Michael Young at PostGlobal

Michael Young

Beirut, Lebanon

Michael Young is the Opinion Editor and a columnist for Lebanon’s The Daily Star newspaper. He is also a contributing editor and contributor at Reason magazine, where he writes bi-weely articles. Close.

Michael Young

Beirut, Lebanon

Michael Young is the Opinion Editor and a columnist for Lebanon’s The Daily Star newspaper. more »

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Being a Bargaining Chip May Mean Survival

Western reporters long ago lost their "white flag" of neutrality. My own concern, however, is as much for local reporters in crisis countries, whose fates rarely get written up. While captured Western journalists are valued prizes to be bartered for political gain, local reporters lack such value and are quickly killed.

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All Comments (3)

Ricky William:

jump undolorous bloating eusebian theriatrics sadic disapprobatory episcopality
Team Wanta Eliminate MS
http://benefitspecialist.com

Anonymous:

Wow: Jacob Jozevz et al: Which nut house did you escape from...When you sat down to write the above where you stoned?

reporter, USA, http://theclearsky.blogspot.com/:

With rare exception, Western media is relatively unbiased.

Consider the "New York Times" (NYT), "The Washington Post" (TWP), and the "Wall Street Journal" (WSJ). NYT is considered to be liberal. TWP is considered to be moderate. WSJ is considered to be conservative.

NYT, TWP, and WSJ are relatively fair in their reporting, but they are distinctly biased in their commentary: editorial pages and analysis columns. Due to this bias in the commentary, we correctly identify each paper as liberal, moderate, or neoconservative.

However, if we move beyond the commentary and look at the actual reports (i.e., news articles), all 3 newspapers give relatively unbiased reporting.

Yet, are newspapers obligated to give unbiased commentary in addition to unbiased reports? No. Commentary, by its very nature, is an expression of opinion.

Consider the opinion of the WSJ. Its editiorial position is the following, on the matter of Iraq.

1. Sending a puny 170,000 soldiers to invade and occupy Iraq is an excellent idea.
2. The current violent mayhem in Iraq is an outstanding accomplishment that is worth the price of 4,000 dead American soldiers and 30,000 seriously wounded American soldiers.
3. The roughly 2 million Iraqi refugees created by the violent mayhem in Iraq is not the responsibility of the American people (who overwhelmingly supported invading Iraq). Washington should not accept them into the USA. That Washington is willing to accept merely 7000 Iraqi refugees is an overly generous act.

Should we condemn the editorial position of the WSJ? Yes. That position is atrocious. Most reasonable people know that the occupation needed a minimum of 370,000 Western soldiers and that 4000 American soldiers died for nothing.

The WSJ, in its editorial pages, is biased in favor of the neoconservative position.

However, the WSJ is relatively unbiased in its news articles.

reference
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The Number of Soldiers for a Successful Occupation
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http://theclearsky.blogspot.com/#115853308310007247

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