Comments on: How the media are (not) paying attention to the Iraq War

By: Iraq » How the media are (not) paying attention to the Iraq War

Iraq » How the media are (not) paying attention to the Iraq War — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 04:07:46 +0000

[...] MICHAEL STICKINGS, Assistant Editor wrote an interesting post today on How the media are (not) paying attention to the Iraq WarHere’s a quick excerptJust imagine John King with a magic map of Iraq, zooming in and out to give us all the latest death toll updates in real time. Ah, but there’s that attention span, too — and the media just don’t have one, much like so many of their … [...]

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:31:09 +0000

Oh and I didn't mean to imply you, runasim, are too stupid to reach. I was speaking generally.

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:29:11 +0000

Sure you do, we all do eventually. People are dying prematurely to violence all over the world. They are being beaten to death in Tibet, raped to death in Darfur, and stoned to death for being beaten and raped in any number of middle eastern nations. You can't internalize the death of strangers on the other side of the world the way you would someone that actually affects you. If your psyche doesn't blunt some of the impact you'd go mad as soon as you open the newspaper.

And my point wasn't that the news has gotten boring, its that its locked into a pattern and that pattern hasn't changed at all in years. Uptick, downtick, the problem is today what it was yesterday. There is no NEWS to the fact someone blew themselves up during a funeral procession in Iraq. What sort of coverage would you like to see? What can they say they haven't said before countless times. If you haven't gotten the true depth of misery and hopelessness over in Iraq by now, you're too stupid to reach.

By: runasim

runasim — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:01:36 +0000

Shamfu,

You're wrong. There are all kinds of things happening.
The most glaring example is the considerable uptick in violence and in US deaths.

I don't find people dying as boring as brushing teeth.

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:37:40 +0000

In fact feel free to read it any day from now until we finally get the hell out of there. It will be just as valid then as it will be next monday, of that I have little doubt.

By: Slamfu

Slamfu — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:29:40 +0000

Well I guess there just isn't anything really changing over there. Is there any new news coming out of Iraq? Here's an example, I'm going to give you next mondays Iraq update.

"The U.S. backed elected gov't of Al-Maliki still does not have any signifigant control over the country and Baghdad is incredibly dangerous outside of the Green Zone. Electricty and water service to the capitol is still spotty at best, with most people being without power 20 hours a day. Several people were killed in mortar attacks, some more have disappeared.

Shiites in the south backing Al-Sadr remain defiant and dominant, but quiet as long as no Sunnis get too close. Meanwhile Sunnis in the west remain passive as long as they are being paid by us and no shiites get too close. Numerous desertions in the ranks of the Iraqi police have hindered the gov'ts ability to do anything about the various factions.

Iranian backed Shiites killed some non-iranian backed Shiites, plus some Sunnis. Al-Queda kills some Sunnis and Sunnis kill some Al-queda as well as some Shiites. All of them try to kill some Americans and some succeed. No political faction comes to any meaningful terms with any other faction about anything, the sun goes down, and another day begins."

Rinse, repeat.

By: runasim

runasim — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 22:48:59 +0000

You're absolutely right.
I have to spend a lot of time on the Internet to keep up with Iraq news. Even so, what I find is as much opinion as news, and it's time consuming to dig out the basic facts.