Peeve Farm

g r o t t o 1 1

Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

Brian Tiemann
Silicon Valley-based purveyor of a confusing mixture of Apple punditry and political bile.

btman at grotto11 dot com

Read These Too:

InstaPundit
USS Clueless
James Lileks
Little Green Footballs
As the Apple Turns
Entropicana
Cold Fury
Capitalist Lion
Red Letter Day
Eric S. Raymond
Tal G in Jerusalem
Secular Islam
Aziz Poonawalla
Corsair the Rational Pirate
.clue
Ravishing Light
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Cartago Delenda Est

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Monday, November 15, 2004
10:54 - The breaking point?	(top)
It's been my sense for a while now that the unmistakably pessimistic tone struck toward the Iraq war by the mainstream news outlets (the evening news, websites, etc) owes as much to the fact that it's simply more sensational and ratings-friendly to show bad news coming out of Iraq than good news. The fact that for a more accurate, more hopeful view of the situation has to be obtained by people reading military blogs and first-hand accounts from men and women on the ground certainly has a lot to do with the slant we've seen documented in the media, but it's also simply because the news organs are only showing us what they think we want to see. Their market research tells them that their audience�the part that trusts them more�is the part that's naturally more amenable to their particular bias, and so they're just playing to the audience's expectations. But if that's the case, what must it take for these news organs to start showing good news? Well, it would have to be some event that places good news into the "what the audience wants to hear" category. I think the media wants to start showing some more positive coverage; they're just kind of trapped by their ratings and market share numbers, and much like gas stations competing across an intersection, no individual player is going to be the first to intentionally sabotage its own market share by breaking from the lockstep. A gas station might lower its prices suddenly, and gain more customers than the guys across the street, but it might not be enough to offset the cost of the price drop. It's a gamble, and nobody wants to be the first to blink. But I just heard on the radio that NBC is going to be showing a special called "Online in Iraq" (I didn't catch when exactly), billed as a look at the real story of what's going on there, through the eyes of the soldiers�and not filtered by the "mainstream media". (Yes, they actually used that term, and they leaned on it like they were saying "The Dark Lord" or something: Most people only know about what's going on in Iraq through the MAINSTREAM MEDIA. [ominous chords]) They played sound effects of modems connecting, and seemed to be suggesting that they'd be doing an expos� on military blogs and how different their view of the situation is from what's been relentlessly shown every evening by the talking heads. Have we reached the breaking point, then? Has it come time for the news media to decide that it's in their interest after all to show an optimistic view of Iraq? If so, this is a really gutsy thing for NBC to do�it's deliberately pointing the finger of blame for dishonest reporting at the mainstream media (of which it, of course, is a part), and making a statement that the coverage of Iraq has been wrong all along. I can only imagine, if it's successful in pulling in the ratings, that the other networks will follow suit. What's caused this sudden break, then? I wonder if maybe it's the Fallujah offensive. Suddenly we're engaged in a real, live shooting war again, one where the enemy is unmistakably evil�not even a tragic figure like Saddam's conscript army, against whom nobody really felt a great sense of honor in rooting. We knew those poor guys would get mowed down, and many of them didn't deserve it�Saddam had forced them to stand and die against their will�and our troops probably felt terrible pangs of guilt in driving through them. But now, in Fallujah�it's different. The bad guys are terrorists, pure and simple; they're the guys who have been kidnapping Westerners and other people who are in Iraq merely to help rebuild, then videotaping themselves beheading these poor hostages and broadcasting these gruesome images far and wide for all to see. It takes a Michael Moore not to see these people for the vermin they are, or to hold them up as some kind of honorable victims, much less as patriotic heroes fighting for Iraq's interests. Most Americans know better, and I think maybe the MSM is starting to feel it as well. It's time for a little payback, and time for a little justified chest-pounding. Perhaps, too, the media�or at least NBC�realize that it's time to start showing an alternate side of the situation, one that will let us feel good about what we're doing in Iraq for a change. Let's hope this is only the beginning.