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By Rachel York
The media is all gloom and doom. That is the plain and simple truth. No matter what happens, the media always manage to see the darkest side of the story. Every day, the newspapers and news stations print at least one story that points out the downfalls of President Bush. Do the media ever see anything positive when a Republican is President? Somehow I’m not able to imagine that. My reasoning is the media do not seem to enjoy pointing out the good things that President Bush has done for our country, such as decreasing unemployment.
One such example of the melancholy side of the media is with the war in Iraq. Looking at one recent edition of the Colorado Springs newspaper The Gazette, I found three articles pertaining to the war in Iraq and the ongoing battle in Afghanistan. All three articles dealt with the problems in Iraq. For example, “U.S. involved in more Afghan deaths” discusses how the U.S. military was responsible for the deaths of more Afghani citizen deaths.
However, the article barely focuses on the fact that the military claimed the insurgents were at fault by placing the civilians in harm’s way. The Gazette had another article that pointed out how more bombings in Baghdad, including one that left thirty-eight people dead and sixty people wounded on Monday, display the unlikelihood of ending the attacks anytime soon. On top of these disheartening articles, there was also a box from USA Today in The Gazette’s section on Iraq that displayed all the signs of increasing pessimism concerning the war in Iraq.
This isn’t just a one day occurrence of gloomy articles. I went online to The Gazette and found other articles such as “U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq at 3,173”. This article came out on March 4, 2007 and seemed to find great satisfaction in discussing all the deaths that have occurred, including the most recent deaths. I found this article among many similar articles with similar headlines accounting for all of the different deaths, implying the pointlessness of being in Iraq. I saw very few positive articles that related to Iraq.
I don’t deny that maybe we shouldn’t have gone into Iraq or maybe we should have left as soon as we deposed of Saddam Hussein. However, that does not give the media any right to tear down our soldiers. The media would claim they aren’t deriding our soldiers, but rather they’re deriding the Bush administration. What the media doesn’t seem to realize is whenever they say bad things about the way the Bush administration is handling Iraq, the media is also pointing fingers at the soldiers themselves.
However, just because this is the way the media appears to feel about things doesn’t mean the rest of Americans agrees with them. I found an interesting little fact in the magazine World. In its article “Iraq”, these details are discussed:
“Sometimes you have to ask the right questions. With polls persistently showing disapproval of the Iraq War and Bush policy, a new poll shows a strong majority of Americans (57 percent) favor ‘finishing the job in Iraq.’ Given a choice of four policies, a survey of 800 registered voters by Public Opinion Strategies found that immediate troop withdrawal was least popular (17 percent), while setting a timetable was most popular (32 percent) and 27 percent of those surveyed believe the Iraq War ‘is the frontline in the battle against terrorism and our troops should stay there and do whatever it takes to restore order.”
This article tells me that many Americans don’t agree with the gloom and doom view of most media today. That is why I wish the media would present an objective take on things rather than assume they are speaking for the people in America. I understand terrible events occur sometimes, and that does require due notice. However, those events do not allow for the continuing disparagement against everything the media don’t agree with.
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