Laura Ingrahm has become a really good conservative radio personality recently. Her trip to Iraq, to see first hand what was happening there, should be sufficient in anyone’s book for some serious respect. Wednesday morning she was discussing President Bush’s recent challenge to the media to balance their reporting on events in Iraq. Bush has tapped into something here, as can be seen in this ABC News article [h/t RCP] on how people are beginning to call the media on their coverage:

Over the last 24 hours, ABC News has been reading hundreds of messages sent in by viewers in response to President Bush’s claim that the media are undermining support for war in Iraq.

Viewer opinions ran the gamut, but the vast majority believed the media were biased in their Iraq coverage.

“I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, for a solution to this, because it seems that our major media networks don’t want to portray the good,” a woman from West Virginia asked President Bush at a recent town hall.

Teena from Wisconsin agreed.

“If we have the capabilities of the media and we can see the blood, bombs, killing and horror, shouldn’t we also see the teaching, cleanup, building, training of soldiers … and the many other great things I know our soldiers are doing for us?” she wrote.

While this has been a common lament from many corners, Laura framed the issue really well by using a recording of Chris Mathews asking whether reconstruction was news. Laura pointed out of course it was news – because it demonstrated the difference in tactics between the coalition and the terrorists.

This is a very important and powerful observation, one I think could sway the media to be more balanced. Building a school is not necessarily news. But building a school as a method to fight targetted bombings of mosques by terrorists is news. Training troops and police is not news, unless of course it is the tactic being directed towards the suicide murder of recruits being trained.

The difference in how each side is doing battle is news, and it is important the media recognize the difference and report on the results. Not the political results, the human results. The media has been known to point out how Hamas and Bin Laden built schools and infrastructure while their enemies hunted them. So we know it is a meme that the media has explored before (or should that be ‘exploited’?). So it is not unreasonable to challenge them to report on it now.

I am hoping the media still has some professionalism left, enough to see that Laura is 100% correct in framing the story in terms of how each side is trying to win in Iraq. Our support for the Iraq people verses the terrorists’ blood-lust. And President Bush should continue to nudge the media to take THEIR jobs seriously and report on all important aspects of the conflict.