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Mark Steyn: According to Script
National Review Online ^ | April 11, 2005 issue | Mark Steyn

Posted on 03/29/2005 6:40:49 AM PST by Constitution Day

happy warrior

MARK STEYN

According to Script

The other day, as their latest contribution to the death spiral of American journalism, the Associated Press announced that they would now be supplying newspapers across the country with alternative versions of important stories — in order, as they put it, to “enhance the value of the AP news report to your newspaper.”

“The concept is simple,” the AP explained in a memo to newspaper editors. “On major spot stories — especially when events happen early in the day — we will provide you with two versions to choose between. One will be the traditional ‘straight lead’ that leads with the main facts of what took place. The other will be the ‘optional,’ an alternative approach that attempts to draw in the reader through imagery, narrative devices, perspective or other creative means.”

Imagery, narrative devices . . . Who can argue with that? Big important second-semester creative-writing-course stuff. Can’t get enough of it myself. If I’d been more on the ball, I’d have opened this column with a bit of specific gripping imagery myself. (Note: If you’re reading the “enhanced value” version of “Happy Warrior” that runs in the Pocatello Times-Indicator-Courier-Union-Picayune-Whig-Leader, the gripping imagery may well have been inserted by the helpful editors.)

Anyway, the AP offered a sample of the alternative versions it would be providing. Here’s the traditional:

“MOSUL, Iraq (AP) A suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent jammed with Shiite mourners Thursday, splattering blood and body parts over rows of overturned white plastic chairs. The attack, which killed 47 and wounded more than 100, came as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad said they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government.”

Here’s the optional:

“MOSUL, Iraq (AP) Yet again, almost as if scripted, a day of hope for a new, democratic Iraq turned into a day of tears as a bloody insurgent attack undercut a political step forward. On Thursday, just as Shiite and Kurdish politicians in Baghdad were telling reporters that they overcame a major stumbling block to forming a new coalition government, a suicide attacker set off a bomb that tore through a funeral tent . . .” Etc.

Wow. “Day of hope” turning into “day of tears.” I haven’t seen that kind of sparkling prose since Barbra Streisand stood up at that big pre-Iraq Democratic-party gala and solemnly regaled the party bigshots with that Internet-hoax Julius Caesar soliloquy about the drums of war being whipped into the fever-pitch of a double-edged sword. Whoever wrote that should be manning the Fresh Vivid Imagery desk at the Associated Press.

But in the midst of that unreadable sludge of clichés, the AP’s desert bard came up with one unreadable sludgy cliché that gets the gist of their Iraq coverage better than anything: “almost as if scripted.” Isn’t that precisely the problem? It is pre-scripted. The good folk of Basra and Kirkuk don’t spring out of bed each morning saying, “Ah, another day of hope,” only to trudge off to dreamland 16 hours later wondering why yet again the day of hope turned into a day of tears, daring to sing yet another chorus of “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow” but knowing deep down chances are the Sunni’ll come out tomorrow and blow up the schoolhouse.

As we learned on election day in January, that doomy drivel is imposed on the Iraqi people by the media’s pre-scripters. And once the fellows holed up in the Green Zone hotels decided that the war was yet another Vietnam remake, everyone else got the hang of the formula pretty quickly. The old Baath-party translators the foreign press still use quickly learned to lead reporters by the nose to some whiny clerk from the Ministry of Fingernail Pullers and Genital Severers moaning about how he’d been laid off. The “insurgents” got the hang of staging their photo-ops on Eastern Standard Time, setting some secondhand Nissan alight each morning Baghdad time so that its plume of smoke could be conveniently filmed from the press-hotel balcony in time for The Today Show and Good Morning America. Days of hope turned into days of tears as regular as clockwork.

And in between their Bridges-of-Madison-County imagery and Horse-Whisperer narrative devices, the Western media somehow managed to lose the story — functioning municipal government in the south, booming tourism in the north, normality and progress in three-quarters of the country. The insurgent-of-the-day approach to Iraq didn’t even capture that element correctly: On the second anniversary of the invasion, Agence France-Presse ran a story remarkably like the AP’s hypothetical specimen. The headline: “45 Killed In Insurgent Attacks.”

The lead paragraph: “At least 45 people have been killed in insurgent attacks across Iraq as Washington defended its decision to go to war on the second anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion.”

It took an Australian blogger, Arthur Chrenkoff, to poke deep down into the story and emerge with the most salient fact of this bloody toll — that of the 45 dead, 29 were “insurgents” themselves. Terrorism is supposed to be one guy indiscriminately killing large numbers of the other side. No terrorist network can survive long if it’s losing two of its own men for every one of the enemy. That’s the story: a day of hope turned into yet another day of tears — for the insurgents.

