The WSJ article about another crook in the Bush admin? Or the article about how the congress wont hold the president accountable for breaking the law? Or how the admin is getting un-named sources to slime Fitzgeralds investigation? For trying to make a point (which suffers from a serious apples and oranges comparison that pretty much blows your arguement), you picked the wrong WSJ stream to link to.

It's man bites dog. It's not news that a bunch of terrorists tortures people, it is news that the Army of the United States of America does.

If the point is that Al Qaeda and the other Iraqi insurgents are vicious animals who are more morally depraved than soldiers of the world's greatest democracy, you know what? I think we all get that. That's not a point that should need to be reinforced. It's not a point we should have to think about, frankly, and we wouldn't be thinking about it but for the fact that this administration has recklessly undercut the reputation of the US military.

Okay guys...if it's understandable to put the "Fox was tortured" story on page 10 because "we all get that", what makes the Abu Gharib story front-page material?

Are you suggesting that the NYT's readers are unaware of the problems at Abu Gharib? After two years, Abu Gharib is still front-page material but Fox never gets there at all because we know terrorists are bad guys? Is that what you're saying?

It's not a race, Mikey. You can can treat all incidents of torture the same irrespective of the perps. For some reason* our MSM can't understand that. But given that most of the MSM's customers can't either it's not that big of a surprise.

• - I'm willing to bet it's the same chauvinism--"we're better than that"-- your types love to throw out at times like this. And, god forbid, if the NYT or anyone else did give equal treatment no doubt they'd be inundated with letters demanding to know exactly why and accusing them of the worst sorts of absolutism. Who'd write the letters? The same people who with one breath explain the unquestioned goodness of all cultures and societies and with the next explain disparate treatment of news based on America, F' YEAH! Excuse us if we don't listen with rapt attention.

Compare the coverage given to Guantanamo detainees with the coverage given to Chinese and Iranian bloggers who have been jailed for using the word "democracy".

But then that's another "dog bites man" story, and democracy is a dirty neocon word anyway, isn't it?

And the silence of the media and the sanctimonious left in the face of non-American tyranny is one of the oldest "dog bites man" stories around.

Murdoc:
It's a big story. It's been a big story from the start, and it deserved to be a big story. So any new developments get big story treatment.

I don't get the WSJ's outrage over this, I really don't. The fact that Americans are horrified over Abu Ghraib speaks well of us as a people. Do we want Americans indifferent to torture carried out in their name? Should they have yawned? When we run stories on Abu Ghraib we express American revulsion at what a small group of American soldiers did. We send a message to the world and to other potential melefactors. We define ourselves as a nation.

And, Frontinus, while I didn't exactly understand your red-faced screed, yes, we are better than that. We are the United States. We are the last best hope of the human race. We are the radicals of freedom, the cutting edge of liberty, the defenders of law and justice, the tribunes of the oppressed, so damn right we're better than torture. We're not the Russians or the Chinese or the Saudis or the Cubans, we are the Americans.

The Media and Dems are GWB's best friends.

At a time when the Nation has moved to the Right decisively, "the hell with them hawks" or "rubble doesn't make trouble" attitudes (something like 43% or so support unilateral US military strikes on Iran NOW with no discussion about it), Media and Dems bail GWB out.

Bush faces trouble on the RIGHT. Where people perceive (accurately IMHO) Muslims as an existential threat bent on killing or converting America by force. We've had another "final warning" by Al Qaeda threatening two big mass casualty attacks.

It might be bluster, it might be a phony war before the real one (designed to make us drop our guard), it might be the real thing. Who knows? But it makes the debate turn on how to best attack the enemy to defeat him, rather than win hearts and minds.

Russ Feingold is introducing a censure motion in the Senate on GWB over his listening in to Al Qaeda. At a backdrop of Iran's threats to nuke us and Israel, Muslims demanding we submit to Sharia over Cartoon Jihad, one-off terrorists of individual Muslims here in this country as a drip, drip, drip affair, and everyone waiting for the next big attack. While Dem think tanks assure us we can "live with" Iran's nukes.

GWB only holds as much power as he does because the opposition is insane and foolish in equal measures.

Michael,

No, we pretty clearly don't "all get that." Not when the guy who calls these people "minutemen" shares a stage at the Democratic convention, and has leading Democrats tout his Riefenstahlian movies. Or the idiots who think the USA wrapping people in Israeli flags or pretending to smear them with menstrual blood (which is actually magic marker) is "torture."

The nature of our enemies is highy, highly germane to issues of war and peace, and topics like the advisability of fighting such people in Iraq (or indeed, anywhere). It absolutely needs to be reinforced - but instead, the same lying double standard, evasions, and veils of silence we saw re: the Mohammed cartoons endsures that this information is consistently hidden and downplayed - when it is reported at all.

