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December 20, 2006

A Bad Year for Everyone

With a little more than a week to go in 2006, I see that the year saw some 32 journalists killed in Iraq this year. As a blogger, of course, it's my bounden duty to be hard on the media, and I make no apologies for that. The media have a huge platform from which to inform the world; it's important that people keep a wary eye on what they're telling us. But it is also important to recognize the work that they do, and the sacrifices they make in their attempts to keep us informed. The men and women who voluntarily travel to places like Iraq and Afghanistan deserve some recognition for the risks they run simply to do a job, particularly the vast majority who we never see on TV.

Journalists are on the front lines in modern warfare because so much of modern warfare involves information operations. The insurgency in Iraq cannot defeat our military on the battlefield due to our overwhelming advantages in firepower. Therefore, rather than trying to do so, they have changed the conditions: by rendering Iraq ungovernable, they ensure that we cannot leave with a victory in hand, and the ongoing violence makes it increasingly likely we will eventually admit defeat and return home, providing the enemy with the opportunity to face a foe they can defeat in more conventional combat. Journalists can play an important role in attacking our national will by reporting how bad the situation is in Iraq, and the insurgency can make it appear even worse by directly targeting journalists. Like anyone else, journalists tend to extrapolate their own experiences to the world, so if journalists know that their lives are at risk on a daily basis in Iraq, they will assume that to be a generally universal condition, and their reporting will reflect that. This is not to say the situation isn't bad in Iraq, but only that the insurgency can make it appear even worse by targeting reporters.

That makes those reporters still willing to go in harm's way some pretty brave customers. Like all of us, they make errors, but that shouldn't undercut the courage they show in trying to report on this war.