There has been no reporting on the war in Iraq more honest, more accurate, and more in depth than the front-line dispatches being written by Michael Yon.

But he’s become so fed up with the disparity between what the MSM reports and what he actually sees on the ground, that he’s decided to do give his dispatches away to the National Newspaper Association. All in an effort to get some truth about the war actually reported in our nation’s newspapers:

A gulf. A gap. A chasm. A parallel universe.

All describe the bizarro-world contrast between what most Americans seem to think is happening in Iraq versus what is really happening in Iraq. Knowing this disconnect exists and experiencing it directly are two separate matters.

[snip]

Clearly, a majority of Americans believe the current set of outdated fallacies passed around mainstream media like watered down drinks at happy hour. Why wouldn’t they?

[snip]

It is important that Americans let their best and clearest voices be heard around the world. If the world contained only twenty people, only one would be American. We represent about 5% of the world population. What those other nineteen people think about America is truly very important to each one of us. We cannot afford to let the media around the world continue promulgating so many recycled misconceptions about our soldiers and the character of our nation.

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I picked this story up from Memeorandum — where a lot of other bloggers are writing about it.

Bloggers and others who write about the war should be concerned about the truth being reported. And when most of the stories coming out of Iraq are from reporters who have spent very little time actually in Iraq (and almost no time outside of the Green Zone), or local stringers with dubious and questionable motives…well, you would think that everybody would be behind Yon’s work gaining a wider readership in the MSM.

Well. You’d be wrong. When I said that “a lot of other bloggers are writing about it”, I meant “a lot of conservative bloggers are writing about it”.

With the exception of the keyboard cowards at John Cole’s Balloon Juice, who write:

Yon is a hack propagandist who has learned nothing about Arabs or Muslim or the sense of personal honor that is part of Arabness.

And how do Cole and his basement dwelling commenters know that Yon is a lying hack? Because — even though they’ve never actually been to Iraq — they read the opinions they were looking for on other Liberal blogs…who have also never been to Iraq…

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h/t to Allahpundit at Hot Air:

Yon to media: Will you publish the truth about Iraq if I give it to you for free?

So despairing is he of the gap between what he’s seeing on the ground versus what he’s seeing in the papers, especially in Basra, that he’s offering his reports and photos to the National Newspaper Association at no charge.

Posted by Robbie Cooper on Monday, October 22nd, 2007 | Trackback |