From The Telegraph:Why is it that the BBC is totally incapable of delivering a straight good news story on Iraq? The news that the Iraqi government is opening its oil fields for development by international companies should be an occasion for rejoicing.
Iraq has the second largest known oil reserves in the world - and only about one third of the country has been properly surveyed. At a time when the world is desperately short of oil, and prices have hit an all-time high, Iraq could help alleviate the pressure on the West's hard-pressed economies.
Read more ....
Update: Baghdad sees tentative rebirth -- BBC News
My Comment: I started this blog because I was finding a disconnect between what I was reading from the major networks and newspapers on Iraq and Afghanistan, and what I was reading from the blogs and personal who are active in the field.
Digging more into this difference of reporting, I quickly found that the main stream media were no longer involved in reporting on the news, but were more involved in pursuing their own ideology and agenda. In case after case, many documented within this blog and others, I found that a storyline that was pursued by the main stream media became absent weeks later when the "real news" of what actually happened came out (the Haditha acquitals is probably a prime example). In other cases, bad news for the U.S. or its allies was dragged on for months (prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib), but Al Qaeda and Bathist torture chambers, mass graves, using civilians as shields, as well as bombing and deliberately attacking civilians was left out or received a passing reference. Good news from the U.S. and its allies also received a passing reference or were completely ignored, and the heroes .... soldiers who were awarded the Medal of Honor .... soldiers who sacrificed their lives for their comrades .... were ignored completely.
In the U.K., it was the extreme elements of the Labor Party, with their allies in the BBC and elsewhere that tried to present their own worse version of what was happening in Iraq. In the U.S., the left of the Democratic Party banked on defeat and used their allies in the main stream media to push this agenda. In Canada, it was the Liberal and NDP allies in the main stream media that pushed this story.
What no one in the main stream media and political opponents expected was that the surge would succeed. That the people of Iraq actually do not want to be under the thumb of Al Qaeda, Bathist dead-enders or Iran ..... that they would prefer to join with the U.S. military to track down and eliminate these groups. The expectation was that the U.S. President, the U.S. military, and the Iraqi people would not have the will to pursue the fight and to win. Well ..... the media was wrong.
The consequences on the main stream media will be long term in its impact. For many of tis users the perception (now) is that the major news networks and newspapers only carry their own message and are not interested in hosting opposite points of view. The alienation of a major part of this audience will result in the loss of this audience. Advertising revenues, readership, viewership ..... these stats for the networks can only go down now. My only hope is that some of the news media will change when their pocketbooks start to hurt ..... that they will go back to what they should be .... reporters.
But I am skeptical.