On a recent airing of CNN’s The Situation Room, host Wolf Blitzer attempts to explain why good news out of Iraq—such as the sharp decreases in violence seen over the last few months—goes unreported:

[TERRY] JEFFREY[, CYBERCAST NEWS SERVICE]: You know, there’s sort of a catch-22. As the war starts to succeed, as the surge is working, violence is going down, U.S. casualties are going down in Iraq, it’s not news.

When Americans aren’t killed there, it’s not on the front pages of the newspaper. It’s not heavily in the cable news coverage. And people start to forget about it. They don’t realize necessarily that things are going well.

But to the degree that it’s not an issue, it’s good politically for Republicans.

[WOLF] BLITZER[, CNN CORRESPONDENT]: You know, I’m — I’m always reluctant to say things are going well. I hope they are going well in Iraq. Always reluctant to even say it, because I’m afraid of a jinx, because, the next morning...

[DONNA] BRAZILE[, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST]: Absolutely.

BLITZER: ... you could wake up and there could be a horrible, horrible disaster over there.

(Emphasis added.)

Blitzer’s admission came up in a discussion of poll numbers, which he kicked off by asking, “How are things going for the U.S. in Iraq? Thirty-four percent say it’s going well. Sixty-five percent say it’s going badly.”

The polls largely reflect the media’s reporting, so if positive trends go unreported—and by Blitzer’s own admission, they do—then those positive trends will not be reflected in the polls.

It’s really laughable that good news goes unreported because it might jinx the war effort. If that were the case, one would expect the media to hold back on bad news, too; after all, bad news has the effect of driving down public support for the war, which also damages the war effort.

But, of course, the media’s newfound reporting restraint only seems to apply when discussing positive developments out of Iraq.