I’ve been thinking for a while now that the media is doing all of us a real disservice in this new war. They are getting impatient for real news, and becoming agitators. We keep hearing that the ‘American People’ are losing patience, even though there is no evidence of it. Every Q&A at the White House has turned into a grilling about how ‘slowly’ the war is going.
There is just far too much handwringing in the media these days - they are trying to portray America as being fearful, tired, and impatient, when in fact it is the MEDIA that is fearful and impatient. They need to get their act together.
Today Secretary Rumsfeld took a rather audacious step and sent a message directly to the media, basically saying that they are a bunch of uneducated idiots with no sense of perspective. One press release is here: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Nov2001/b11012001_bt560-01.html He is also growing increasingly abrupt answering the never-ending chorus of silly and annoying questions.
Saletan is no fringe flake, and he’s basically claiming that the media is aiding and abetting the enemy. I agree.
So, here’s the big debate question: Is the media losing its grasp on what America is really feeling? And of the members of the media, who ‘gets it’, and who is completely out to lunch?
I never thought I’d say this, but I have to give some kudos to Dan Rather for his refusal to take Cipro or be tested for Anthrax. It may have been a bit personally reckless, but it sent a pretty strong message that at least one man in the media wasn’t going to let the cave-dwelling bastards scare him. Way to go, Dan.
We are not talking about keeping us informed. We’re talking about intentionally agitating in order to manufacture news. I suggest you read Saleton’s article - it describes the syndrome accurately.
Right from day 1, the administration made no secret of the fact that this was going to be a long, difficult war. And now, 24 days into the action, the media is trying to declare the war a failure because it isn’t over. They keep asking, over and over again, if America is losing patience, when all the polls show that support for the war has not wavered a bit. They are framing questions to try to make normal military actions sound like acts of desperation, because that would be news.
Here’s an example from Saleton’s article:
Now, NONE of this comes from the American people. This is the media feeding on itself. A reporter airs his own, personal sense of unease, other reporters grasp it as news (“Look - a sense of unease! Let’s dig into it!”). And now the investigation itself becomes news.
Aside from all this, the media is also frantically trying to uncover evidence of secret military movements, and publishing them. Administration officials had to spend half a day meeting with the Washington Post to prevent them from publishing information they got from a leaky source at the Pentagon, which would have seriously compromised a military mission (they were successful in containing the leak, so we don’t know exactly what it was. But just the fact that they had to spend a half day cajoling the publisher of the Post before he agreed to pull the story suggests how cavalier the media is in protecting military secrets).
Loren Jenkins from NPR is on record as saying that if could uncover evidence of an impending U.S. sneak-attack, he would publish it because the people have a ‘right to know’. That’s simply insane. Operational military details MUST be kept secret, and it’s a travesty that the U.S. military has to hide from our own press corps because the press apparently has no sense of responsibility any more.
In WWII, this would have been called Agitprop. It might even have been called treason.
I’m a liberal Democrat, and I strongly believe in a free press, but we haven’t had one in this country for quite some time. Instead we have irresponsible idiots posing as reporters who as far as I can tell do not understand the departments they are covering. I remember the same thing from the Gulf War. Over and over again the idiots would ask Cheney or Schwartzkopf the same question about what the plans were. It was no different from the Saturday Night Live sketch lampooning it. The Pentagon is not going to tell you what their battle plans or timetables are, the public doesn’t need to know that sort of thing and even liberal Democrats who support the war (most of us) are taking it on faith that the Bush Administration is doing that.
This is no different from the weird coverage of Gary Condit last summer (and, no Democrat I knew was covering for him). Yes, the connection to the tragically missing woman was newsworthy, but not “round the clock coverage” newsworthy. Same with the OJ trial (OJ must be grateful that his most recent trial got so much less coverage), or the “Lewinsky” affair". Again, it was newsworthy, but two years of around the clock coverage? I don’t think so. Where were the major studies of budget priorities? Foreign policy? Ohhh nooo! We’ve got to have back to back sex scandals (My great uncle George had a show called Scandals.)
But the press is not reporting things to the public that the public needs to know.
“Losing” indicates an ongoing, downward trend. To be honest, I think of it in terms of “lost;” lost its grip on reality, and lost its credibility. It’s been a while since the real media first sank to the same level of sensationalism as the tabloids. Objectivity has flown out the window in the rush to evoke emotion and garner ratings-it’s almost as if the networks are taking bets on who can scare more people and put the barest of speculation on the air first…to hell with truth or accuracy. At least the local papers make an attempt to fact-find and curb bias, so not all is lost. yet.
