Nominal Americans

American journalists are not on our side. This is no secret; in a hypothetical raised by an interviewer, Mike Wallace infamously stated that he would not warn American troops of an impending ambush.

If the UN decided to offer "international citizenship", how many American journalists would jump at the chance to renounce their US ties?

From MSNBC:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A CBS News correspondent injured by a car bomb that killed two colleagues in Iraq was in critical but stable condition and “doing as well as can be expected,” a doctor at a U.S. military hospital said Tuesday.

In the eighth paragraph it is finally mentioned that Dozier's crew, both Brits, were killed in the blast, and oh, by the way, an unidentified American soldier and an Iraqi translator died as well.

Here is Kimberley Dozier explaining to Howard Kurtz why only half of the news, the bad half, is reported from Iraq:

DOZIER: Well, the other thing is, if say I spent the day covering a hospital opening, an American civil affairs project that they had been working on for some time, and then on that very same day there is a massive car bombing somewhere in the country, what do I report? The hospital opening, or the fact that many Americans and many Iraqis just lost their lives? There is that factor going on.

Also, when you look at it from the Iraqis' perspective, you can have, as has happened, 100 different hospitals and schools opened in this city alone. A lot of American money being put to good use, but 10 suicide car bombs that affect their neighborhoods or kill someone they know, that almost erases in their minds a lot of the good that the American coalition is doing. And that's what the American military is up against here.

Unfortunately, Dozier never found the time to report on things like hospital openings and such, even on days when massive bombings didn't occur. Hospital openings and such just don't fit the memes established by the mainstream media. Correspondents just don't file such stories.

That's why CENTCOM is a more reliable news source than any of the major American outlets. Their press releases cover the entire story, good and bad. Ironically, the military reports much more of the real news than does the mainstream media.

This one-sided reporting has its consequences, among them, the encouragement of the terrorist insurgency and the lowering of our own troops' morale. Islamist terrorists are avid followers of Western journalism, and know how to make reporters dance like puppets at a Punch and Judy show. Thus, in some measure, Dozier was hoist by her own petard.

It will be nice if Dozier recovers fully from her injuries, but, to be honest about it, my true sympathies lie with the unnamed soldier and the unidentified Iraqi translator who died. These men were on my side. Dozier and her crew, reporting half the story in pursuit of glory and six figure salaries, were not.