Hook, line and sinker - Kurtz takes Tierney's bait

Washington Post media analyst Howard Kurtz gives undeserved credence to the ridiculous NY Times column in which John Tierney gently suggests that news of the carnage in Iraq be withheld from the American people.

On Tuesday, Tierney wrote fondly of the days when former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ordered police to withhold details of violent crimes until after reporters' deadlines had passed. While not suggesting that the U.S. government do the same with insurgent attacks in Iraq, Tierney did ask that reporters exercise self-censorship to achieve the same effect.

In today's Media Notes column, Kurtz accepts Tierney's nonsensical thesis of a parallel between reports on the Iraqi insurgency (including car bombs, suicide bombs and roadside bombs) and local news-type "could it happen here" stories on things like natural disasters and school-shootings.

The dilemma is especially acute these days in Iraq, where correspondents could spend every day recounting the latest round of bombings and attacks. And there's no way to ignore these attacks, especially in recent weeks, when the death toll seems to be climbing higher despite the fact that Iraq has put together a democratically elected government. Administration officials have complained that the constant media focus on violence has obscured some of the progress being made there, although, after two years of westerners being killed, you don't hear that argument as much any more.

I bring all this up because of a fascinating piece by the newest New York Times columnist, John Tierney, who has the temerity to challenge one of the rituals of Middle East reporting:

"If a man-bites-dog story is news and dog-bites-man isn't, why are journalists still so interested in man-blows-up-self stories?. . . ."

[BREAK]

"There was no larger lesson except that some insurgents were willing and able to kill civilians, which was not news. We were dutifully presenting as accurate an image as we could of one atrocity, but we knew we were contributing to a distorted picture of life for Iraqis."

And that's the point. Why give terrorists the publicity they crave? Why try to divine the motivation of psychopaths who are willing to kill innocents along with themselves? Of course such attacks can't be ignored, but can a totally accurate article, correct in every detail, still contribute to a warped view of the dangers in Iraq, or Israel, or other places plagued by suicide bombers?

Well, gosh, Howard. Where to begin?

I will begin with the fundamental flaw of Tierney's thesis which seems to have eluded you.

The larger lesson of reporting on the insurgency is not, as Mr. Tierney theorizes, that "some insurgents were willing and able to kill civilians."

The larger lesson is that more than two years after President Bush declared "Mission Accomplished" in the campaign to liberate Iraq, unequivocally stating that "major combat operations" had ended, major and minor combat in Iraq continues. The lesson is that, while President Bush would have us believe that everything is good and getting better in Iraq, life for Iraqis and coalition troops remains quite hellish. While the president assures us that freedom is on the march in Iraq, the truth is that our troops are fighting an intractable urban insurgency that is essentially a civil war in everything but name.

And, the largest lesson, Howard and John, is that neither President Bush nor anybody who works for him has the slightest idea what to do about it.

It is intellectually dishonest to equate war reporting in Iraq with crime reporting on NewsChannel 11.

Every car bomb, roadside bomb or suicide bomb that explodes in Iraq is another demonstration of the fact that basic security, inarguably a fundamental component of a stable democracy, remains UN-accomplished.