How we tell the story of the war

All reporting is story telling. True neutrality is difficult, especially because it tends to be boring. “The red car hit the blue car” may be true, but it makes for numbing reading. “The red car, while speeding through the intersection, smashed into the blue car, which was filled with young people heading home from a party” is a much more interesting introduction. A different spin might be “The driver of the red car tried desperately to stop, as the blue car, loaded with teenagers coming back from a rave, ran a red light.” None of these stories contradicts the other. Each is just a different way of playing out the facts.

This morning, I read (or tried to read) a dismal AP report that focuses heavily on American casualties in Iraq, without any reference to US accomplishments. Indeed, in the original version of the report, which AP seems to have revamped, it made reference to an “unending supply of suicide bombers,” or some such depressing language. The report, written by an AP reporter who seems to be an Arab stringer (his name is Hamid Ahmed) is doom and gloom. No American rah-rah here. This isn’t just pragmatic factual statements; no matter the reporter’s intent (and I wouldn’t pretend to know his intent) it reads like anti-American propaganda through demoralization.

A few hours after having read that AP report, Marguerite sent me an email with a link to a very sophisticated and quite brilliant YouTube production, envisioning D-Day as it would be covered in today’s media. I won’t comment further. I think you’ll get the point:

UPDATE: I’ve been wondering why it mattered to me that the AP reporter is an Arab stringer. After all, the mere fact that he is doesn’t tell me anything about whether he’s pro-insurgency, anti-insurgency, or as neutral as a person can be. I realized that it’s that inscrutability that really bothers me. Part of what gives a story its credibility, or destroys that credibility, is knowing the source. In a courtroom, for example, when a lawyer is speaking, you need to know which party he represents.

Now, AP would contend that it is the source, and the identity of its individual minions is irrelevant. I don’t agree with that. To the extent that it’s the minion out there in Iraq doing the reporter, and not the AP Board of Directors, I think the minion’s bio matters, even if it gives me insight into AP’s own standards for hiring people. In any event, given my distrust for AP’s reporting, having the AP itself as the standard doesn’t inspire me when it comes to interpreting the reports it publishes.

UPDATE II:  Master historian Victor Davis Hanson reminds us what a near miss D-Day was.  It’s a good rebuttal to the unspoken argument underlying so many media attacks on the Iraq War:  The assumption that WWII was a perfectly managed war, with victory the inevitable outcome.  That was never the case, and it’s only the profound ignorance of those guiding the nation’s understanding of the current war that allows that assumption to poison modern war reporting.

On the same subject, a brilliant and good friend bitterly resents the media’s obsessive focus on WWII as “the good war” and its soldiers as “the greatest generation.”  There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging that it was a war that pitted good against evil, and that American men, most of whom were drafted, fought a strong, brave and ultimately effective battle against evil, aided by a united home front.

However, the appellations “good war” and “greatest generation” imply the opposite as to any other war or generation at war.  No matter that the Korean War at least managed to save South Korea from the horrors inflicted for the past 50 years on North Korea.  No matter that the Vietnam War, even though the weak-kneed collapsed before Communist propaganda, nevertheless managed to stave off some of Communism’s worst depredations.  No matter that the current war in Iraq took down one of the worst regimes in the world, and one actively hostile to the United States, and that it still has the potential to be a positive outcome for the US (if the weak-kneed don’t win).

None of this matters because, if WWII is the good war, everything else must be a bad war.  And if those who fought in WWII are the greatest generation, what the heck are the rest of us?  The most mediocre?  The worst?  Unsurprisingly, my friend has a point.

It’s always worth being a bit suspicious when the MSM begins to sanctify the past.  There’s usually a motive beyond mere admiration.