Following on from my earlier comments about Congressman Jim Marshall's article criticising the negative tone of media coverage of Iraq, I've just been reading an internal briefing document giving an overview of the current situation in the country. It was written by a BBC colleague on his return from Baghdad.

In it, he says:
"The Coalition Provisional Authority has been critical of our recent coverage, suggesting that we have over-played the extent of the lawlessness and criminality and adopted a negative tone in our reporting. My personal opinion is that this is typical of the kind of “spin” that comes into play when military operations start to go wrong. "

So is the media portraying a "falsely bleak picture" -- as Jim Marshall argues -- or are we talking down the many positives achieved by the liberating forces in Iraq?

Glenn Reynolds is also following the Iraq Media Bias issue over at Instapundit, although the guy talks out of his arse and has never been anywhere near Iraq as far as I can tell. This becomes blatantly obvious when you read this article, in which Reynolds says that "A lot of Big Media types don’t get out of Baghdad much to see the rest of the country where things are better."

There's a very good reason for that, Glenn. It's because it isn't safe to travel around Iraq, you fool. Tell you what -- you get over to Iraq, have a wander around, and then you can tell us all about how wonderful it is....if you survive to tell the tale, that is.