyes.
The American people
can’t ignore reality, either. Before
the election, Iraq was depicted as a hell-hole. On election day,
life suddenly became a festival, a party and day of thanksgiving.
Clearly, progress in Iraq is being made and there are many good
stories to tell. But until election day, many in the media weren’t
telling them.
In the coverage of the Iraqi voter turnout on election day,
the U.S. public was given a startling glimpse into the truth
about the real situation on the ground in that country.
“For
months,” declared the Washington
Post in an
editorial, “news from Iraq has told the story of the extremists,
those who destroy themselves to murder others and to proclaim
the cause of a religious or Baathist dictatorship. Yesterday
the world saw and heard, at last, another Iraq, one in which
millions of people from all over the country turned out to vote
- even in places where their nominal leaders had proclaimed a
boycott,
even at polling stations where mortar rounds fell or gunfire
rang out.”
But why had
this “other Iraq” been ignored for so
long? Why had the news - from the Post and other media - been
so tilted in favor of the extremists? The paper didn’t
tell us.
Hopefully, the stories about voter turnout will reinforce the
reality of America having freed the Iraqi people from tyranny.
Polls showing declining support for the war were obviously measuring
public reaction to mostly bad news about Iraq coming from the
media. Now the American people can see for themselves that all
the news is not bad and that the media were in fact misleading
them about the real progress that our troops have been making.
The questions we should
put to our own media include: Why did you tell us that Iraq
was going so badly when it is now clear
beyond doubt that the people there wanted a democratic government?
Why did you focus on the death and destruction and not on the
Iraqi thirst for democratic government? Why did you highlight
the strength of the terrorist “insurgents” and not
the value of the U.S. mission to bring freedom to the people
of Iraq?
Don’t expect any answers from the media. But some are
painful and obvious. Some journalists don’t believe that
the U.S. is a force for good in the world. They want the U.S.
to fail in Iraq in order to teach us a lesson about global politics
and foreign affairs. They would prefer, like the French and Germans,
that the U.N. guide or even conduct U.S. foreign policy. Other
journalists are card-carrying liberal Democrats who personally
despise President Bush and his political party and want his administration
to fail.
It’s now obvious
that free Iraqis are going to have something to say about this. tRO
copyright
2005 Accuracy in Media
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