December 11, 2003
NEWS SO GOOD IT WON'T BE MENTIONED
The anti-terrorism marches in Iraq were a huge success, reports Zeyad:
It wasn't just against terrorism. It was against Arab media, against the interference of neighbouring countries, against dictatorships, against Wahhabism, against oppression, and of course against the Ba'ath and Saddam.
We started at Al-Fatih square in front of the Iraqi national theatre at 10 am. IP were all over the place. At 12 pm people started marching towards Fardus square through Karradah. All political parties represented in the GC participated. But the other parties, organizations, unions, tribal leaders, clerics, school children, college students, and typical everyday Iraqis made up most of the crowd. Al-Jazeera estimated the size of the crowd as over ten thousand people.
I spent most of the time taking pictures. heh, I really enjoyed playing the role of a journalist. Everyone was tugging at my sleeves asking me to take their photos mistaking me for a foreign reporter.
Will The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, or the ABC cover this at all? For that matter, will the News Ltd papers at least mention it? Zeyad’s early pictures of the Baghdad rally are here. More to come.
UPDATE: Michael Totten writes that Zayed “has one of the best scoops in the world right now, including photos, and he’s doing it from Iraq for free.” He sure is, using a camera supplied by Jeff Jarvis. More images from the demonstrations are here and here, and Instapundit has a bunch of related links, including some actual media coverage.
Posted by Tim Blair at December 11, 2003 04:53 AMSo far the US media is doing a good job of ignoring this story. Only Fox has a report on its website. I guess it isn't interesting to them since their was no bloodshed. Score another for the blogs.
Posted by: Retread at December 11, 2003 at 05:49 AMI guess it isn't interesting to them since their was no bloodshed.
Naah. They mostly ignored it because it wasn't anti-American.
Posted by: R. C. Dean at December 11, 2003 at 06:08 AMDarned if I can find the FoxNews Website report. Can you provide a URL? I don’t need it formatted for clickability, just paste it in.
Posted by: ForNow at December 11, 2003 at 06:20 AMSupposedly there were a few pro-Saddam teeny-boppers there too, versus more than 10,000 sane folks.
If anything gets big play on The Mainstream Media, guess which group it'll be...
Posted by: SLO Jim at December 11, 2003 at 06:36 AMI didn’t say:
“Darned if I can find the FoxNews Website.”
I said:
“Darned if I can find the FoxNews Website report.” [emphasis added]
I meant:
Darned if I can find, at the FoxNews Website, the report.
And I just tried again! Perhaps mention of the march is buried in some otherwise-themed article, though I haven’t found it in those that I’ve skimmed.
Posted by: ForNow at December 11, 2003 at 07:35 AMAnd I also did some FoxNews searches -- on keyword Iraq, for instance.
Posted by: ForNow at December 11, 2003 at 07:37 AMWaiting for ABC,SMH, The Australian et al to report on it is disturbed only by the sound of a thousand cicadas on balmy summer evening.
Posted by: d at December 11, 2003 at 07:42 AMThose pictures made my day. The power of the internet for all to see.
Posted by: Rob at December 11, 2003 at 08:02 AMI did post about it at Lucianne here & gave credit & linked to Tim. Finally somebody found an AFP story on it & now that’s among the Must Reads.
Also from another Iraqi blog, Iraq The Model, 49 words from among many more:
http://IraqTheModel.blogspot.com/
No body seemed to be afraid, in fact today I felt safer than ever.
I didn't expect such a response from the Iraqi people after all the terror they have suffered-and still suffering- from. To me it was a total success. I hope more brave steps will follow.
Andrew Sullivan has also gotten into the act with links to Healing Iraq:
A DEMO IN IRAQ: This one is against terrorism. Why hasn't the NYT covered it? Perhaps tomorrow. From this photograph, it looks substantial to me.
- 3:10:06 PM
They're all still getting over Turkeygate and Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Apart from that, The Age's motto is Carpe Diem, which is Latin for 'if we don't print it, it didn't happen'. The ABC is too cool to have a motto, but if they did it would be 'the truth is in the eye of the ABC'.
Posted by: ilibcc at December 11, 2003 at 09:35 AMThank you Tim. This is what I was looking for in the news today, and leave it to you and Sulli to be the eyes and ears on this moment in history. I have the goose flesh looking at these pictures.
Posted by: papertiger at December 11, 2003 at 10:10 AMWill The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, or the ABC cover this at all? For that matter, will the News Ltd papers at least mention it?
Come on, Tim. What part of "News Limited" do you not understand?
Posted by: Andrew D. at December 11, 2003 at 10:29 AMNice one Tim,
More useful sites like that please. I'll be adding that one to the list of regular reads.
Posted by: Jake D at December 11, 2003 at 10:34 AMTim, Thank you so much for the coverage. I have been following the Iraqi blogs from the beginning and if you want insight into the minds of the Iraqis, this is the place to go. Screw the main stream media, just like Old Europe, Old media is dead. Zeyads Blog is also featured in Drudgereport.com, Instapundit.com. Rock on bloggers!
Posted by: Lucy at December 11, 2003 at 11:13 AMFox News showed some video clips of the rallies, but then it's always been one of the few big media sources that isn't allergic to positive news coming out of Iraq.
