This evening CNN’s top story has a report showing that roughly half of gun death’s comes from suicide. The headline blatantly states the Supreme Court ruling implying obviously that this ruling will affect suicide rates. I probably would not thought much of it but Personal Responsibility points out that MSNBC is running with this story as well. Technically speaking this story does not constitute news. This is just a reporter stitching together a bunch of facts to make a point. And it’s virtually impossible to not take away what the reporter is trying to say. Thanks to the Supreme Court affirming our constitutional right to bear arms more people will kill themselves.

This is not good journalism. This is opinion masquerading around as journalism. Just about the only good thing that comes out of theses opinion pieces is that they betray the news organization’s political bias. In this case, it’s obvious that CNN leans left on gun control. They selected an opinion piece as news that casts gun rights in a bad light. They could of just easily selected an opinion piece that casts gun rights in a positive light by stitching together facts and anecdotes of people using firearms to protect themselves.

How many times have I heard someone that leans left bemoan the bias of Fox news. Often times it because Fox news features one of these fake new reports. Of course the difference between the news organizations is that Fox makes up news for the right and CNN and the rest of them make up news for the left. When Fox does it’s not true but when CNN does its the ‘truth’.

More bad news in Iraq. May marks the grimmest month in terms of numbers since MSM began covering the war:

Yesterday ended the month with the fewest Coalition casualties since nearly the beginning of the war in Iraq. There were only about 20 combat-related deaths during the entire month of May. Hopefully portending even better things to come, only about five of those deaths occurred during the final two weeks of the month.

It isn’t about body counts, however, since one way to ensure a low casualty rate is to sequester American forces on forward operating bases. What makes the statistic even more impressive is that the low death total came even as the operational tempo was as busy as ever.

The lack of coverage on such numbers has some experts questioning the objectivity of MSM editors. Some even suggesting that perhaps their coverage has been biased.

Marc Ambinder argues had McCain made the mistake Obama made, that the press coverage would of been much more extensive.

What do you think. I tend to agree.

Jamie emails:

…. That you haven’t been dutifly reporting how the media (mainly fox news) has been playing portions of a speech (Wright’s sermons) intended to smear a candidate, even though portions of the speech have been taken completely out of context. This is clearly the media tryint to steer politics. I thought you were against such things.

Sorry Jamie, I don’t watch Fox News. Its way to bias for my tastes. You want to talk about bias you should read CNN some time. Or perhaps NPR or, obviously, the NYtimes. Compared to those guys Fox News is a bunch of amateurs.

This piece does a fine job of capturing my sentiment towards the news media’s current attitude toward covering the Iraq war.

Guitar Heroes chronicles the bravery of a group of American soldiers, Kiowa helicopter pilots that often engage terrorist cells at near rooftop level, at ranges so close that pilots engage the insurgents below them with rifles instead of rockets. You won’t read many stories such as these in the New York Times or USA Today. More than willing to publish one story after another alleging how our military and our soldiers are being broken, these national media outlets seem loath to print the stories of heroism and success being written by American and Iraqi patriots.

These same media organizations devoted thousands of column inches to an anti-war radical in August of 2005 for the simple act of sitting on a ditchbank in Crawford, Texas to protest the war. The coverage these news organizations afforded Cindy Sheehan has rarely been afforded supporters of the war, even those that have a far more informed firsthand opinion that most anti-war activists lack.

Cindy Sheenhan get hours and hours and columns and columns of coverage but the positive things about the war scarcely sees the front page. History will look very poorly on the way news organization covered this war. Very poorly.

This is going to leave a mark.

Are insurgents affected by information on US casualty sensitivity? Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an “emboldenment” effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about U.S news after public statements critical of the war. We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent. The results suggest that insurgent groups respond rationally to expected probability of US withdrawal. As such counterinsurgency should consider deterrence and incapacitation rather than simply search and destroy missions.

Science shows that democrats are bad for the war in Iraq. Given that its science, and therefore true, it seems wise to implement federal regulation censoring voices critical of the war. Its like global warming. If science shows its true, then its okay to infringe on people’s rights.

Let the hell storm begin.

This CNN story attempts to drum up outrage over federal monuments not receiving enough protection.

The federal police force responsible for protecting the Washington Monument, the Statue of Liberty and other national icons is understaffed, under-equipped, under-trained and demoralized, according to an assessment that echoes earlier studies.

If CNN succeeds in getting legislation passed that increases this departments budget, and in turn, an increase in the federal budget, CNN should have to pay a portion of that cost. Why is legislation that forces companies that externalize costs through dumping pollution forced to pay those costs when media organizations are not forced to pay for costs they externalize. This seems to be a prime example of media organization trying to fabricate controversy to increases readership at the cost of likely political action which will cost money. They should have to cover a portion of that cost.

