Bruce Kesler wrote an excellent colunn at The Examiner earlier this week that I somehow missed. In it he talks about how eager the media is to report alleged U.S. atrocities in Haditha, even though it now appears many of those allegations were not well founded, and may prove to be outright false. He goes on to note the media is lacking when it comes to coverage of the U.S. heroes doing incredible work in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By contrast, narratives about our heroes is mighty scarce in the media. I haven’t counted, but the conservative Media Research Center has:
» Since the war on terror began, the military has awarded top medals to 20 individuals.
» None has been given more than a fraction of the attention that the latest allegations against the military have received. In fact, 14 of the country’s top 20 medal recipients have gone unmentioned by ABC, CBS and NBC.
I don’t want to be a milblogger. However, they, and I to a lesser extent, are forced to be by the severe and serious failure of our mainstream media to provide even elemental balance, not to mention factual reliability.
Whether or not you support the war, you owe it to yourself to at least be better informed before making judgments. MudvilleGazette.com offers a morning roundup of the best milblog and mainstream reporting about Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s easy and fast. And, it’s a lot more than you’re getting from the tube or your local newspaper.
There are no Ernie Pyles in today’s “mainstream” media. They’re all in the “new” media.