Having just passed the fifth-year mark of United States’ involvement in Iraq, the national and international news outlets were flooded with retrospective coverage of the war. Whether you agree with the war or not, whether your position on the conflict has shifted or stayed the same, it seems clear that one thing that has not stayed the same is the tune coming from the media coverage.

Curiously enough, as we, the American people, watch the images and sounds of Iraq in our newspapers, our televisions, our radios, one must at least wonder where we were when these stories first came through wires. Why is that the story seems to be changing? What is the truth? Why didn’t we demand fair and accurate coverage from the start?

The failing is most certainly that of the media, of the news outlets that didn’t carry the story, of the journalists that didn’t look hard enough. But the failing is perhaps more of our own, as the audience, the newspaper readers, the television viewers and the radio listeners who didn’t demand more. By not asking for more, we did not get more. And by this, we are not bringing down the giants of the corporate media of world or the news makers themselves. We are only bringing down are ourselves. 

College is about experience, about preparing for the “real world”. So perhaps by not critically engaging, our readers are adequately preparing themselves to become the next generation of complacent Americans, ready to be spoon-fed whatever the media has cooked up. And for hopeful young journalists, what better way to prepare us than readers, who seem to be disengaged and uninterested?