Why Can't the Media Focus on the Good News?

I mean, a wallet can be seen as half full OR half empty--unless it's completely empty, in which case, um, I guess you can discuss the, um, opportunities, yes, opportunities that come from not having to wake up every morning and get to the office. Of course, it's can be a little difficult to pay for food, rent, and other luxuries under those circumstances--but you could always hire on for big bucks in Iraq.

Speaking of Iraq, our military is reporting phenomenal success in killing--up to 300 in Najaf. That must be good news, right? Anyone who considers that this number is indicative of a large scale resistance just isn't focusing on the good news. For instance, Robert Fisk clearly isn't focusing on the good news when he writes this:

The war is a fraud. I’m not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa’ida which didn’t exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I’m talking about the new lies.

For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist. Much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America’s puppet government in Baghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US troops every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This month’s death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 - the worst month since the invasion ended. But we are not told...

Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn’t Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn’t Bush realise this? The American-appointed "government" controls only parts of Baghdad - and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the "Prime Minister", is little more than mayor of Baghdad. "Some journalists," Blair announces, "almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq." He doesn’t get it. The disaster exists now.

Today in Iraq isn't focusing on the good news when it points out that Algeria, Libya, Bangladesh, and Pakistan rejected a Saudi proposal for an international peacekeeping force in Iraq working alongside the US occupation. Apparently, these four countries also aren't focusing on the good news--they seem to think Iraq is a disaster in the making.

The media is no longer focusing on the good news either. Paul Krugman cites Matthew Yglesias's contention in American Prospect that Iraq since the "transfer" has been Afghanistanized--the media pretty much ignore it now (minus flareups like the glorious victory over the forces of darkness in Najaf--well, the soon-to-be-glorious-victory in Najaf. Sort of like the victory over Sadr last April).

Ah, if only the media would focus on the good news--whatever the good news is supposed to be...