The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual.

The AP story made little to no mention of U.S. accomplishments in Iraq or positive interaction between American troops and the Iraqi people. Instead, according to this story, troop morale is kept artificially high by limiting soldier access to newspapers, and plying them with "a startling range of amenities, ranging from big screen televisions to the latest videogame systems packed into trailers that serve as homes to tens of thousands of soldiers."

In other words, morale is only good because our service members are oblivious to how bad they have it.

The story ends with a pot shot at the Secretary of Defense - a sure-fire way to keep up the morale of those soldiers lucky enough to evade the flashing lights and sneak a look at this particular story on line.

The Media Research Center's complaints can be found in full here, but basically their report accuses the network television news of excessive and increasing pessimism in their coverage of the war in Iraq, focusing only on terror attacks and neglecting the political process, heroism, good will, and economic growth occurring over there.

The MRC report has been met with smug righteousness (no pun intended) from conservatives (ex: here) and smug, sarcastic derision from liberals (ex: here).

MRC might be run out of Dick Cheney's garage for all I know, but they have a point. Sort of. The fact is that the media gives the news that they think will sell, and the people who watch the networks want to see that Bush's policies are causing the world to go to hell in a hand basket. The networks have always focused on the negatives more than the positives - it is an American punchline that there is exactly one "feel good" story per newscast, and it's at the very end. But does it really matter anymore? Fewer and fewer people are getting their news from the television, and fewer of them are trusting it. A Gallup Poll in June found that public confidence in newspapers and television has declined from 54 percent in 1989 to only 28 percent today – an all-time low.

Yes, it does matter. The television networks try to pass themselves off as objective, as do most newspapers and internet news sources, and even a couple of blogs. Any reporter, editor, broadcaster or institution has an inherent bias in their perspective, but people understand integrity. We expect a sincere attempt at objectivity from our news outlets, and we should not have to feel cynical about the bias that exists. But market forces always make themselves felt, which is why newspapers and televised news have been hemorraging viewers for years. (readers are viewers, right?) Just as in any other industry, the consumers will seek out that which they desire, especially in this day and age of the internet.

And that's the "feel good" story today at Atlas Blogged.