IMO, the media is trying to create the story, not report it. I hear idiotic question after similarly worded question, and I would tear my hair out if I had any. The media is surely doing us a disservice.
We need C.J. from ‘West Wing’ to handle the news conferences.
there seems to be more agreement here than GD, so perhaps this is piling on -
to the degree that the media is pushing a manufactured agenda, why even pretend that it’s coming from elsewhere? Why pretend to be some kind of middleman?
here’s what I want to see:
reporter: some analysts are voicing the opinion that bombing near civilian centers will erode the coalition.
Gen. Myers: Well, if those analysts want to debate strategy with me, tell them to come here & ask me themselves.
reporter: some are saying that we should be helping the Northern Alliance by bombing Taliban front lines.
Myers: who is “some”
reporter: well, actually we were all just kinda talking about it at the water cooler…
Myers: Well, if you want to represent your own opinions here that’s fine. But let me remind you that according to the US Constitution there is a place for such debate, it’s in congress, among the elected representatives of the people. Thank you, and have a pleasant day.
this is from the Rumsfeld news briefing mentioned above :
What-I’d-like-to-hear-Rumsfeld-say-in-a-sickeningly-sweet-condescending-tone: Yes, and that is why we are attacking the taliban much . . more . . rapidly.
It pains me to no end to see reporters covering the Pentagon–probably making more money than I am–and they still refer to the 1991 war with Iraq as “Desert Fox.”
I still see captions with pictures of soldiers described as “Marines,” and pictures of Marines described as “soldiers.”
It also pains me to see reporters divulge facts which can be used against us by our enemies. Case in point–it got out somehow that the U.S. was consulting geologists to look at the rocks behind Osama in his first video to help narrow down the regions where he may be.
So look at Osama’s video today. Can you see any rocks? No. He isn’t stupid. He’s got a backdrop up now.
It got out that the U.S. issued last monday’s alert because we had monitored several cell phone conversations from (list countries here) mentioning a big strike coming between the 2nd and 7th of November. (Nov. 4 is the anniversary of the capture of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, BTW.)
So ya think they’re gonna keep using the same cell phones, now? Think they’re gonna go out and buy new ones and switch freqs? Hell yeah, they will!
The press ought to be ashamed of themselves, as should the dipshits that leaked the info to them.
I’d rather have an overzealous media than one that wasn’t doing its job at all. The increasing frequency of the media-bashing and attacks on freedom of the press are beginning to worry me. They’re supposed to remain skeptical of what the government says, and they’re supposed to inquire into what that government does. And I, for one, think it’s our business.
What I have found disturbing about the coverage is how anxious everybody seems to toe the government line.
Something interesting: Pay attention to how American news media covers the deaths of innocent Afghanis. In every case I have seen, they are always careful to remind us that 5,000+ Americans were killed on 9/11. Have we forgotten!? They are basically playing the apologist of the U.S. military, in justifying the attacks. It is not reporting in an objective manner.
On the other hand, if you watch a foreign service, like the BBC for example, they will report the deaths, but they don’t feel the need to bring up the 5,000+ deaths on 9/11. They leave the job of justifying the actions to the military.
This is a disturbing trend. The news media should not be out there trying to justify these attacks. They should present the facts, and let us decide if they are just or not.
This sort of thing is happening, to a greater or lesser extent, with everything connected to the war. Every time a news story is broadcast, some talking head will come in and explain to us why the government is justified in doing what it is doing.
I suppose that after the war is over, W will praise the news media for being so “cooperative,” not unlike what his dad did after the Gulf War.
A media company that sends a reporter to cover the Pentagon who doesn’t know the difference between “Desert Fox” and “Desert Storm,” and can’t tell the difference between a Soldier and a Marine, is not doing its job.
And part of the media’s job is to decide what NOT to report.
What’s wrong with media bashing? Are you saying that it’s ok for the media to dish it out, but not to take it? If coverage is sloppy, fact-checking is done by incompetents, and they don’t have the sense to stay off the air with material that presents an immediate operational hazard, then the media deserves a good bashing.
Or are the only sources that deserve protection media sources–while they compromise military intelligence sources and render aid to the enemy.