NBC's Jim Maceda: Troops Blame Reporters for Negative Iraq News

I caught Maceda's report on the local noon news. After explaining that the troops he's been embedded with (who are on their second tour in Iraq) DO NOT support Democratic calls for a pullout from Iraq, Maceda reported that the troops blame the mainstream media for painting an inaccurate, pessimistic picture. Talk about man bites dog, honesty from an NBC reporter? We'll have to see if Maceda gets fired. And, if his story makes the Nightly News, instead of just the Black Friday noon report.

Mark Finkelstein at Newsbusters has more on what may be a small trend, including instances of Matt Lauer faulting Dem politicos for political antics:

On successive days, Matt Lauer criticized the Democrats for trying to make political hay out of Iraq without offering any alternatives of their own.

Strangely, sanity has seemingly struck again. And this in the most unlikely person of NBC reporter Jim Maceda, who only last week, as I reported here was carping that the French were not appeasing their Muslim rioters assiduously enough.

This morning, Maceda was in Iraq interviewing US troops. He summarized their message in this blunt and refreshing way: "these soldiers think the politicians who want to pull out quickly are dead wrong."

Maybe NBC's market research has convinced them that their campaign against the Bush administration (nightly Katrina updates and anything bad from Iraq) isn't helping to build market share.

Update: NBC back to normal
Maceda's story of troops who are positive about their mission and negative about biased mainstream media coverage was spiked in favor of a video from al Qaeda. Typical MSM, pass on al Qaeda's messages while gagging American troops.