If it bleeds, it leads

If you were wondering about the MSM’s orientation when it comes to war reporting — that is, whether to report good news or bad, failures or successes, spilled blood or new buildings — wonder no more. Howie, at the Jawa Report, ran a test. He took three morning news stories, one negative and two positive, and followed them throughout the day to see how they spread through the media. The results won’t surprise you.

The one thing I’ll add is that I don’t think that there is some vast editorial board conspiracy with editors all over America lurking in darkened rooms and thinking explicitly “Let’s bury the good news from Iraq, and make sure only the bad news gets broadcast.” In a way, that would be better, because honesty would at least compel such conspirators to acknowledge that the good news exists. Instead, this is a bone-deep bias that makes anything good out of Iraq unworthy of their notice — just as, in the old days, whites were unaware (or forced themselves to be unaware) of blacks as human beings, seeing them only as objects for service.

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