You Don't Go to Press With the War You Want, You Go to Press With the War You Have

In the comments on yesterday's Russert Watch post, a reader posted a link to the transcript for yesterday's "Reliable Sources" featuring CBS correspondent Lara Logan smacking down those who have criticized the media for reporting only the "bad" news from Iraq. Well, according to Logan (my new hero, by the way), there's precious little else:

KURTZ: ...But critics would say, well, no wonder people back home think things are falling apart because we get this steady drumbeat of negativity from the correspondents there.

LOGAN: Well, who says things aren't falling apart in Iraq? I mean, what you didn't see on your screens this week was all the unidentified bodies that have been turning up, all the allegations here of militias that are really controlling the security forces.

What about all the American soldiers that died this week that you didn't see on our screens? ...You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked about, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack.

Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked.

I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country... So how it is that security issues should not then dominate the media coverage coming out of here?

I've been confused by this sudden tactic by Rummy et al, because as far as I can tell there actually have been efforts to report the good news from Iraq -- witness this Newsweek article, "And Now, The Bad News" from last September:

It's true, there is good news to report from Iraq. Yesterday, a school in the rural outskirts of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, started its second week of classes for the academic year. It's been up and running for close to 24 months now, built by the Coalition a few months after the April 2003 invasion. To showcase the achievement, Iraqi and American officials, accompanied by a handful of Arab media, turned up for a quick bite of cake and a speech.

...100 miles to the south in Baghdad, about a dozen bombs went off throughout the city, killing more than 150 and injuring hundreds more. Six American convoys were also hit, wounding 10 U.S. soldiers... It was Baghdad's deadliest day since the fall of Saddam.

That was back in September. Since then, it's only gotten worse -- much worse. The NYT's Jeffrey Gettleman had two articles in yesterday's paper about his return to Baghdad, one called "Iraq Violence Turns Inward" and another, more horrifying piece, "Bound, Blindfolded and Dead: The Face of Revenge in Baghdad" (both of which unwittingly answer Laura Ingraham's deceptive, uninformed call for reporters "to actually have a conversation with the people instead of reporting from hotel balconies"). It's too bad that the Iraqis with whom Gettleman speaks bring horrific stories of brutal gangland-style slayings on the streets of Baghdad.

After being stung by Logan yesterday, Howard Kurtz asks today if the media has indeed "declared war on the war" and finds that, well, you don't go to press with the war you want, you go to press with the war you have:

The record shows that administration charges that reporters in Iraq are ignoring signs of progress are not true, although most journalists say the dangerous conditions make it difficult to talk to ordinary Iraqis. But sometimes the unrelenting violence has a way of intruding on the news agenda.

While in Baghdad, ABC's Jake Tapper was working on a light feature about an Iraqi station's sitcom. While his cameras were rolling, word came that the manager of the entertainment division had been assassinated. That, of course, became the story.

Reporters do decide what is news but they don't invent it, even if they sometimes become part of the story by risking their lives in a danger zone, as in the case of ABC's Bob Woodruff and Doug Vogt. Or Jill Carroll. I agree with HuffPoster Stephen Kaus -- I wish there was good news. Who doesn't? But when that good news is clearly absent, I agree with Logan: "it's an outrage to point the finger at journalists and say that this is our fault." There's no spinning the news that came to Jake Tapper. There's no upbeat version of the stories uncovered by Jeffrey Gettleman. Live from Iraq, these journalists are risking their lives not to spin or deflect, but to report -- not on the war they want, but on the war that -- unfortunately -- they have.

Quick Update: Video clip of Logan on Reliable Sources available at Crooks & Liars here. Thanks to commenter RR below for the reminder (and also to commenter Ranta for the transcript link referenced above).