It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

DOES NEGATIVE MEDIA COVERAGE OF IRAQ ENCOURAGE THE ENEMY? Congressman Jim Marshall thinks so (though blogger Josh Marshall disagrees). Glenn Instapundit Reynolds agrees with the congressman, not the blogger:

Congressman Jim Marshall (whom Josh originally misidentified as a Republican) saying that negative media coverage is getting our troops killed. But Marshall the Congressman, and a Vietnam vet, was there, and thinks negative publicity is encouraging the Baathist holdouts to believe that they can pull a Mogadishu and get the United States to pull out. Marshall the pundit might want to ponder the possibility that reflexive media negativity, counted on by our foes to advance their plans, might actually, you know, advance their plans.

It's not the reporting of criticisms or bad things that's the issue -- the first-person accounts I link below all have criticisms and negative information. It's the lazy Vietnam-templating, the "of course America must be losing" spin, the implicit and sometimes explicit sneer, and the relentless bringing to the fore of every convenient negative fact while suppressing the positive ones that's the issue. It's what the terrorists are counting on, and it's what too many in the media are happy to deliver, because they think it'll hurt Bush.

I would tend to agree with Prof. Reynolds though I would add a cautionary note that it is not too big a leap to move from: "let's be sure to report the good side of the American occupation of Iraq as well as the bad side" to "let's report only the good side (so as not to aid the Baathist holdouts and Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq)." It is a fine line indeed and a difficult one to walk.