There have been no shortage of stories lately about vets receiving less than good treatment after returning from the war zones. They included accounts of horrid conditions at a recuperation ward at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and of slow assistance being offered to soldiers with mental trauma.

In a recent blog I reported on a Sacred Heart University poll of the public's views on the news media, and specifically their reporting on the Iraq war. Some readers have asked for more information from the survey.

A link to the study is not available, but here's one to the university's news release on it. It includes all major findings, including respondents' assessments of the news they receive from various news outlets.

The public's disdain for the nation's news media continues unabated. The latest evidence comes in a poll conducted by Sacred Heart University in Connecticut. Only 19.6 per cent of those surveyed nationally said they believed all or most news media reporting, a press release said. That's down from 27.4 per cent in a similar poll from 2003.

The university's department chair for media studies, Dr. James Castonguay, says  the proliferation of news sources available through the Internet no doubt adds to the skepticism many feel toward the mainstream media. Still, the findings continue a trend begun even before cyberspace was invaded by millions of bloggers.

Some people expect the media to be omniscient. Would that it were so. Most of the time, newspapers and the electronic media have to report first what they're told (one hopes by credible sources), and then delve deeper. Such was the case with this month's military and diplomatic flareup over a confrontation between U.S. and Iranian naval forces in the Strait of Hormuz.

The various parts of a newspaper hold special interest for distinct types of readers. Readers who are into local news and current affairs gravitate toward the front of the paper, while those keen on business, sports or entertainment news go to those sections. The opinion pages appeal most to people with an interest in ideas and advocacy. But because those pages normally deal with issues affecting just about everyone, editors hope they are perused by a lot of readers.

Amost since the invasion of Iraq, there has been controversy over the media's coverage of the war. As casualties mounted -- both of U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians -- reporting from the field and from Washington seemed steeped in pessimism. The military complained that reporters were ignoring or downplaying whatever good things were happening on the ground.

Although there may not have been much to cheer about, there did at times seem to be a herd-mentality feeling to what the media were saying. Nothing was seen to be going right.

Senior Airman Casey Leavings of Yokota Air Base, Japan, urges in a letter: "We should remember our past." His point: "With that in mind, I wonder why, in the online articles for Stripes' Dec. 7 issue, there was no mention of the attack on Pearl Harbor."

"Are you kidding?" asks Minna Ahlmann, of Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, in a Dec. 27 letter to the editor, referring to a Dec. 13 photo in Stars and Stripes. The photo accompanied an article from Mizan District, Afghanistan, about how U.S. troops were celebrating Christmas and locals were celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid.

The photo showed a knife-wielding villager who had just sacrificed a sheep. A younger man was shown holding down the sheep and the unlucky animal lay dead, its throat slashed and blood flowing freely from it.