Dateline: Home Study

The news media gets it wrong…again. No real surprise here. There is a lot to cover and too few people to cover it, so I can accept some mistakes. What is bothering me however, is the laziness of the media. They seem to not even bother with checking facts any more.

Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal ran a story about how Chinese bloggers turned off their blogs and the media reported it as government crack-downs. They reporters never bothered to check for facts. The bloggers? Well they just wanted to prove how lazy and inaccurate the press is; point made.

Today I learned of more erroneous reporting; in Iraq nonetheless. General Chiarelli, in a DoD news conference today had a few words to say about the exaggerations of attacks on mosques in Iraq. Although the press reported numerous mosques burning, the reality is that there were no fires. Here’s the quote:

In the days immediately following the Samarra bombing, the press was actively tracking and reporting every single mosque attack, but the vast majority of the reporting was off the mark. I recalled reports of hundreds of mosques attacked and 30 mosques burning in Baghdad in one night. These reports were terribly inaccurate.

As we received reports of mosque attacks, we sent forces out to physically check the mosques for damage. We received 81 reports of mosques being attacked from sources other than our subordinate units. Of these 81 mosque reports, 17 had light damage, such as bullet holes or broken glass, and six had medium damage, repairable within six months. Only two mosques were completely destroyed, and none were burned.

Keep in mind, these reports are for a country that has thousands of mosques. Yet as I watched the news, I thought that every mosque in Iraq was being attacked.

Again, I’m not making light of the tragedy of the violence that has occurred. But I remain convinced that the resiliency and optimism of the Iraqi people will keep Iraq moving in the right direction.

What really bother s me is that the general public is not getting this information as I am (although they could). Instead, they believe what they read in the papers and form opinions accordingly. So, when I read of the effort in Iraq is loosing public support I know it is based on false information. That is not responsible journalism.