It's something that everyone absolutely should be thinking about, and a serious NEWS organization would understand that just as Abu Ghraib is important, so is making sure that the ongoing inhumanity of our Islamist enemies is a story that is told with equal unflinching honesty.

The failure of our media to even begin to approach this standard, and the lies about not wishing to offend Muslim sensitivities (which, of course, are forgotten instantly if there's a story about flushing Korans down toilets at Gitmo, or if the 1,573rd Abu Ghraib story is ready for print), make it pretty clear where large portions of the media stand. And it's absolutely fair to call them on it.

It wasn't a "red-faced screed" just the only response you deserved. Why is it whenever someone points out the disprarity in the MSM when it comes to barbarous behavoir there's always some ahole that has to intone "Thanks for setting the bar so low! We're better than Saddam/terrorists/Chicoms/etc. And Bush is the only reason there's any doubt about it. Blah blah blah"

So, you prefer dishonest* jingoism? And presumably the editors at the NYT would pick cultural relativism. Now it'd be nice if each stayed in his own sandbox. Are we incapable of doing anything unilaterally or are we paragons of virtue that mustn't do any wrong down to the last man, woman, and child of us? I'm sure I'm not the only person confused by the rhetoric of the left. But then again I've never had much favor for situational ethics. No doubt yet another of my many flaws. I'll place it right above the inability to ascribe to policy every single action of a service member.

• - You: "this administration has recklessly undercut the reputation of the US military" Good one there. Nice of you to out yourself with the Abu Ghraib = policy shibboleth.

Joe:
The people who don't get what Zarqawi is will never get it. They represent a tiny fringe, and that fringe, locked as they are in a delusion of their own making, won't be reached by moving the 50th (I believe it's about the 50th) beheading from A8 to A1. Is there some additional amount of evidence that might conceivably change the mind of any person who still doesn't quite get that Zarqawi et al are vicious murderers?

Supporters of this war -- and I am one -- are fooling themselves if they think that the MSM is to blame for declining support. It's a comforting old notion, but it's tired nonsense. The president has the bully pulpit, he can make news any day he likes, on any topic. That he has lost his ability to move public opinion is his own fault, not the fault of media, however imperfect an institution they are. This president has had five years now to establish his credibility with the American people. His credibility has declined because he has a habit of bs'ing people, of attacking every critic, of refusing to admit blatant errors, of rewarding incompetents and firing honest men.

And Frontinus, since you are evidently incapable of discussing issues like a grown-up, but must resort to name-calling, I think I'll avoid taking up any more of your time.

So do most people who call you out pamper you while doing it?

You're not the first to try to pawn off the shallow thought of government as counterweight to media. And as much as I hope you won't be the last either. But you can, if you wish, be the first to explain it to me. So please start with exactly how the administration is to balance against the media when by and large the media reports their statements. And just in case, out of desperation, you try to claim that pro-war media should be the conduit for the administration's angle can you please explain how a constituent part can act as an effective counterweight against the whole. Please include Venn Diagrams and a thorough explanation. Thanks again.

Was that nice enough? Maybe it was too grown-up. I can never get these things just right.

Oh, the administration bears much more than a little bit of blame for the present situation. Its aversion to making its cases in public, and an approach to domestic politics that does exactly what it says America must not do abroad (that is, consistently wait for dangers to gather while doing nothing), is a large part of the problem.

So, too, has been the GOP's consistent failure as a party to treat the war as a serious issue requiring its consistent attention at the grassroots level. Something that has changed only a little, and only recently.

So the media is not at all the only group at fault here.

But that doesn't erase the fact that there's an agenda at work, and that what we're getting from the media is not a group dedicated to informing us. That's a professional failing, and a serious one.

Calling them on it does not spare any of the folks named above from entirely deserved criticism as well, of course.

Just as the failings of others do not exempt the media itself from criticism.

OK, I've updated this piece. Feedback appreciated, Michael - and you can see it clearly in the additions.

Michael: "It's a big story." Okay, I'll buy that. It's a big story so it gets page one. Fair enough.

That must mean, though, that a US citizen kidnapped, held three months, tortured, killed, and dumped is not a big story then, right?

I don't want to put words into your mouth, so I want to make sure I understand what you're getting at.

New big story = Front Page
New info on old big story = Front page
Torture and killing of American = Page 10

If these three points are all correct as you seem to be saying, that must mean that the Fox story is not news. But that can't be right, can it?

Another you can add is Michael Yon:

Google Web: 1,970,000 hits

Google Blogs: 4,769 hits

Google News: 7 hits

Although, in all fairness if Google News reported the outlets that ran his famous photo without attribution or payment it'd be a lot higher.

