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July 29, 2005
Media Credibility Goes Boink
Ever since the end of major combat operations in Afghanistan, just a few months after 9/11, there have been two major media themes: the US is failing in the war on terror because of George Bush, and the US is failing in Iraq (which has nothing to do with the war on terror) because of George Bush. But the media has a serious problem now, because of two developments with the latter theme. The first development is that the US has apparently turned the corner in Iraq: we could be reducing troop levels in Iraq next year, and without the country falling apart. The second development is that the terrorists keep insisting on linking their terrorism to the "provocation" of Iraq, as once linked their terrorism to the "provocations" of East Timor, the Gulf War, the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the fall of Andalusia (hundreds of years ago).
As the Iraqi political process moves forwards, and the terrorists continue to be beaten down or driven out, and the US begins drawing down troop strength in Iraq, the media will have to report these things, even if they put a decidedly negative spin on events. (If? Of course they will!) With the war in Iraq clearly being won, there will be no way to look at the media coverage of the last few years and see how it happened. How did a series of negative events, coupled with a few minor successes (like the January elections), lead to a positive outcome? And there will be, at that point, a huge drop in media credibility.
Let me pause here for a moment, because there's something that we in the blogosphere frequently forget: we aren't normal. Most Americans don't follow news obsessively, and don't seek out multiple alternative sources of information to tease the strands of truth from the mass of reporting available. Most Americans barely watch the evening news. For the vast majority, news comes mostly second hand. And so only the surface flows of the news story make a real impression on most people. While the non-news obsessive public has already been discounting much of what the media says, and their credibility has already been dropping, this will massively accelerate with events so obviously opposed to the media narrative.
And this will cause the second part of the media template to bite: how will the media be taken seriously on their pronouncements of how badly the war on terror is going, when the media was so wrong on the war in Iraq? And the media will have a hard time pulling the two apart, because the terrorists themselves are linking Iraq to their actions.
So the most dangerous theater of war for the US - public opinion as formed by the media - may not be a danger for too much longer.
UPDATE: This kind of crap doesn't exactly help the media, either. Far too many reporters (not the one named in Mark's piece) are ghouls, and far too many MSM news organizations feed off of the ghoulishness. And that's going to haunt them (no pun intended) in a world where they no longer have the only loud voice.
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Comments
I think you are overly optimistic in the short term. If we do draw back troops next year, it will be spun as a retreat if there are still newsworthy terror attacks happening, or if things are relatively calm it will be war fatigue or some other negative slant. It will not be because we are winning. The MSM will all settle on their theme and that is what those who don't pay rapt attention will hear. It will continue to be mostly negative events and a few small successes. Then when the first big attack occurs after the draw-down we will hear all manner of negativity and defeatism. We will have lost and Iraq will be doomed to civil war, etc. Of course, at some point victory will be apparent to the vast majority of people, and the media will lose some credibility and consumers. But that will be long enough out that many more people than we would like to believe will have moved on to the next story de jour and will not worry too much about the MSM being wrong in Iraq.
Posted by: Brian at August 1, 2005 12:32 AM