It's good to be home
We spent most of last week with the in-laws after spending two days at my parent's house playing X-box and relaxing. At the in-laws we engaged in redecorating my mother-in-law's upstairs bathroom and while it wasn't complete torture, it wasn't a lot of fun. It was my expectation that the in-laws, my wife and I would all work on this project together, unfortunately I was mistaken. The wife and I did the bulk of the work removing old wall paper and then painting, the wife had the bulk of the bulk and I felt for her. The in-laws weren't completely unhelpful with the project and they did feed us pretty well, but I still couldn't help but feeling that they didn't contribute as much as we would have liked. I take some satisfaction, though, that they were forced to finish up the end details after we ran out of time and had to come back home.
One side effect of being at the in-laws most of the week was watching the continuous war coverage on Fox News and CNN. We don't have cable at home so we're limited to the local news stations. I was not only impressed with how long they were able to drag out the same stories over and over again, but also how addictive it was to watch it. The headlines that came out on Wednesday were still being played on Saturday with little or no new information, but they were enthusiastically displayed as breaking news and reported with vigor. This seems to be the case with most of the media covering the war and it makes me think that the military is now closely watching what information gets sent out.
I find the variations and inaccuracies in media coverage frustrating, though it may be the media's zeal to get stories out as quickly as possible that is the source of frustration. I appreciate the effort to keep us updated on the events in Iraq and I believe I understand why they do it, but I'm beginning to think that I would appreciate accuracy over speed. The fight for the Baghdad International airport was a good example as confusing reports poured in for hours over the status of the battle. Anchor people were reporting that we had "complete control" or that the airport had fallen and U.S. troops were securing the area. While all of this was in some parts true, it all seemed somewhat pointless in the end when they finally spoke to a ground commander on sight and he filled us in on the details. Another example is the supposed chemical agents that were reported with much ballyhoo yesterday that might turn out to be pesticides
Perhaps this is just the reality of the news media in our age. With so many news channels to choose from they have to compete with each other, and no matter what anyone says ratings do matter. I can't even say that I would watch a station that was slower to report, but more accurate when they did. Of course, as far as I know, that isn't an option.