Media Criticism

There is a disturbing story out of Iraq today involving the abuse of 24 orphaned boys. Earlier this month the U.S. military was alerted to the fact that there was an “orphanage” where the staff was mistreating the children. When our troops went to investigate they found 24 boys between 7 and about 13 in a darkened room. The boys were naked and lying on the floor. Some were tied to their beds and most were too weak to stand once they were freed.

The soldiers who searched the building said that there was a locked room with clothing and food, plenty to take care of the boys who had obviously not been fed in some time. Five people who were charged with taking care of the boys were arrested and turned over to Iraqi authorities. The boys were taken to a hospital for treatment and eventually sent to another orphanage run by the same Iraqi ministry as the one from which they were taken. The Iraqi government has promised an investigation.

Of late I have been hearing a lot out of the administration about how the good things in Iraq are not being reported, and this charge is being echoed by the right wing media. It strikes me as odd that this story, which got some play on CNN and MSNBC, was strangely absent from most of the right wing media I checked. This story was really sad. I saw the pictures. To make matters worse (if that’s possible), these were special needs children. I simply cannot understand abusing helpless children. I also don’t understand how the Iraqi ministry didn’t know about this. It was common knowledge in the neighborhood where the children were found and reports say at least one person claims to have reported it to the ministry.

Some have claimed a media bias for showing stories such as this, or reporting on the endless bombings and death. One Fox commentator even says we don’t know what causes them so they shouldn’t be reported. I think we deserve to know the good with the bad, especially when the lives of our soldiers, and in this case the lives of 24 innocent young boys are involved. These stories make me question whether things are even worse in Iraq than we’re led to believe.

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