Posted by: Randal Robinson at December 11, 2003 at 11:48 AMThe Age's motto? If it's like the NY Times or the Chicago/LA Tribune, the motto is "Caveat Lector" -
which is Latin for "I got your quarter, chump!"
Funny that the AFP story, of all the marchers there, pulls aside a commie for a quote. Good that they're covering it, hilarious to think of the wellspring of brotherly goodwill they must have felt when they saw that freakin hammer & sickle.
Posted by: Brian Jones at December 11, 2003 at 12:39 PMPeetah Jennings had a bit on the march in ABC's evening news. He implied the crowd was augmented by groups advocating different political parties and not demonstrating against terrorism.
Always a bad thing, I suppose, people freely advocating diverse political parties.
Posted by: Theodopoulos Pherecydes at December 11, 2003 at 12:54 PMYes, Drudge has it, but with quotemarks around 'terrorism'.
Posted by: Donnah at December 11, 2003 at 12:55 PMIt's not a REAL march unless there are anti-semetic signs about Zionists, and Bush-as-Hitler posters...
Posted by: Jerry at December 11, 2003 at 01:36 PMDurned if I can find it on Fox News' site or Yahoo.
I found a lot about the non-coalition countries not getting to bid on rebuilding Iraq. They must not have heard the story of the Little Red, White and Blue Hen.
Posted by: AST at December 11, 2003 at 02:01 PMWho cares whether the Age, SMH or ABC carry the story; all informed citzens know that you log onto a blogger for the real reports.
Good find TB.
Ultimately, the regime change will stand or fall on the Iraqi man in the street's willingness to resist Baathist-insurgent terror.
It doesn't appear on most of the big media also because the fact that that demonstration happened means, among other things, THAT IRAQ IS A LOT MORE UNDER AMERICAN CONTROL THAN THEY EVER WANTED TO ADMIT. No bombing, no fighting, not a single wounded person.
Posted by: Miguel at December 11, 2003 at 05:53 PMIf it does get reported by the major media, can we expect proportional inflation of the number of people involved in the march? Based on previous results, I fully expect them to report a half million people or so.
Posted by: Slartibartfast at December 11, 2003 at 11:23 PMDid a search on google news and couldnt find it either. But Google has a left wing slant on their main news listings page anyways so normally do not find anything related to positive news regarding US or its war on terror.
Posted by: japh at December 12, 2003 at 01:44 AMfrom the photos i saw it was a bunch of commies with hammer and sickle flags..
still nice to see them enjoying freedom for however long they decide they want it i guess
I can't believe an event so exceedingly rare as a pro-US rally of Iraqis in Baghdad was ignored by the Media. Doesn't rarity = newsworthy (Man bites dog). Wait, I mean I'm happy this wasn't on the news because it means these rallies happen everyday and something that happens everyday isn't newsworthy (Dog bites man). Paradoxes are inconvenient.
Posted by: Brendan at December 12, 2003 at 05:10 AMYes, Al-Jazeera are a bunch of lying ragheads, that's why the actual number is probably more like 50 thousand.
"And I thought street marches were a waste of time and don't reflect the true feeling of the majority. That's what they said abt the anti-war marches."
Maybe and maybe not, but let's focus on what we do know -- about 60% of Americans are and were for war in Iraq, and over 90% of Iraqi's were for the war as well, so why not go from there instead of concentrating on the effectiveness or support for marches.
Posted by: Jon Davison at December 12, 2003 at 07:42 AMI haven't seen any mention of these marches in the Oz media yet. I looked at the online sites for The Australian, ninemsn, etc, but found nothing. Can anyone provide a link to such coverage?
Posted by: Jethro at December 12, 2003 at 09:04 AMMiranda, the liberal media will run a story on a demo of three people and a dog if it suits their agenda. Remember Albert Park? The protesters were reduced to one aging hippie and an old deckchair and it still got airtime. Even the placard was worn out.
The hypocrisy lies squarely with the liberal media, Miranda.
Posted by: ilibcc at December 12, 2003 at 09:41 AMWhy, certainly, The NYTimes would LOVE to report on anything substantial of newsworthy value in such a positive vein, IF ONLY it were anything more than simple Iraqis being manipulated by American stooges for public display... (yawn!)
We at NYTimes know all, see all and report all... or hadn't you figured that out, yet? There's NO hypocrisy here.
Move along....
Posted by: SharpShooter at December 12, 2003 at 12:01 PMWhy, certainly, The NYTimes would LOVE to report on anything substantial of newsworthy value in such a positive vein, IF ONLY it were anything more than simple Iraqis being manipulated by American stooges for public display... (yawn!)
We at NYTimes know all, see all and report all... or hadn't you figured that out, yet? There's NO hypocrisy here.
Move along....
Posted by: SharpShooter at December 12, 2003 at 12:01 PMgood point, ilibcc. I'd reply but i can;t rememebr what I said in my now removed post, which are now deemed too controversial for the free-thinking libertarian "journalist" that runs this sad little blogmire.
Posted by: Miranda Divide at December 13, 2003 at 12:12 PM