Jeff Jarvis: Why no Good News from Iraq?

Jeff Jarvis points to the lack of good news coming out Iraq and uses it as an example of press bias. He cites progress in the power system as an example of good news that is not reported. To me, this is a great example the complex nature of the news from Iraq. While new power stations are coming online, their ability to actually supply power to Iraqi customers is routinely disrupted by guerrillas. These efforts have reduced the delivery of electricity to a fraction of pre-war levels.

Comments

[observer]

I just looked at the numbers and the good news on electricity is that the coalition claims 5 megawatts of productive capacity as opposed to 4.4 before the occupation.

The bad news is that typically 2 megawatts is down. To give an idea of need production was 9 megawatts before 1991.

French and German parts are needed to repair existing ffacilities. The occupation has been reluctant to use Iraqi funds to buy these or let Iraqi firms make the repairs. Instead they have preferred to use Iraqi money to pay American corporations to build from scratch facilities the Iraqis may not be able to mantain.

This is good news?

I suppose it is if you look foreward to the coming corruption claims involving the occupation and American corporations. For those of us who want this thing to succeed it is more propaganda designed to mask the problems and avoid diagnosis and treatment until it's too late.

Exactly why alleged war supporters consistently engage in this and decry any reports of problems is a mystery. Perhaps they hate America and secretly want us to fail?