For practitioners of biased or substandard journalism, the greatest sin is omission. Standard fare for mainstream wire reports on the war is to assemble a narrative list of terrorist attacks; articles are often extended to several paragraphs with politically inclined statement/contradiction clauses; with some consistency, regardless of how small a radius in which a given article's events occurred, attacks are reported as being committed "across the country." The least common denominator among all these practices is the absence of information on Allied and Iraqi activities. Central Command issues reports on small and large unit actions, administrative milestones, significant public works projects and other events worthy of official note. Most are press releases; some are articles written by military staff, worth the column space of any newspaper.

Very little of this easily accessible information can be found in the work of journalists whose work is often supplemented by collaborative efforts and government reports.

Let's take the first story returned by a search string of "violence across the country" on Google News. It's Agent France-Presse. Osama bin Laden, fresh from his bizarre rhetorical emulation of the American far left on election's eve, is telling a nation, whose population almost unanimously despises him, to forfeit its first step into government by consent. That's worth more humor than worry so we're presented with a "spasm of violence across the country" that, through the murder of thirteen people in one location, will somehow "threaten" to "mar" Iraq's January 30th election. "Mar" is a curious word choice, since of all things a battering ram will be "marred" as it nevertheless tears through a wall; it seems the commitment of President Bush and Prime Ministers Blair and Allawi have finally convinced the commentariat that a vote will be had. After wading through the nonsensical ramblings of Abu Musab al Zarqawi and kin, and a strong dose of editorial assertions based on what have become the left's articles of faith, we're treated to a second tally of terrorist-murdered Iraqis, though it's unclear if this number includes the thirteen we encountered before. Bottom line: twelve one hundred thousandths of a percent of the population was killed by the "deadly insurgency," and parties are divided over politics. The only mention the United States military receives is one of those articles of faith, an assertion that dismantling Saddam Hussein's bases of military and political power must have driven normal men to terrorism.

Very interesting. The AFP story would have been printed in time to pick up news that Allied-Iraqi forces prevented a car bombing and continued to disrupt terrorists in Mosul as shortly after the dining hall attack as the day before Christmas Eve. And that was only 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division:

Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment prevented a potential attack from occurring on security forces Thursday Dec 23 after they located a car containing a detonator, bomb making material and a video camera. Two subjects fled before they could be apprehended. An Explosives Ordnance Disposal team cleared the vehicle.

Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 14th Cavalry Regiment conducted cordon and search operations near the city of Singar today for suspected terrorist cell members. Multi-National Forces detained 32 insurgents who remain in custody for questioning. Soldiers also confiscated five AK-47s, two handguns and two million dinars.

Soldiers from 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment detained two suspicious individuals Thursday at a traffic control point in central Mosul after Multi-National Forces spotted the subjects observing the checkpoint from a distance. A search of the subjects produced 1,000 blank identification cards and the suspects were taken into custody.

3-21 also conducted search operations near the northern city of Hammam al Alil Thursday in an attempt to locate suspected weapons caches. The search resulted in the detainment of three insurgents who remain in custody.

Soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 14th Cavalry Regiment conducted search operations of a Tal Afar business Thursday that resulted in the detention of one individual after Multi-National Forces discovered anti-Iraqi forces propaganda and other documents containing schematics and chemical equations in the business. The suspect remains in custody.

Yesterday, while Iraq was likely "reeling" from said "spasm," two of Zarqawi's top henchmen, along with a gaggle of foreign terrorists, were nabbed in Ar Ramadi, thanks to the informative help of brave Iraqis. The same day, a market in Babil Province was combed by joint forces in an effort to keep hurting saboteurs off-balance:

Despite a recent drop in insurgent activity in the area, the commander of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, which led the operation, said he has no intention of letting local insurgents regroup.

"By staying in the attack, we continue to generate momentum," said Col. Ronald J. Johnson. "We are piecing more and more of the puzzle together. Our intelligence is growing, the connections are emerging, and the Iraqi security forces themselves are playing an increasingly decisive role."

All this information, ready to be placed in a wire report with proper attribution. How about a sober but hopeful progress update on the resettlement of Fallujah? Or the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior's vote of confidence, a compelling counterpoint to the chorus of pessimists usually found on newspages?

Omission is a powerful tool for the biased masquerading as the objective: recontextualization of a reported event can always be overcome by an unconvinced reader's cross-referencing of other reports or a simple employment of common sense. But if you leave it out, you don't risk any reader seeing through your color. You can wager that he won't seek out other reports because he hasn't been given information prompting him to do so. Not surprisingly, the following exchange between Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and an American soldier barely received a fraction of the exposure from the elite press given to the "other exchange":

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sir, how do we win the war in the media? It seems like that is the place where we're getting beat up more than anybody else. I've been here — this is my third tour over here, and we have done some amazing things. And it seems like the enemy's Web sites and everything else are all over the media, and they love it. But the thing is, is everything we do good, no matter if it's helping a little kid or building a new school, the public affairs sends out the message, but the media doesn't pick up on it. How do we win the propaganda war?

RUMSFELD: That does not sound like a question that was planted by the press. (LAUGHTER) That happens sometimes. It's one of the hardest things we do in our country. We have freedom of the press. We believe in that. We believe that democracy can take that massive misinformation and differing of views, and that free people can synthesize all of that and find their way to right decisions...And the truth is, however, it gets through eventually. There are people in the United States who understand what's really going on over here.

At first glance, Rumsfeld was being charitable. But he may have been sharply coy. Old media will not change as an institution; it is too ideologically entrenched and politically committed. If its television programs, newspapers and magazines start including regular reports of the myriad victories won by Americans, Allies and Iraqis, effectively ending the current apparent narrative of "terrorists did this, we did nothing," the presentation will still be unfair. Just take a look at how they chopped up the SecDef's conversation. But that's okay, because reform is not necessary. Rumsfeld's "people in the United States" are those growing in stature and influence: editors of new media and, to a lesser yet important extent, bloggers.