[Vision2020] An interesting article in the Dallas Morning News

[Paul Duffau]

Q: What's wrong with this picture?
  
A: It's the only one like it we could find.

For the entire article, go to http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rdreher/stories/060104dnediiraqphoto.5094d.html where they will ask you a multitude of intrusive questions before they allow you to log on...


12:01 AM CDT on Tuesday, June 1, 2004
  

By ROD DREHER / The Dallas Morning News
  


"Are the news media giving Americans an accurate picture of what's really going on in Iraq? 

Not according to the American people, who say they've seen too many photos of Abu Ghraib prison abuses. A CBS News poll released on May 24 revealed that 61 percent of those polled believe the news media are spending too much time on the Abu Ghraib story. This jibes with what some of us on the editorial board have been hearing more and more: that average Americans believe the news media are obsessed with bad news from Iraq and aren't paying enough attention to the good things going on there. 

"We decided to search photo wire service archives for the past month, looking for images of U.S. soldiers engaged in helping Iraqis instead of shooting at them. We were startled to discover that the photo accompanying this text was the only image of its kind that moved on the wires in recent weeks. This newspaper's photo department told me that if news photographers aren't shooting those pictures, it's because media back home aren't interested in those stories. 

  "Which justifies the reader complaints we've been hearing, does it not? 

"This is not necessarily an issue of media bias......"

and this excerpt:

"But there are other positive developments to report: 

• According to UNICEF, school attendance is up more than 95 percent from prewar times, and more than 2,500 schools have been rebuilt or renovated, with 1,500 more scheduled to be completed by year's end. And all the schools will, for the first time in three decades, feature textbooks that teach facts, not pro-Saddam propaganda. 

• The Coalition Provisional Authority reports that all Iraqi hospitals and primary health care clinics were operating by December, and U.S. soldiers, along with UNICEF, are teaching basic personal hygiene and sanitation techniques throughout the country. Health-care spending is 26 times what it was under Saddam, the CPA says...."



Take Care,

Paul Duffau