Editorial: What's news?

On February 1st, I was arrested at the State of the Union address for wearing a Veterans for Peace shirt that read: 2,245 Dead. How many more?
A little over four months later, we are now tragically marking the deaths of 255 more of our brave and wonderful young American soldiers. So today, with 2,500 dead, I ask again: How many more? And with tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians--maybe even a lot more than 100,000--killed, I ask: How many more?
-- Cindy Sheehan, "How Many More?" (Common Dreams).

How many more? And why is Cindy Sheehan asking the question without any backing (or coverage) from the mainstream media? Where was The New York Times's Friday headline "2500 Dead"?

It wasn't on the front page, it wasn't inside the paper. 2,500 dead.

They're gone. They've been sacrificed in Bully Boy's illegal war of choice.

The Times, which runs with every whisper, cough and belch from an "official" can't report on the Pentagon's Thursday announcement/admission?

We're all supposed to look away? Is that it?

The paper, which had a hand in selling the war, didn't see 2500 dead as news? What was that nonsense mea culpa about? Their coverage hasn't gotten much better and they still haven't gotten honest with readers about what happened re: Iraq coverage. (Or will Judith Miller be the fall guy for everyone? Michael R. Gordon, among others, probably hopes so. The Times still hasn't run a correction on their 2001 report linking Saddam Hussein to the training of terrorist hijackers. PBS had issued a mealy mouthed correction on that, a few months back, but the paper of no record remains silent.) (For the record, the report, done with Frontline and the paper working jointly, didn't carry Judith Miller's byline.)

The coverage was bad. The coverage was slanted and it cheerled a war. The paper's editorials and op-eds don't change that. Nor did they or do they address the reporting in the paper.

Along with reporting, many took the airwaves. Michael R. Gordon, on CNN, justified the bombing of a TV station but now, all these years later, wants to try to weasel out of his statements with a laughable revision (poor war pornographer, the transcripts remain unrevised).

John F. Burns is getting credit, from some, for a little honesty when he was doing meet and greets (it'll take more than that for him to salvage his reputation). But the reality is his reporting remains useless because it's not reporting. He and Dexter Filkins are the face of the embeds in the Green Zone at their worst.

Burns wanted the war and positioned himself as the leading human rights activist of our times in interview after interview prior to the war as he railed against the conditions on the ground in Iraq. He all but beat his chest and screamed "Oh! The humanity!" His concern might strike some as sincere if he demonstrated any of that in his current reporting. But as he so infamously put it, he shapes his coverage for the American tax payer.

Johnny, did you learn that in j-school?

Possibly, he attended a j-school via correspondence course? He had a fit when confronted in the Green Zone (by Jeremy Schahill) and started screaming of his multiple Pulitzer wins. Hold on to those prizes, Johnny, they're all that's left you ("A time it was . . ." as Simon & Garfunkle sing).

The final line on John F. Burns goes to C.I.: "I sold my reputation in the Green Zone and all I got was this lousy occupation."

Dexter Filkins? Christian Parenti once noted the world of difference between the Dexy in print and the Dexy in person. Apparently the Dexy in person knew how awful the illegal occupation was going years ago. It's too bad he was too busy putting on the red light to inform readers of reality. Last week, we thought there might be cause for hope -- possibly the ultimate embed (when military spokespeople dream, they dream of Dexy) was going to turn it around? He reported on a possible massacre -- in real time! No one rushed to explore that story. Maybe that's why he's returned to his propaganda ways? It's too bad because if Dexy had turned it around, we would have noted it. Instead, he remains firmly hand-in-hand, skipping through the heavily protected Green Zone with Burnsie.

You'd think someone outed by The Washington Post as a propagandist swallower would be working twice as hard to report, instead Dexy just wants to fluff.

The Times refuses to address the occupation seriously. They refuse to call for a withdrawal of troops. Maybe next year? Is that how we live now? Maybe next year a major paper will say "Troops out now!" and maybe a year after that, as Bully Boy winds down his reign, the idea will get more traction. Just as with Vietnam, people who know reality refuse to address it. That's "reporters" in the Green Zone, and it's a paper that doesn't think the death of 2,500 American troops, announced by the Pentagon, makes for front page news or even a single story on its own.

What's news? While remaining silent on the 2,500 dead, the paper of no record felt a jotty, superficial piece on Wikipedia was FRONT PAGE NEWS.

How did the paper get it so wrong on Iraq? (And continue to get it so wrong?) They seem to have a serious problem determining what is news.