Max boot writes an extensive report on the current situation in Iraq. He covers the good, the bad, and potential problems. This is the closest thing you will get to objective journalism. This writer clearly cares about Iraq which drives him to be as honest as possible about the situation.

Simply put, people that view the war as necessary are more likely to cover it objectively than the MSM which does not view the war as necessary.

I highly recommend you read through it. If not just so you can get a better picture as to what I mean by good journalism.

Michael responds to a previous post which reflects his bias:

And of course the media was going to play up the negative aspects of the war, seeing as how the whole thing was unnecessary to begin with.

You were one of those people that didn’t believe Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction despite his intentional efforts to fool the Iranians into thinking he did. President Bush clearly did not see it that way. Given the intelligence at the time, he felt action was necessary. It easy to say Saddam didn’t have weapons of mass destruction when its not your job to make sure none of those non extant weapons find there way into the country and kills thousands of people. When faced with the responsibility of protecting the citizenry there is a really good chance what you view as necessary and unnecessary will change.

You were not alone in thinking the war was unnecessary. Within journalism there is a large concentration of people that agree with you that the war was unnecessary. This belief clearly had an effect on coverage turning off large groups of people that didn’t believe the war was unnecessary.

The NYtimes serves as a fine example of showing how the staff’s bias led to coverage focused on the negative aspects of the war. This news organization put on the front page of its newspapers the Abu Ghraib story for forty four days in a row. Forty Four days it was on the front page. Recently the newspaper did a huge piece erroneously ‘reporting’ that vets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan were more likely to kill. The people that made decision about this being ‘news’ agree with you that the war was unnecessary.

This fucking paper, to my knowledge, has never had a single fucking story about any, just any, of the heroics any of our soldiers have displayed while fighting brutal terrorist that enjoy sawing people’s head off. Even when the war was at it’s ugliest, none of the MSM took any time to show the valor or bravery of our soldiers. Astoundingly returning soldiers complained about the disconnect between the press’s war in Iraq and the war in Iraq they were fighting.

I have read about the selfless act of our soldiers in Iraq. Not from CNN, which published our enemies propaganda sniping OUR OWN FUCKING soldiers. Not from NYtimes, which ‘broke’ the story of the secret intelligence program which had extensive legislative and judicial oversight. No its not the MSM were I go to get actual information on the war in Iraq. If I wanted to hear the stories that come from people that see the war as necessary I read pro war bloggers that actually bothered, to you know, go to Iraq. It was here where I read about the heroics of our soldiers. It was here were I read about the sacrifice Iraq has made to transform a despot into a democracy.

By the way, these pro war bloggers were significantly more objective than any piece of shit report I ever read on CNN or NYtimes. It turns out when you see something as necessary you are more likely to give sobering accounts of it. The pro war bloggers were ahead of the MSM curve in reporting on how the aspects of the war were being mismanaged. I read first from them that country was heading into sectarian war months before the MSM go their slimy hands on that development. Those that believed the war was necessary reported both good and bad news and in the process gave a much more objective picture of the war.

I have know for years that the press leans left which leads to skewed reporting. For the most part I have accepted this problem. However, when it came to this war it’s biased coverage made me irate. This was because it was stated policy of our enemies to kill as many civilians as possible to get the top story coverage which, it was hoped, would then result in political pressure to pull out of the war.

It was the explicit strategy of Al Qaeda to use our news organization against us to generate the pressure needed to get us to retreat from Iraq.

Knowing this how did CNN, NYtimes and the rest of the MSM respond? By only covering and giving top headlines to the death and destruction Al Qaeda was creating in the country. Indirectly the MSM was complicit in assisting our enemies in succeeding in Iraq. And you know what, it almost worked. The MSM and Al Qaeda almost beat the US Military in Iraq. Fortunately we had a leader wise enough to see what was going on between the press coverage and our enemies and he stood steadfast against the intense political demands for retreat. Since he saw the war as necessary he was willing to make changes when he saw that was needed irrespective of Al Qaeda and the MSM attempts to force his hand.

Many citizen became wise to MSM complicity with our enemies. As a consequence we see many people indicating there unhappiness with the way the press covered the war. This seems obvious, when your coverage harms your own military and helps your enemies then readers are going to turn away from you as a credible new source.

Like you Michael, the MSM saw the war as unnecessary, and this lead to an alliance between Al Qaeda and our press. Ironically, Al Qaeda most certainly saw the war as necessary and fortunately, for the sake of our country, so did George Bush and the countless citizens who saw the war as necessary.

Over at Instapundit I think Glen Reynolds gets it right:

MILITARY VETERANS AND MURDER: Fact-checking the New York Times.

If you published a similarly anecdotal and unfounded piece about black people and murder, the NYT would call you a racist.