Iraqi Election Coverage
This will stay at the top of the stack through the Iraq election cycle.
I'm telling you this as someone who gets his paycheck every other Thursday from the mainstream U.S. media. From someone who sits at a desk five days a week giving 100,000 readers their daily fix of Associated Press and New York Times:
Don't follow the Iraq election in the U.S. newspapers or on the network news.
I'm not saying close your eyes to them. But if that's all you're seeing, you're not going to know much. You might as well watch a fireworks show through a pinhole camera or see a sunrise in black and white.
Instead, supplement your watching/reading and get a priceless look at this historic, tumultuous event at the Friends of Democracy: Ground Level Election News From the People of Iraq Web site sponsored by Spirit of America.
Michael Totten, one of the best bloggers out there, is in the slot.
He promises "a flurry of election reports" over the weekend.
By availing yourself of this invaluable service, you'll amaze your friends, baffle you enemies, and dodge the Damning But, which is a media-fied version of Pee Wee Herman's "Big But" theory -- you know, "into every life, a big 'but' must fall."
I'm telling you this as someone who gets his paycheck every other Thursday from the mainstream U.S. media. From someone who sits at a desk five days a week giving 100,000 readers their daily fix of Associated Press and New York Times:
Don't follow the Iraq election in the U.S. newspapers or on the network news.
I'm not saying close your eyes to them. But if that's all you're seeing, you're not going to know much. You might as well watch a fireworks show through a pinhole camera or see a sunrise in black and white.
Instead, supplement your watching/reading and get a priceless look at this historic, tumultuous event at the Friends of Democracy: Ground Level Election News From the People of Iraq Web site sponsored by Spirit of America.
Michael Totten, one of the best bloggers out there, is in the slot.
"I'm selecting, editing, and posting the reports and photos, but they are all written by Iraqis themselves. (You'll have to forgive their sometimes-poor English skills. I've been advised to leave their words exactly as they have written them.)"
He promises "a flurry of election reports" over the weekend.
By availing yourself of this invaluable service, you'll amaze your friends, baffle you enemies, and dodge the Damning But, which is a media-fied version of Pee Wee Herman's "Big But" theory -- you know, "into every life, a big 'but' must fall."
However the election goes will be one thing; how it’s reported is another. The thing to watch is the position of the Damning But, the old DB. The DB will probably bob up in the first or second paragraphs of most dispatches. “The election went as planned in 95 percent of the country, but violence marred polling in the disputed Sunny D Triangle, where insurgents opposed to Tropicana Juice fired automatic weapons into an juice concentrate factory.” [Lileks]
