Two blog responders weighed in after my most recent entry, "A 'challenge' that ticked me off." David Hamilton said he learned from downrange contacts that "the whole story of what we are trying to do, and actually accomplishing in many instances there, are not being reported enough." Picking up on that, the second blog responder, JetTx, wanted to know whether Hamilton "has a point when he accuses the press of not reporting the 'many instances' of accomplishments that we have had in the AOR."

JetTx allows that his own sense is to doubt that significant news is not reported "because it is positive rather than negative." I would agree with that. I don't think any reporters are purposely withholding news because it's good for the war effort as that has been defined by the administration. But I do think there is a preponderance of "bad" news being delivered in papers and electronically these days.

It's tough to come up with just one reason. The hellish situation that has existed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years means that there are a lot of terrible events that need reporting -- mass murders and the like. Another reason is that reporters are simply too afraid -- with good reason -- to travel freely around the country as they were able to do in earlier times. So much of what they report is the mayhem and political maneuvering. As I have said before, sometimes it seems that reporters for the mainstream media try to outdo one another finding stories about the suffering that war inevitably brings.

Today I leafed through the past month's issues of Stars and Stripes, looking for "positive" stories that came directly from downrange. I found 27 that I thought deserved that label. Twenty-one were written by embedded Stripes reporters. Six came from the wire services. They included stories about successes U.S. troops were having winning over Iraqi locals, the opening of clinics, the donation of wells, the usefulness of cultural advisers working with soldiers, tribal accords to fight Al-Qaida, large numbers of insurgents killed, expansion of local civil aviation, to name a few.

There are a couple of caveats. One is that I made no comparison between these stories and the "negative" ones. Those far outnumbered the "positives," though, again, the majority were straight reports about such things as bombings or servicemen killed, or GIs being tried for alleged atrocities.

The other caveat is that there were more than a few stories, all written by Stripes staffers, that showed reporters doing their duty to honestly report what they witnessed -- and they witnessed the good and the bad, the glad and the sad (as an old boss of mine use to put it). One story reported that GIs had captured some insurgents (positive) but in the process were accused of creating great property damage (negative). A patrol in Qayyarah received a mixed reception from the populace. "If the Americans would leave Iraq we would be safe," one Iraqi was quoted as saying. Another told the reporter: "They (Americans) make our area safe." Several stories told of soldiers laboring for hours in the heat but were unable to find the insurgents they thought were holed up in a few houses (negative). But the stories also told of the GIs' valor: "We never quit" (positive). 

You get the idea. Sometimes it all depends on the eye of the beholder. Some time ago I was listening to the radio when a combat reporter from United Press International was being interviewed. She was asked what the reality of the situation in Iraq was. 

There is no single reality there, she said. There are many "realities."

 What you learn of the negatives and positives depends on who is doing the relating, from what place and at what time.