When good news goes bad

In covering the Jill Carroll story, Howard Kurtz discovers why there's no good news from Iraq. They can't get to it. It seems that "liberal press" is trying but as Lara Logan of CBS tells it,

"You don't think that I haven't been to the U.S. military and the State Department and the embassy and asked them over and over again, let's see the good stories, show us some of the good things that are going on? Oh, sorry, we can't take to you that school project, because if you put that on TV, they're going to be attacked, the teachers are going to be killed, the children might be victims of attack. Oh, sorry, we can't show this reconstruction project because then that's going to expose it to sabotage. And the last time we had journalists down here, the plant was attacked . I mean, security dominates every single thing that happens in this country."

What she means is the lack of security is the story and there's no way to put a pretty face on it.

Meanwhile, the Bush bloggers are already circling Jill Carroll, looking for blood. I've seen more than one reference to suspicions that the whole thing being staged to somehow benefit the "liberal media" agenda. I've also seen complaints that she didn't express sufficient gratitude to her US "rescuers" when she gave a statement that was taped while her Sunni guards were standing nearby.

Jeesh, don't these people ever wait to get the whole story before they rush in with innuendo and condemnations?