OK, keep us informed, but…! I really hate the massive TV and radio coverage of the war to the point where we are getting a play-by-play. I’m talking about whole stories built on gab just for the sake of having something to say like: “You can see smoke rising in the distance…this is the sound of gunfire at night…there is nothing to hear right now, but we think bombs may start dropping, so let’s listen in…” Cheese ‘n’ Rice! Give it break!
Will the media stop it already? What will they do next, give us the sounds of wounded soldiers? This is war, not a baseball game! The media has gone too far. They have no sense about what is news worthy anymore. On the tree of life, they’re right up with the buzzards and vultures pecking at the carnage for news stories.
Ok, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! What’s your story, sister? - Jinx
I remember the stringently metered-out information that came out of the Gulf War, and this time around, as far as I’m concerned, the more information that’s coming out of Iraq, the better able we’ll be to make up our own minds about what’s actually going on over there. And if this means a certain amount of “They’re getting closer to Baghdad! They’re getting closer! They’re getting really close now! Oh, they’re SO close!..” then I say just put up with it for the sake of the larger picture.
I’m also thinking in terms of future atrocity/war crimes scandals, like the Kuwaiti “babies in incubators” thing. If there’d been more reporters and “eyes watching” on the ground, that whole story might have been a complete non-starter.
And the media is, after all, in the entertainment business, so they’re desperately trying to suck as much juice out of the exceedingly dull story of “Military spends two weeks driving through featureless desert with occasional battles” as they can. Just when I was saying to myself, “They’re so desperate for ‘news’, I’m surprised they haven’t had an interview with the dolphins”, they had an interview with the dolphins.
Look. It’s War. Jinx is right. It’s not a media event. I would support shippng all of the media behind the lines, briefing them once a day and keeping them out of the freakin’ way.
This war is tough enough for the forces without more civilians to worry about. And how well would anyone do his/her job with a bunch of reporters/critics breathing down his/her neck?
Can you imagine the idiocy of a Police force with an embedded reporter?
Fine. We’re all curious to know what’s going on, but having these people talking with the enemy, putting themselves in harm’s way, scrutinizing every move and spinning the facts to their respective agendas, is just nuts.