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| Fifth Column |
| Al Qaeda mastered media manipulation in Iraq |
| 2007-05-25 |
| Interesting throughout, but here's the heart of it: Gerd Schroeder, a major in the U.S. Army who has served in Iraq and Afghanistan, sees a big problem with the lack of context in reporting from Iraq. In an article at The American Thinker, he explains how he came to that conclusion after studying the Brookings Institution Report, “IRAQ INDEX Tracking Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq.” In the report, which he says is updated frequently and provides information from the U.S. military and other governmental agencies, he found some examples of how a lack of context can create a “misleading public impression.” One example was in the coverage of “ISF” figures. “The Iraqi security forces (ISF) includes military, police, special police, Iraqi National Guard and border police. From early 2005 to mid-2006, the hot topic for marking progress in the war was how many ISF were being trained and employed. However, in mid-2006, this media reporting trend almost wholly dried up,” he said. In an attempt to understand why, he examined information from the report: “In July-August 2006, the number of deployed ISF jumped from 269,600 up to 298,000. The previous months had experienced much smaller growth, but July/August 2006 experienced a 10.6 percent jump in ISF. The numbers jumped again in September by almost 10,000 to 307,800. October rose 4,000, and November rose almost 11,000.” Schroeder concluded that when ISF figures became a good news story of progress, they received less media attention. He says there is “significant, unreported good news” in Iraq. He acknowledges there is plenty of bad news there, but that “the media has been doing a good job of reporting on those negative aspects.” |
| Posted by:Rob Crawford |