Harvard
Economists: Media Has Effect on Insurgency
By Ken Shepherd |
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2008/03/13/harvard-economists-media-has-effect-insurgency
That shadowy, vast right-wing conspiracy in the Ivy League has done it again. Economists at Harvard have found a link
between negative media coverage of Iraq and an emboldening of insurgents.
Hot Air has more:
Caveats aplenty
— the data didn’t include Baghdad, there’s no way to tell if attacks increased because of the rhetoric or
were just re-timed to coincide with it — but to no one’s surprise except possibly the left’s, “U.S.
out of Iraq” does indeed create an incentive for jihadis to try to push the U.S. out of Iraq.
Allahpundit wonders
if the media will report on "this rather media-unfriendly finding" or if it creates an "incentive for the press to at least
include more pro-war voices in its coverage?"
I'd probably answer no on both counts. After all MRC/NB's Rich Noyes
has found that good news in Iraq usually equates to less news coverage of Iraq overall. A study that runs counter to the media's
preferred template will not get the time of day. Plus between Eliot Spitzer and the ongoing Democratic presidential primary
race, the media have all but forsaken anything of substance in Iraq reporting.
Harvard Economists: Media Has
Effect on Insurgency | NewsBusters.org
If the American news
media has an effect on the terrorists, what about the outspoken anti-war politicians in Congress?
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