Posted by
Soldier Dad on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 3:55:00 PM
Certain words and phrases just drive me nuts. Much like an innumerable number of pop songs, what begins as catchy quickly becomes overdone. "Mainstream media" is one of those phrases. If I never heard it again, much less typed it, my life would be OK.
But to stop talking about it, it would have to stop pulling the same tired old tricks. Just today, an
AP story on Iraq reminded the country that the media just can't be trusted to check its bias at the door. I know journalists, like all humans, have their beliefs and I know those cannot always be avoided and I
know that a whole lot of what the media does is really OK and done in good faith. But when someone writes a story about the insurgency in Iraq and titles it - without any suggestion or implication that this is
analysis, rather than news - "Violence in Iraq spinning out of control", they're really dropping the ball.
Things in Iraq are not great. Conflict between Shiites and Sunnis is escalating and some of the attacks are breathtaking in their audacity and brutality. But I am fairly certain that Mr. Robert H. Reid, Associated Press Writer, is not qualified to determine whether the violence is "spinning out of control". And unless somebody can be bothered to put "analysis" on what clearly fits that description, the Associated Press is probably not qualified to be trusted.