The media and Iraq

You remember Matt Sanchez, don’t you? He’s the conservative military writer who suddenly shot to fame when it was revealed that he’d had an earlier career working in gay porn. He’s since turned against the lifestyle (porn), and writes about how it degrades the human spirit. He’s also been writing from Iraq and Afghanistan, and Right Wing News has an email interview with him. A lot of his responses are a bit too flip — too trying to be funny — but I think he’s on to something when he discusses the MSM’s Iraq news coverage:

Now, since then, you’ve been embedded in Iraq and Afghanistan. First off, tell us a little bit about your time in Iraq and how you think things are going there.

In Iraq, the media tried pulling off a coup attempt, by cooking the coverage. I understand performance is an element of the news, but these people were just flat out hamming it up for the cameras.

Iraq is a country the size of California with a population as large as Canada’s. On any given day things happen—very ugly things happen. Iraq was under a coordinated assault by Islamofascists who terrorized the country after the fall of Saddam. What the media showed was a one-sided military drama about how directionless the conflict was, while completely downplaying the actions and motives of the enemy.

Fast forward a couple of years, and the coverage has changed, because of great independent reporting. Iraq had an average of only 30 western reporters from 2005 through 2007. The country is the size of California, but even less media interest than Brian Depalma’s hit Redacted.

When people like Michael Yon, Michael Totten, Bill Roggio, JD Johannes, Michelle Malkin and Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity et al showed a more in-depth view, it challenged the media monopoly. The internet and talk radio played a HUGE role in this.

Thanks to eyes on the ground reporting, spin, like Thomas Scott Beauchamp, was challenged and debunked. That entire liberal soap opera would have stood unchallenged, a bit like how the McCarthyism myth has largely stood unchallenged.