Why I hate them
By Tino
Mark Yost, writer for St. Paul Pioneer Press recently critized media coverage of Iraq as slanted and overly negative. He was viciously attacked by his peers. One Co-worker wrote an angry piece ending with “I am embarrassed to call you my colleague.”. Steve Lovelady, managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review Daily, accused him of having "tur[ed] on his Knight Ridder colleagues" And Clark Hoyt, the Washington Editor of the same paper wrote:
“Yost asks why you don't read about progress being made in the power grid... Maybe it's because there is no progress. Iraqis currently have electricity for an average of nine hours a day. A year ago, they averaged 10 hours of electricity.”
Well, today while aimlessly googling I discovered poor Mark Yost was in fact right about the progress on electricity. Accourding the Brookings Institutes Iraq Index the hours of electricity this month are estimated at 13.3 hours, well above the 10 hours last year. The Average of mega watt hours (MWH) was 111,400, the highest number recorded and 17% above prewar figures.
There is more in this, having to do economic illitracy of people like Clark Hoyt. In Iraq electricity is heavily subsidized. The reason they have blackouts is not only insufficient production, but that prices aren't allowed to adjust demand. While the supply of electricity has increased from 80.000 MWH in the beginning of 2004 to 110.000 today, demand has exploded from slightly over 100.000 MWH to 160.000 MWH. To me an increase in demand of this magnitude is a sign of progress, not stagnation or decline as presented by much of the media.
Hoyt also writes that “The unemployment rate is between 30 percent and 40 percent”. Oddly, he neglects to mention that the unemployment level was some 50-60% in late 2003, and has declined steadily since. While it is true that oil exports have not yet reached their pre-war peak, even here there has been solid progress, with exports at 1.7 million barrels per day in July (Brookings states the pre-war level at 1.7-2.5). He also uses the raise in Hepatitis B as a general indicator of the situation in Iraq, without mentioning that most of the increase was from 2002-2003, before the war (rational expectation among the virus?)
Clark Hoyts is a defeatist, and has therefore been hailed by his colleges as someone who 'actually know[s] what's going on in Iraq', unlike Mark Yost who sees progress. The title of Hoyts article is “Sadly, there is little good news to report from Iraq" Uh huh. Let me state a few figures from the Brookings report, a click away for anyone who is truly curious about the situation in Iraq.
Much has been written about failure to disburse the 20 billion dollars in American aid to Iraq. Well, I am happy to report that 9.5 billion $ have now been disbursed, compared to only 3.9 billion $ in January 2005. Perhaps this deserves a mention in page 14 after the pet-adoption adds? Meanwhile, the number Iraqi police have increased by 59% from January 2005, while total Iraqi security forces have increased by 37% (125.000 to 172.000).
Car traffic is up by +400% compared to prewar levels. The number of free TV-stations have tripled since January 2005, from 10 to 29. Independent newspapers and magazines have gone from 100 in January to 170 in July, and commercial radio stations from 51 in January to 80 in May. Of course, before the war the number was 0, 0, 0 (but as we know during Saddam everyone who wanted a job was given one, and there was no such thing as torture in Abu Ghraib).
Iraq had 0.8 million Telephone subscribers before the war, 2.4 million by January 2005 and 3.8 million today. A modest increase of +356%, I am sure not newsworthy according to the high standards of Knight Rider Newspaper. Meanwhile, the number of Internet subscribers (not including use of internet cafes) has exploded from prewar 4.500 to 147.000 by March of 2005.
This year Iraqs economy is growing faster than Chinas, with expected 10-12% GDP growth in 2005. Economic growth is not an abstraction, but the sum of individual progress. The impressive growth mean that proves you have progress “on the ground” (as illustrated above). Instead of reporting on this and the journalists attacking Mark Yost make it sound like people cannot walk outside their home without being blown to pieces.
Mr Hoyt, The Washington editor of a large newspaper, has a compleatly bizarre explanation for the skewed reporting. You see, Mark Yost got his information from the US military, who were too afraid to go outside and see the reality in Iraq. Unlike the brave journalists that is (not a joke)
“The "unfiltered news" Yost gets from his military friends is in fact filtered by their isolation in the Green Zone and on American military bases from the Iraqi population, an isolation made necessary by the ferocity of the insurgency.”
Are the Iraqis themselves also ‘shielded from reality’ in his view? Again, the figures contradict the subjective perception of these journalists. In fact, the already respectable “Right Direction” figure for Iraq is increasing, from 49% in January to 67% in April. Even (actually especially) among Sunnis the right direction figure has gone from only 15% in January to 49% in April.
Let me give you a simple test of media bias. Ask the Iraqi “right track-wrong track” question from American reporters, the Military and the general population. The Iraqis themselves are of course the norm, any deviation from their answers is indication of bias. What results would you expect?
Uppdate:
I incorrectly wrote that "Jeff Jarvis accused him of having ‘turned on his colleagues’". He did no such thing, he only qouted a letter from Lovelady on his homepage. My mistake, and sincere apologize to Mr. Jarvis.
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