Here's some good news about how Iraqis view their own situation. Several international news organizations concluded a poll of Iraqis and the results may surprise you.

The media pollsters began their survey by asking, “Overall, how would you say things are going in your life these days — very good, quite good, quite bad or very bad?”

Seventy-one percent of those polled say very good or quite good — up from 55 percent in a poll taken in June 2004. Twenty-nine percent say their lives are quite bad or very bad — down from 45 percent in 2004.

The pollsters also asked about individual aspects of the respondents’ lives in the neighborhoods where they live. Sixty-one percent report that the security situation is very good or quite good. Sixty-six percent rate their protection from crime as very good or quite good.

Seventy-four percent say local schools are very good or quite good. Seventy percent say their family’s economic situation is very good or quite good. Seventy-eight percent rate their freedom of speech as very good or quite good.

Of course, there are some who say their situation is worse than it was last year, and worse than it was before the war. But in both cases, they are in the minority.

The Iraqis polled by ABC and the other news organizations also express confidence in a number of national institutions. Sixty-seven percent say they have a great deal or a lot of confidence in the new Iraqi army. And 68 percent say they have a great deal or a lot of confidence in the police. Those numbers rank alongside confidence in the country’s religious leaders, which is at 67 percent.

With story after story about how the American soldiers and Iraqis themselves have a much more optimistic view of the situation over there than the portrayal in the media, you would think that the media might start questioning itself about the job it's doing. After all, they usually love gazing at their own navels and analyzing their performance. But, I see little evidence that any such self-examination of their coverage of the war and situation in Iraq has been going on.