Saturday, January 13, 2007

Afstan: Differing takes on essentially the same story

1) The Gray Lady takes a black view: a relentlessly negative (about Canadians too) story by Carlotta Gall in the NY Times.
The road that cuts through the heart of Panjwai district here tells all that is going wrong with NATO’s war in Afghanistan...
Ms Gall has a track record in this line of reporting, and has made at least one serious mistake.

2) The Globe and Mail's Graeme Smith presents a different perspective:
Noise of war gives way to the sound of rebuilding
With Canada and NATO's help, a battlefield's residents return in droves
Which is not to say that everything is rosy.

At the same time we find headlines with differing takes on Canadian support for the war:

1) Toronto Star:
Defence minister taps new PR chief to help sell unpopular Afghan mission
2) Vancouver Sun:
Support for Afghan mission increases
58% of Canadians in favour of effort: poll
What's a poor media consumer to believe?

Update: The headline I assigned to the Vancouver Sun was actually from the Canada.com site, not the paper. The different headlines for the same story in the CanWest papers are here--and would make significantly different impressions on a reader.

4 Comments:

Blogger Think Big said...

You can bet with all of the biased MSM stories against the war that if we got the truth 80% of Canadians would be in favour. It is actually amazing that given all the negativity from the chattering classes that 60% are in favour. It says a lot about Canadians ability to think.

10:57 a.m., January 14, 2007  
Blogger Neo Conservative said...

Proving the unspoken rule that you don't bring a bunch of raggedy-ass peasants to a gunfight...

"-- BAGRAM: -- A top Afghan insurgent leader operating from inside Pakistan sent some 200 ill-equipped fighters, some wearing plastic bags on their feet, into Afghanistan where most were killed in a major battle this week, a top US general said on Saturday."

11:46 a.m., January 14, 2007  
Blogger sean foley said...

It seems to me that there was a time when the major media sources attemted to report the news impartially. That would mean that there would be no mention of polls, popular opinion, insinuations, and so on. They would report what was happening and stop there. Maybe I'm naive, maybe this was never true. Now you have to filter out the news from the opinions. And the opinions are sometimes completely wrong.

2:31 p.m., January 14, 2007  
Blogger NL-ExPatriate said...

I find it very disturbing that there is still a dispute between Afghanistan and Pakistan on their border.

What was Chretien thinking sending our troops into an area where the borders haven't even been agreed upon.

Make no wonder there are insurgents staging in pakistan to invade Afstan they are probably being encouraged if not dismissed so as to procur the disputed territory.

3:09 p.m., January 14, 2007  

Post a Comment

<< Home