{"id":11114,"date":"2007-06-13T14:50:41","date_gmt":"2007-06-13T18:50:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11114.html"},"modified":"2007-06-13T14:50:41","modified_gmt":"2007-06-13T18:50:41","slug":"why-you-wont-hear-about-todays-iraq-developments-on-fox-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/why-you-wont-hear-about-todays-iraq-developments-on-fox-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Why you won’t hear about today’s Iraq developments on Fox News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s bombings in Iraq<\/a> are serious enough to question whether the country’s civil war will spiral towards an even deeper chaos, but if recent history is any guide, viewers probably won’t see much about it on Fox News. Yesterday, Bill O’Reilly explained why.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind, the Republicans’ network has been doing its best to downplay war-related news. Looking at the first quarter of 2007, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found<\/a> that during the day, FNC devoted 6% of its airtime to Iraq, and 17% to the death of pseudo-celebrity Anna Nicole Smith. What’s more, FNC’s competitors devoted triple the amount of time to covering the war for their viewers.<\/p>\n

To hear O’Reilly tell it, this is all an intentional strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

O’Reilly derided the group behind the report as the “Project for Excellence in Left-Wing Journalism,” but then said he wouldn’t dispute their findings. He defended his lack of Iraq war coverage, stating that the only reason CNN and MSNBC “do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration”: <\/p>\n

Now the reason that CNN and MSNBC do so much Iraq reporting is because they want to embarrass the Bush administration. Both do. And all their reporting consists of is here’s another explosion. Bang. Here’s more people dead. Bang<\/b>. [\u2026]<\/p>\n

They’re not doing it to inform anybody about anything. The terrorists are going to set off a bomb every day because they know CNN and MSNBC are going to put it on the air. That’s a strategy for the other side. The terrorist side. So I’m taking an argument that CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Do you care if another bomb went off in Tikrit? Does it mean anything? No!<\/b> It doesn’t mean anything.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, O’Reilly’s literal argument is, “If FNC reports the news out of Iraq, the terrorists win.”<\/p>\n

I probably shouldn’t be, but I’m a little surprised O’Reilly would make this argument out loud.
\n
\nI’m not going to question O’Reilly’s patriotism, but thousands of Americans are sacrificing an awful lot — including, in too many instances, their lives — for this war. The least<\/em> O’Reilly and his network can do is bother to report on the conflict costing the country so dearly. FNC does, after all, claim to be a news<\/i> network.<\/p>\n

As for whether bombings in Iraq are “useless” and “meaningless,” O’Reilly is just embarrassing himself. When an IED kills an American, it has meaning. When a suicide bomber detonates inside the Green Zone, it has meaning. When most of the Golden Mosque is left in ruins, escalating already tragic violence, it has meaning.<\/p>\n

When a no-name “celebrity” dies, it might have meaning to her close friends and family, but it is not news.<\/p>\n

What’s more, as TP explained<\/a>, “journalists stationed in Iraq stress that coverage of the violence is necessary to ensure that the American public understands soldiers’ sacrifices.”<\/p>\n

CBS News Correspondent Lara Logan: When you see an American kid get shot and friends come to his aid and risk their lives, and see how they live day after day, you realize it is very hard for people far away to understand just how great are the sacrifices being made<\/b>.<\/p>\n

CNN International Correspondent Michael Ware: Clearly, it’s very hard to distill into one story the reality of life on the ground. Many of the soldiers I was with recently in Ramadiyah feel that people back home are turning off to an extent. They feel they’re fighting this war in a vacuum<\/b>. That’s where you see the true strength of these men. They continue to do their jobs professionally and bravely.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One final thought: I wonder what conservatives would say\/do if a liberal news personality said that bombings in Iraq that kill Americans don’t “mean anything.” One has to assume he or she wouldn’t be employed for very long.<\/p>\n

And yet, there’s O’Reilly the Clown, who’ll no doubt question someone else’s patriotism this evening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s bombings in Iraq are serious enough to question whether the country’s civil war will spiral towards an even deeper chaos, but if recent history is any guide, viewers probably won’t see much about it on Fox News. Yesterday, Bill O’Reilly explained why. Keep in mind, the Republicans’ network has been doing its best to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}