With a few honorable exceptions, Iraq coverage has been a truly spectacular failure. One day in the future, we’ll dig out the yellowing clips and wonder how America managed to lose every daily battle and yet still win the war.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: ap; marksteyn; nationalreview; steyn
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1 posted on 03/29/2005 6:40:50 AM PST by Constitution Day
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To: Pokey78

Ping!


2 posted on 03/29/2005 6:41:18 AM PST by Constitution Day ("You guys need a pallet of paper bags to breathe into, I swear.")
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To: Constitution Day; Howlin; riley1992; Miss Marple; deport; Dane; sinkspur; steve; kattracks; ...
Thanks CD!

Steyn ping!


3 posted on 03/29/2005 6:44:31 AM PST by Pokey78 (‘FREE [INSERT YOUR FETID TOTALITARIAN BASKET-CASE HERE]’)
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To: Constitution Day
Excellent post.
Mark Steyn bttt ...
4 posted on 03/29/2005 6:44:41 AM PST by oh8eleven
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To: Constitution Day
I am sorry but I really don't see that much difference between AP's "straight" reporting and the "enhanced" version. A couple more flowery words but overall, it's same $h**, different day.
5 posted on 03/29/2005 6:50:13 AM PST by Bar-Face
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Comment #6 Removed by Moderator

To: Constitution Day
The press has truly been shameful from the start. We were in a "quagmire" two days before Baghdad fell.
7 posted on 03/29/2005 6:53:28 AM PST by Dog Gone
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To: Pokey78

Thanks.


8 posted on 03/29/2005 6:53:52 AM PST by COUNTrecount
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To: Bar-Face
$h**, different day.

Different day of tears.

9 posted on 03/29/2005 6:54:37 AM PST by JennysCool (Terri may not be a persistent vegetable, but Michael is most certainly a persistent animal.)
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To: Constitution Day

Thanks for bring in Mark Steyn's article, CD!


10 posted on 03/29/2005 6:55:40 AM PST by Slip18
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To: Constitution Day
of the 45 dead, 29 were “insurgents” themselves.

Ah, progress.......

11 posted on 03/29/2005 6:56:23 AM PST by tioga
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To: Constitution Day

They offer two versions of the truth? One is real, the other is a painted lady........


12 posted on 03/29/2005 6:57:00 AM PST by Red Badger (The South seceded over refusal to end slavery. Blue states want to secede for the same reason......)
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To: Bar-Face

You know, I thought the same thing. At first, I thought this piece was some kind of satire. It seemed too bizarre to be real. Mark Steyn had another column once (it's in his book, that's where I read it) about the preference of reporters to "ponder" rather than report the facts. I recall him ascribing a lot of shoddy journalism to the reluctance of reporters to "get their shoes a little dirty" and actually seek out facts; they'd rather have a little bit of facts and then endlessly ponder their "meaning." He actually came out in a somewhat spirited defense of tabloid journalism. It's a very good column. I think he really has a solid take on the failings of mainstream journalism today.


13 posted on 03/29/2005 6:58:42 AM PST by GraceCoolidge
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To: Constitution Day

Yet another example why the MSM simply does not mean anything anymore. This kind of nonsense makes you wonder exactly how much of their audisnce they have to lose before they make some effort to save themselves from total irrelevance. Or perhaps the economics of no viewers will do it for them as CBS News is learning.


14 posted on 03/29/2005 7:03:39 AM PST by An Old Marine (Freedom isn't Free)
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To: Pokey78

Mark is good :)

Just a ping. I am going to use this against a guy who worships the AP.


15 posted on 03/29/2005 7:18:01 AM PST by LeGrande
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To: Constitution Day

I'd like to see three versions. A liberal one, a conservative one, and a neutral one.

Let them squirm trying to make the one they claim is neutral different from the liberal one.

Would make a good journalism school assignment, huh?


16 posted on 03/29/2005 7:20:55 AM PST by Atlas Sneezed (Your FRiendly FReeper Patent Attorney)
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To: Constitution Day

I tuned out the Iraq coverage a long time ago. I figured about one out of a hundred stories made any attempt to be accurate, the rest were just contrived background for the New York Times editorial page.


17 posted on 03/29/2005 7:23:05 AM PST by hopespringseternal (</i>)
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To: Constitution Day

Ap "Propagrandizement"?


18 posted on 03/29/2005 7:23:26 AM PST by Waco
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To: Pokey78; Constitution Day

Steyn slices and dices.


19 posted on 03/29/2005 7:25:10 AM PST by metesky ("Maine: Last to know; First to go.")
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To: Constitution Day; Pokey78
One day in the future, we’ll dig out the yellowing clips and wonder how America managed to lose every daily battle and yet still win the war.
20 posted on 03/29/2005 7:27:28 AM PST by aculeus (Ceci n'est pas une tag line.)
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