There are many stories about the war-torn country, but Sean Aqui has a unique perspective…
Reporters are criticized for not covering “good news�, while others counter by pointing to the high death toll among journalists in Iraq, and note that if Iraq is so dangerous reporters can’t leave the Green Zone, that says all we need to know about the security situation.
There’s probably some truth to the “not reporting good news� argument, for a couple of mundane reasons: the inability of reporters to get out and witness such occurrences, and the fact that a school opening simply isn’t as interesting or important as the ongoing violence. Reconstruction statistics tend to get reported as roundups, with such things as “3,000 schools have been renovated in the last year�, rather than as 3,000 separate stories. It’s fair to say that that lessens the impact of the good news.
But such complaints need to be taken with a grain of salt as well; a raw number like “3,000 schools renovated� or “100 playgrounds have been built� doesn’t say much about what is meant by “renovated�, doesn’t say whether a playground is actually used, and doesn’t mean anything unless we have some context: how many schools are there?
More here.