Even after the overwhelming turnout for a largely peaceful plebiscite, the grand viziers of the news could find little positive to say about it. On CBS' "Face the Nation," host Bob Schieffer got Senator Joe Biden to agree that the referendum -- and the upcoming election in December are unlikely to have any appreciable effect on reducing U.S. casualties. Not surprisingly, online polls found better than 80 percent support for setting a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.
And now, with the constitution ratified -- the critique continues by the prognosticators of gloom and doom. The new constitution provides for free, fair, and direct legislative elections every four years by secret ballot -- starting this December. The media now questions whether such a vote can take place given the "cycle of violence." It establishes a democratic system of government with an independent judiciary, checks and balances on power and protection of women's and minority rights. The press forecasts instead a "Sunni-Shia civil war." It spells out how Iraq's vast oil and gas wealth will be distributed to all the Iraqi people. The pundits predict that "the Kurds will break away" to protect their reserves.
The people I have met on this book tour are increasingly disappointed by the pessimism of the press. But this comes as no surprise to the Media Research Center which has just completed a study of the news reports from Iraq by the broadcast networks. MRC reviewed all 1,388 Iraq stories broadcast on ABC's World News Tonight, the CBS Evening News and NBC Nightly News from Jan. 1 through Sept. 30, 2005.
What they've found is that network coverage has been overwhelmingly pessimistic. Precisely, 61 percent of all stories on the three networks focused on negative topics or presented a pessimistic analysis of the situation. Not only is the news downbeat, it is increasingly negative. In January and February, 21 percent of stories struck a hopeful note. But by August and September -- as the constitution was going through its final negotiations, only 7 percent of stories were positive.
In its Aug. 8, 2005 issue, the liberal New Republic magazine editorialized: "Given what we've learned in the past two years in Iraq -- years filled with disappointment, tragedy, and carnage -- it would be naive to think the new constitution currently being drafted in Baghdad will resolve that country's deep sectarian and structural problems … While Americans must hope that Iraq's new constitution … does not thrust Iraq toward theocracy and civil war, both of these prospects now appear distinctly possible."
The constitution alone won't solve Iraq's problems, nor will the next election. But both will move them further from the tyranny they suffered under Saddam's dictatorship and bring them closer to democratic rule. As James Buchanan, our 15th President once said, "the ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes." Is it too much to hope that our media will come to see a purple finger as the best antidote to terror?