If you've been watching for stories from our service people from Iraq, you will notice a theme. Many of them express disappointment that the media in the U.S. is only reporting the negative. Our military is over there literally birthing a new nation, but the only news we hear about is the latest attack, or the latest demonstration.
We hear over and over on the news, and from our politicians that the mission is a "failure". (I swear Nancy Pelosi on Bill Maher's show last Friday almost made me gag.) There's no regard for the realities of the difficulty of nation building, the time involved, and no one in the mainstream media is making the effort to report on the positives. (See my previous post here with concern about the bias from members of congress upon return from a visit to Iraq. See the report of the Gallup Poll here that says two thirds of Iraqis say freedom was worth it, (NYT registration required.)
Imagine how frustrating it would be to be over there helping people, getting schools open, repairing the neglected infrastructure, and no one will report it.
It really shouldn't surprise us. Look at your local evening news. If you were to judge your city based on their reporting you would think the only thing that ever happened in your city was criminal.
Let me finally get to the point.
Frank J. of IMAO came up with a great idea. One of the things bloggers do well is to follow the news. What if we make it our mission to tell the positive side of what our military is doing in an organized way, AND pursue the U.S. media to report the positive along with the negative?
This could be the beginning of something great. I really believe there's enough people who care and who have the motivation and skill to make a difference. Could this be the beginning of blogs having a more direct impact on what we see on the news?
You can find the original posts detailing what we want to accomplish here, here, here, and here.
The site to post verified, first hand accounts from people in Iraq or Afghanistan will be Frontlinevoices.org. Bookmark it and get the word out.
The site that's been set up to organize the project is now here. If you have a blog, publicize it. If you have time to help, ideas on how to proceed, contacts in the media, etc., this is the place to coordinate our efforts, to volunteer to help.
Let's support our troops by telling both sides of what's going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.
DC
P.S. See my next post for an example of POSITIVE reporting. Does FOX read blogs?
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