Of meta-narratives and the media

As I was walking in downtown D.C., I saw a story in the Washington Post that actually made me purchase the paper:

U.S. Forces Move Into Stronghold Of Cleric Insurgents Scatter as Hunt For Their Leader Intensifies

KARBALA, Iraq, May 23 -- U.S. forces expanded an offensive against rebel cleric Moqtada Sadr on Sunday by pushing into his stronghold of Kufa for the first time, as his armed followers vanished from the streets of this Shiite holy city.

The battle for southern Iraq, which has occupied U.S. soldiers for weeks, appears to have shifted from a broad engagement across several fronts to a sustained battle aimed at a single elusive objective: Sadr, who leads thousands of militiamen, known as the Mahdi Army.

For seven weeks, U.S. forces have been killing scores of the fighters loyal to Sadr, who has fomented an anti-American insurrection in a region once receptive to the occupation....

Wait a sec...what's that again? "U.S. forces have been killing scores of the fighters loyal to Sadr"? Not just a few here and there, but scores of them? Boy, I don't remember seeing that on "Today," my morning infotainment show! Must have missed it between the Iraqi prison photos and the 13,406th segment on low-carb dieting.

So it would appear that our war efforts are not failing. You will recall that less than a month ago, Iraq was on the verge of a full-scale civil war, and that arresting the respected Shiite thug leader Sadr was going to inspire the citizens to revolt, and the security situation was "deteriorating," quagmire Vietnam failure unilateral blood-for-oil rama-lama-ding-dong.

Then the media abruptly switched to the prison abuse story. We are informed -- by reporters who, judging by their stories, rarely venture out of their air-conditioned offices except under the protection of the U.S. military -- that Arab opinion is "enraged" by these photos, trotting out numbers about how only .00034% of Moroccan Bedouins support Iraqi occupation, etc.

I remember reading similar poll numbers two years ago, before we even invaded Iraq. What's the difference? And in a country where everyone -- literally, everyone -- had a family member imprisoned or murdered by the former regime, are Iraqis really that fainthearted?

Think back to 6-8 months ago, when the occupation was "failing" because "services" were not restored to the populace. Recall the endless stories from Baghdad about the electricity going out sometimes (which reporters noticed because that screwed up their laptop batteries.) Today, Iraq has more electricity than before the war, water is more abundant, schools are open, food is plentiful, etc. You never hear about the "services" because they all work, more or less, at least as well as the top-tier Third World countries.

I've written in Catholic Light about how the press has a meta-narrative for just about everything they write (if I didn't, I meant to write about it.) Because of the exigencies of writing against a deadline, reporters can't re-think The Big Picture every time they sit down to compose an article. So they have these meta-narratives they use. You know them:

Gays Are Conquering Prejudice to Claim Their Full Civil Rights

Greedy Corporations Cause Lack of Medical Insurance

Catholic Church Resists the Noble Forces of Modern Liberalism

Minorities Get Shafted -- Again

Women Can Do Anything Despite Men's Efforts to Keep Them Down

In this case, the meta-narrative is "U.S. Occupation Failing." The narrative of an individual story is just a subset of the meta-narrative. Thus, lack of electricity is proof that the occupation is failing. So are random bombings of soldiers, and mass murders of innocent Iraqis. So are disgusting pictures of prison abuse. Or meaningless polls.

You see what I mean? Even though the original justifications for the conclusion have evaporated, the conclusion rolls along, because it's the meta-narrative. Intellectual honesty would seem to demand a re-assessment of the conclusion, given that the facts have changed dramatically, but none is forthcoming.

You could list many huge stories the press has gotten wrong in the last 20 years, including the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the rise of radical Islam and its threat to America. Yet by and large, after missing big stories, journalists don't collectively scratch their heads and say, "How the heck did we miss that one?" They just adjust their meta-narratives, even though that approach got them into trouble in the first place.

In five weeks, there will likely be more violence after Iraq gets its sovereignty. Mark my words, that will spark another round of breast-beating. The occupation could fail, but the cause won't be the policies or the people involved. It may happen because the news media will have sold their defeat meta-narrative to the American public.

Then thousands and thousands of Iraqis will die. Does that futher peace on earth? Is it good and right to allow innocent human beings to die in order to defeat President Bush? It would be nice if the media re-thought their commitment to this storyline, before it's too late.