What's Worse?

I keep wondering. The press has made a big deal about the US paying Iraqi newspapers to run "basically factual" stories about good things happening in Iraq.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.

Note the "basically factual" part. These are true stories. The US media doesn't trouble itself with being basically factual and certainly present "only one side of events."

Are the US media pure because they only tell one side of the story and don't bother with being "basically factual" free of charge?

Rummy had a bit to say about that yesterday.

Mr. Rumsfeld spoke to a group of academics at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. The Pentagon chief cited a "false and terribly damaging" Newsweek story that American guards flushed a copy of the Koran down a toilet at the Guantanamo Bay prison.
He cited a New York Times editorial that equated U.S. troops with the police state of Saddam Hussein, and to press reports quoting two Iraqis' unsubstantiated assertions that American soldiers attacked them with lions.
"Government has to reassess continuously, and we do," the defense secretary said. "So, too, it's useful, I believe, for the media to reassess."
Mr. Rumsfeld said the press is too fixated on the Iraq casualty count, which includes more than 2,000 American troops killed.
"It's appropriate to note not only how many Americans have been killed -- and may God bless them and their families -- but what they died for, or, more accurately, what they lived for," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
When he meets with troops in Iraq, "They ask, 'Why aren't the American people being given an accurate picture of what's happening in Iraq?' "
Mr. Rumsfeld acknowledged the risks of reporting a war firsthand, saying, "They have a tough job that's not easy, and a number of them have put their lives at risk, and some have been killed."