You could also stick that Wallace-Jennings Frontline transcript in as well. Can never see that thing too often. It speaks well to the treatment of heterodoxy by the enlightened truth seekers.

Journalist Edward R. Murrow after the McCarthy broadcasts on See It Now, hosted with John Wayne a program on the dangers of Communism. Murrow also denounced in no uncertain terms Fidel Castro as a cruel and brutal dictator.

The media today covers for those who do brutal things like torture and murder a harmless peace activist, because they don't want people to think bad things about Muslims.

On the one hand you have Murrow who has no doubt on who's side he's on, America's, while reporting honestly the news. On the other, the agenda driven journalism ("no one must think badly of Muslims, for GWB is making somewhat of a war against Muslim terrorists er I mean freedom fighters!").

I'll add to your examples. It's late and I'm tired so I'm not going to look up the citation, but today on an NPR show I heard the Baghdad bureau chief, NYT, own the fact that the media -- his paper -- underreports good news out of Iraq.

Is the media unbalanced? Does the media decide what the story is and hew closely to that line, changing positions only with the lethargic response of an oil tanker pulling a U turn? Yes.

But it has always been so. I don't get terribly upset for the same reason that I don't get upset by gravity. I'm 51, I've lived through a number of wars, a number of scandals, a number of non-scandals, and a seemingly endless series of mediocre presidents. And in each and every case the media has been one-sided, lazy, unfair, sensationalistic, negative. Trying to find ideological bias is beside the point: the bias is in favor of laziness, of inertia, of conventional wisdom, and always, in support of the media's high opinion of itself.

This war and this president have not received bad press. Or, I would say yes, bad press, but not worse press. Bush is getting the same hammering that is delivered to everyone who lives in the WH. Nixon during Watergate, Carter during the hostage thing, Reagan during Iran Contra, Ford every time he walked down a set of stairs, Clinton constantly. If there's an agenda it's remarkably bi-partisan. Like gravity, the press is a constant. I'm sure you've read some of Lincoln's press.

On the particular story, was this a front page, above the fold story? Sorry, no. It was big the first dozen times. Nothing is front page the 50th time around. I'm very sorry for this man's family. But it is an A8 story. And you might want to consider that had the story been splashed across front pages, an awful lot of conservatives would have claimed it was an effort to show the dark side of the war. Another Zarqawi beheading does not, at this point, serve to rally people to defeat Zarqawi, I suspect it deepens their gloom and defeatism.

Mike makes a great point and it makes me wonder whether if the media as we know it died and was replaced by the blogo-whatever would it be any better? What happens when a majority get their news hit online? As blogs go today I definitely wouldn't be comfortable with that.

But for your examples I don't think they are germane unless you do not accept that we are at war. If you accept that then our options for comparison are limited. Let's look at pre-Watergate reporting on Vietnam for Nixon, Johnson and Kennedy. Anyone want to write the grant request?

As for Lincoln's press it was generally mocking him for not doing enough. Quite different than aping the Southern press' agitprop and calls for cutting and running like the Copperheads did. Might have a lot to do with Lincoln's imprisoning the group though so maybe not a good example.

As for pro-war people condemning front page reporting of the killing it would depend. Placement alone certainly isn't the issue. It's just a symptom. But everyone knew that already.

Joe,

Magic Marker is definitely torture.

It ought to be non-toxic water based tempra paint. With extra care to make sure none is accidently ingested.

One has to consider the toxcisity of the Magic Marker ink.

Joe - I'd like to leave my url but it is a blogsp0t url. Perhaps on your next code revision you could have an allowed list for some banned urls.

BTW thanks for the hint code. Very nice.

Frontinus:
The northern press in the civil war did call for more, except when they called for less. The northern press tended to support McClellan and they denounced Grant as a butcher. Many northern presses also pushed the copperhead side, which is far more treasonous than anything in current mainstream media.

The problem is not the media. The media are the media. They're a constant, like the speed of light. And I don't recall a lot of calls from the Right for the media to back off on Travelgate or Whitewater or Gennifer Flowers or Monica Lewinsky, even during various foreign policy crises.

It's a fight for principle only if people hold the MSM accountable regardless of whose ox is being gored. People who sit back contentedly and watch the MSM savage a political opponent surrender their standing for later complaints. If there's a principle at stake it's fairness and accuracy regardless of party, regardless of whether or not we are in a war. Long, bitter experience has led me to conclude that the number of people really interested in fairness and accuracy in all cases, across party lines, is disappearingly small.

Wish that wasn't the case. But it is.

" Not when the guy who calls these people "minutemen" shares a stage at the Democratic convention, and has leading Democrats tout his Riefenstahlian movies."

