American Media Wars over Iraq coverage

Media Matters - O'Reilly: CNN, MSNBC "delight in showing Iraqi violence" and "are actually helping the terrorists"

The American Fox Network - "fair and balanced", yeah right - is well known for its patriotic support of Dubya and the American debacle in Iraq, but now the wonderful Bill O'Reilly has had a go at his colleagues on other networks over their Iraq coverage.

The fight was triggered by some research that Fox shows less footage of Iraq and covers less Iraq-related news than some of the other networks. This might come as a surprise to many, but the logic is quite simple: If your side's losing the war, bury the news in other stuff and boost other news that puts your guys in a better light.

O'Reilly's response was to blame the other networks for over-cooking the Iraq story and taking some delight in covering the war because it puts Bush in a bad light. When your light's that sh*tty, it's good to keep it out of sight under a big bushel barrel.

Here's a sample of Bungle-Oh Bill's reasoning:

Discussing the study during the June 12 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio program, O'Reilly claimed: "The terrorists are going to set off a bomb every day, because they know CNN and MSNBC are gonna put it on the air. That's a strategy for the other side, the terrorist side. So I'm taking an argument that CNN and MSNBC are actually helping the terrorists by reporting useless explosions." O'Reilly later stated: "I'm not gonna cover every bomb that goes off in Tikrit, because it's meaningless."

Yeah, meaningless in the context of the Bush regime's total denial that it's responsible -- "now look at the mess you've gotten us into, George," -- for the daily horror of Baghdad and Tikrit. It's the old "oxygen of publicity" argument, which I've never been that fond of.
It goes something like, the media's responsible for terrorism because they give the terrorists what they want - the "oxygen" of publicity. This is based on the mistaken assumption that the terrorists don't have any kind of legitimate political agenda, which the anti-imperialists in Iraq certainly do.

I admit that Islamic fundamentalism is a problem, it's a politically-bankrupt ideology that cannot ultimately lead to the real liberation of Iraq, but I also work off the principle that a defeat for US imperialism -- by any means necessary to paraphrase Malcolm X -- is good for the planet as a whole.

We can deal with the Imams once Bush is out of the way.

Here's some more of Malcolm. For the record, he was murdered by members of the Nation of Islam, he was not a deeply religious Muslim, he was killed because he had broken politically with Elijiah Mohammed:

"If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us, and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country."
-- Speech, Nov. 1963, New York City.