Iraq On PBS

After another morning of listening to the latest litany of car bombings on Morning Edition and having that passed off as news coverage of Iraq, I'm fed up and must vent. To make matters worse an in-depth piece on Iraq was similarly focused on the negative side of the conflict: post traumatic stress disorder among returning female soldiers. Sprinkled in with this story was a discussion about the killing of children to protect oneself and one's comrades against an ambush setup. Don't get me wrong. Car bombings, civilian deaths and traumatized soldiers are part of this story; traumatized soldiers and civilian deaths, at least, would be part of any war story. But when this is the just about the only faire being served up day after day, one gets mentally malnourished and hungry for a well-rounded meal.

I listen to NPR almost every weekday morning and afternoon and the best I can recollect I've only heard one in-depth piece that I would consider to be telling the "positive" side of the story over a span of two years of war coverage. Ironically it told the story of several GIs who returned from Iraq frustrated by the news coverage here and how none of the good being accomplished by our soldiers is getting any exposure. I can still recall the feelings I had, that sense of almost, well, shock that I was hearing something like this on NPR. Was I accidentally tuned to a different station? Momentarily a little bit of my faith in the balance and objectivity of Public radio was restored. That didn't last long under the bad news barrage of the ensuing days and weeks. Imagine the opinion one would have of California if all one ever heard was the latest inner-city gang killings headlined in the evening news?

My more cynical side says that I'm confronting the journalistic legacy of Vietnam. Heck, if a war waged by the most powerful army on earth could be stopped by sapping the resolve of the American public, why not another? That's powerful, seductive stuff for a member of the media. And if you're personally against the war, as I'm sure most all NPR journalists are, who could possibly resist another drink of that potent punch? Hmm, I sense my cynical side convincing me again. I suspect that future Pentagon war planners would do well to include our illustrious Fourth Estate into their pre-war analysis of enemy strengths and weaknesses.

But NPR shouldn't be let off the hook so flippantly. The stakes here are too high to just dismiss this as a kind of (media) boys will be (media) boys issue. People--lots of them, including our own men and women--are dying and being maimed for life. Undercutting the war effort by chipping away at public support through one-sided coverage is the best gift imaginable to the enemy fighters currently blasting and hacking their way across Iraq and can only embolden them to fight on and fight harder, and among the worst offenses perpetrated against our soldiers. To consistently tell only one side of a major story amounts to not really telling the story at all. Other descriptors such as journalistic malpractice and propaganda also come to mind. And immoral.

Perhaps, I said foolishly, all NPR needs is to be reminded that there is an enormous other side to this story that they've overlooked. You can't fight a war without heroism, but can you remember a single hero, American or otherwise, military or civilian, acclaimed by the media for an act of courage in or out of combat? Hey NPR, how about a series featuring the unsung heroes of this conflict, both Iraqi and coalition? You've got plenty of material to work with here. There are literally thousands of true modern day heroes in this conflict who are risking their lives daily to give birth to a new, free Iraq, from kids who turn in their "insurgent" fathers, to soldiers who exhibit valor on the battlefield or while helping under fire to rebuild schools, clinics and water systems, to expats who leave safe, comfortable lives in the West and return to offer their skills toward the rebuilding effort, to the Pat Tillmans who volunteer for this war or for redeployment out of a desire to protect and serve their country.

Need more ideas, NPR? How about an in-depth look at enemy tactics in this war, complete with some justifiable outrage over the use of women and children, hospitals and mosques, or the effort to gain mileage out of any civilian casualties whether actually caused by coalition forces or not? Or how about the many signs of an Iraqi society coming back to life after years of brutal tyranny, such as a burgeoning free press, couples lining up to marry in record numbers, or the proliferation of internet access, satellite TV, homegrown blogs and cell phones? How about it NPR?