Michael Moore is a big fat idiot. I know. Calling Iraqi insurgents minute men was idiotic. OTOH I dont think even he was thinking of the AQniks. As our own military has pointed out, there are insurgents who are not AQniks. The actual connections among the different insurgent groups is complex, but showing that the Zarqonauts are evil doesnt really address that. And yeah, I think it was stupid for Kerry to fawn over Moore. He wasnt particularly thinking of that particular Moore quote when he did so. Honestly, do you really think Kerry approves of Zarqawi? Or are you disappointed that some folks would actually vote for Kerry, even though he associated with Mike Moore, even though Moore said Iraqi insurgents are minutemen, and Iraqi insurgents cooperate with zarqniks who commit torture? The guilt by association here is on par with that found on the left, by those who think anyone who supports Bush supports torture.

" Or the idiots who think the USA wrapping people in Israeli flags or pretending to smear them with menstrual blood (which is actually magic marker) is "torture.""

Sullivan? Who is quite aware of how evil the AQniks are. Look, if inhumane treatment methods hadnt been so widely abused, we could have gotten away with the above. But the really bad stuff led the kinda silly into bad associations.

Reynolds here is right. Get over it.

"Honestly, do you really think Kerry approves of Zarqawi? "

I dont and i honestly dont think Moore does either, however, I am quite sure that Moore will say nearly anything to discredit Bush and the fact that the Democratic party embraces such a person strongly suggests they are guilty of the same behavior. That is not good for America and anyone with any sense in that party would recognize that and distance themselves from demagogues instead of sitting them next to Jimmy Carter at the DNC. Thats bad for the party and having a rudderless major party is also bad for America.

"Look, if inhumane treatment methods hadnt been so widely abused, we could have gotten away with the above. But the really bad stuff led the kinda silly into bad associations. "

I dont know if that is true or not... this wasnt just the usual suspects at Amnesty Intl there were major figures like Dick Durbin comparing Guantanimo to Gulags. Had he said it about field interrogations in Afghanistan or Iraq he might have not made such a fool of himself but mixing up Guantanimo with Abu Ghraib at its worst is the kind of thing that blows your credibility. Too much of this comes back to context- a soldier in the field that holds a gun to a bad guys head for information that could save his life in the next 15 seconds isnt in the same level as sleep deprevation which isnt the same as some sort of systematic torture over long periods people NVA style. Critics have failed to make their case because they cant or wont differentiate these extremes. Andrew Sullivan seems to get equally apoplectic at dousing somebody with water while blasting Britney Spears at them, and breaking their ribs with a rubber hose. Thats not conducive to an intelligent conversation.

michael reynolds:

On the particular story, was this a front page, above the fold story? Sorry, no. It was big the first dozen times. Nothing is front page the 50th time around. I'm very sorry for this man's family. But it is an A8 story.

Well, if "nothing is front page the 50th time around", then why does the 50th or 100th or 1000th Abu Ghraib story merit front page treatment? Fox was a new victim in a separate beheading incident; the unending Abu Ghraib stories are rehashing a limited set of incidents that happened years ago. The story on Fox is only the second time I've heard mention of him in the news, whereas everyone has heard the Abu Ghraib debacle in excrutiating detail. How does the latter merit higher "newsworthiness" than the former, except in the BDS-addled minds of the NYT editors?

You made a fair point about every President receiving bad press, and about the nature of the press (post-Watergate, anyways) in general. But the thing to remember is, America is fighting a war that is only half-waged with physical means; the other half of the conflict is a media war. liberalhawk made this point already, but it's still amazing to see that the true nature of the WoT is often glossed over.

Simply put, terrorism is a military strategy inextricably bound up with manipulation of the media and public perception; it differs from traditional guerilla warfare in that it does not depend on actual military successes to attain victory, but only the appearance of success. When Lincoln fought the Civil War, he didn't need to project a warm fuzzy image in the press in order to win; he "only" needed to gain more ground than he lost. Bush must do both, and the fifth-column press arrayed against him is causing serious problems with real-world impact on the actual War itself. If terrorists can conflate a string of low-yield car bombs into "total chaos and disorder" in the press, they score a victory--even if more terrorists died that day than civilians.

Bottom line: we're fighting a war of words, i.e. words are the actual weapons of war, and certain institutions playing artilleryman for the other side. I'm not saying we should jail discordant journalists a la Lincoln, or that the press should be muzzled; but it'd be nice if they stopped trying so damned hard to tank their own nation's efforts.

I guess if I lie to a coworker about where I had lunch it's tantamount to lying about well-known genocides. They are both lies afterall and deserving of equal condemnation. Apparently.

If the media are a constant then I guess their coverage of the run-up to the Iraq war really was an aberration. Whudda thunk it.