I Get Lost In An Array of Numbers and Can We Stop Playing the Blame Game

I’m a journalist. I consider myself to be pretty educated. I love reading and I especially love reading newspapers—something I do on a daily basis. But if someone asked me to explain what is really going on in the Iraq war, I feel as though I would not be able to offer anything substantial to the table. Why is that?

I get the New York Times sent to my email every morning. I scan through the stories, and everyday there is a story on Iraq. I read the story in its entirety if I have time, but if I’m pressed for time the other stories usually get priority over the daily Iraq story. Why? Because I feel like I get pretty much the same thing every day. This might sound incredibly insensitive but it’s just a different name and a different bombsite. This is not to say that I do not feel honored that these women and men are fighting for my freedom in Iraq or that I do not feel sympathy for their family and friends upon their death. However, the media has not done a good enough job relaying the Iraq war to the public. The daily stories get turned into more of a numbers game. “The death toll rose to xxxxxx today”. I need more.

I need stories beyond the numbers. I want stories about the soldiers who are dying, stories about the soldiers’ daily life in Iraq, stories about the good things that are happening in Iraq (I know there have to be some things), and I want more stories on the Iraqis living through this war.

I get a similar feeling when I read about Darfur. “XX million people have been displaced and xx people have died”. After a while statements like those lose their meanings. New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has provided the public with more. He has been committed to bringing the public the full story about Darfur. However, he faces another barrier- fighting America’s indifference to the outside world- especially to Africa. At least Iraq has American soldiers on its soil because if it didn’t, I’m not sure if Americans would care that much.

On a slightly different note- I wish the media would stop playing the blame game. I know its human nature to want to point a finger especially when there is a tragedy or a controversial topic. But what is the point of pointing fingers about the Iraq war? What is the point for searching for the justification? We entered this war four years ago- let’s focus on the present and not so much on the past. What’s done is done and now as a nation we have to deal with the fact that our countrymen are over in Iraq fighting with no end date necessarily in site.

A similar thing happened with the VA Tech shootings last week. It wasn’t but a few hours after the incident that people started pointing fingers. I can understand parents being angry and wanting to point fingers at the chancellor. That’s human nature. But is that supposed to be the nature of the media? If it’s a way of trying to prevent future incidents like this from happening, that’s one thing, but to attack the man only hours after the most violent school shooting is not good journalism.