I am curious to hear how the USA media has been reporting the Iraq conflict. First, I dont have access to cable, so I miss out on CNNN et al.
Are images/information about the worldwide protests being aired in the USA?
I heard on the radio, a foreign correspondent saying that presentation of the conflict was delivered with a similar feel to a sporting event - even flicking over to basketball games when things started getting boring. This could be totally wrong - it’s just what I heard. Is it true?
Media here was reporting that the captured USA soldiers being interviewed by Iraqi ‘media’ were not allowed to be shown in the USA. Have they shown them yet?
I put this in GD, because I think anything Iraq war related at the moment cannot but have a political bent. Thanks.
Well, no. There are networks designed as 24-hour news sources (like CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News) and there are networks that are designed for entertainment (like ABC, CBS, and NBC). The former are covering nothing but the war. The latter are interrupting normal programming only for significant breaking news (although they covered fairly heavy at the start).
Yes. They began showing them after the families were notified. Waiting for family notification is a long-standing unwritten policy in American media.
I was speaking to a couple who just got back from the Canaries last night. They only had CNN in English in their hotel. They said watching that was rather like watching the Olympics on US teevee – there’s only one nation winning and no other perspectives matter. Just two random views from people obviously shocked by the presentation. I have no personal experience.
I guess it depends what you have by way of contrast.
Here’s an Arab commentator’s opinon of CNN versus Al Jazeera - though it should be pointed out that this is something of an unfair comparison, because Al Jazeera is independent and state-funded, whereas CNN is a commercial station. Al Jazeera vs. BBC would be a more appropriate comparison.
I’m watching all three American news networks all day long, including CNN. How CNN’s coverage could be perceived as cheerleading the war is beyond me. It has faithfully showed every news conference held by the Saddam regime, complete with instantaneous translation. It has trumpeted the worldwide protests with more coverage than the other two networks combined. It has broadcast interviews with “angry Muslims” from all over the Middle East. It did not even report the uprising in Basra for several hours after the other two did. It is painting a picture of America encountering stiff resistance, and barely mentioning that this resistance is from people forced at gunpoint by the Fedayeen Saddam. I reckon that, like with anything else, people are seeing whatever it is they are looking for.
I keep waiting for the “Survivor:Gulf War 2” blurb on CNN
It’s like they’re marketing it like a reality show. /boggle
On a side note, my hubby won’t stop watching CNN, I am starting to have dreams about CNN, I am ready to ban CNN in my house. I cannot BELIEVE some of the assine, inane questioning done by some of the reporters, especially some of the footage I’ve seen of the families of POW’s being held in Iraq. Some of the questions are so very obviously being asked to provoke a emotional response.
For example, the first day after Iraq broadcast they had captured American POWs, they were interviewing some of the families on CNN. One of the reporters in the studio (a female, no idea which one) was interviewing one of the POW’s sisters, asking questions like “How did he look to you? How are you feeling right now?” I couldn’t stop myself from cynically laughing when the sister made the reporter look like the completely insensitive asshole she was being. The sister responded with “How’s he SUPPOSED to look in that situation? I suppose he looked ok, considering.” When the reporter asked how she felt, right now, the sister answered with a start of incredulous disgust and said “How do you THINK I feel?!? How am I SUPPOSED to feel?!?”
At which point the reporter quickly moved onto the brother, not asking the sister any more questions.
Assholes. How in the fuck do people like that reporter sleep at night? Shameful. Absolutely shameful.
POWs families experiencing pain, grief and loss at the unknown factor of what is going to happen to their loved ones, is bad enough. People like that reporter are doing nothing more than pouring salt into the wound, hoping to catch the tears on TV to boost the ratings. I just hope to fucking god THEY’RE never in that situation, but if they are, I hope to hell someone interviews them as callously as they interviewed those families, so they can see for themselves what stupidity and harm they’ve subjected on others.
Wow thanks jimm, that article is certainly an alternative perspective.
So are the USA networks showing the bloodshed, bodies and destroyed civilian buildings?
LibertarianThe impression I have been given is not that the USA networks are cheerleading, but that there is a similar slick style to a sports coverage, giving it a unreal, removed quality.
I’ve stopped watching CNN.
They’re trying to be reasonably objective but the effect is spoiled by the repeats of all those propaganda speeches, literally ad nauseam.
I’m mostly watching Euro News, mainly for the ‘no comment’ pictures or live coverage, the BBC for the latest news, German and Belgian news broadcasts, which provide a very balanced view and in-depth documentaries.
Well, I suppose they have a “slick style” in the sense that they use state-of-the-art technology. But it is hardly “unreal” or “removed” when we see the feed from the embedded reporters who are broadcasting the battles live as they occur.
-----Original Message-----
From: dladvisories_sender@DTIC.MIL
To: DODADVISORIES-L@DTIC.MIL
Sent: 3/23/03 3:30 PM
Subject: Coverage of POWs and Deceased
PRESS ADVISORY from the United States Department of Defense
No. 026-P
PRESS ADVISORY March 23, 2003
Out of respect for the families and consistent with the
principles of the Geneva Conventions:
We request news organizations not air or publish recognizable
images or audio recordings that identify POWs. Additionally, we
request you not use their names, first or last, or their unit
until next-of-kin notification is complete. We are working hard
to reach their families. We will notify you as soon as this is
done.
We repeat standing policy that news organizations not air or
publish recognizable images of deceased members of the U.S.
military or use their names, first or last, or their unit, until
next-of-kin notification is completed or 72 hours. We are
working hard to reach their families. We will notify you as
soon as this is done.
Has there been anything in the US as revoltingly exploitative as the UK’s Sky News graphics, which have computer generated helicopters, tanks, and jets flying in between pictures of explosions, Saddam, GWB, Bush, etc.? Looks just like a video game. I don’t even think Fox would stoop that low (though of course they are owned by the same group).
I was just going off the Aljazeerah link posted earlier. I should have emphasised the are in: So are the USA networks showing the bloodshed, bodies and destroyed civilian buildings?
MercyStreet: Isn’t this a good thing to warn the press against showing POW’s? We have been seeing images of many Iraqi POW’s bound with cable-ties, shit-scared and paraded in front of the cameras - with close-ups.
It is probably a bit late for the military to issue this advice, I suppose they are doing it to make the Iraqi version of ‘lets humiliate the POW’s’ stand out more.
By the way, what happens after the war - are both sides found in breach of convention 13?
Well, they have used CGI to explain tactics on CNN and to illustrate what is happening on the battlefield. They also have these cardboard cutout looking things of blue and red soldiers, tanks, etc (fairly small) to show where things are strategically on this large table map of Iraq.
Oops…I realize by saying “happening” it might give the impression that they are using it at the same time or in place of the live battle coverage. They aren’t…it’s more like what happened a day or two ago and what the future tactics will be in different situations on the ground.
No, far worse. It’s just a filler before a war report: exciting music, thumping bass, CGI desert, then black-framed pictures of the above (I meant “GWB, Blair” above BTW) float towards the camera, and then a squadron of choppers scream from behind the camera, dodging the pictures, tanks roll across the desert towards the camera, and jets pour onto screen chasing the helicopters.
No, because the US is not in violation. And Iraq hasn’t been officially found in breach, AFAIK. It’s not the fact that the US POWs were shown on TV, it’s the forced interviews being aired that the US is objecting to. To my knowledge, the US media has not done this sort of thing.
I don’t know about “revoltingly exploitative”, but all the networks use visual aids to supplement commentary from retired generals and whatnot. These are commercial networks, and they gear their production styles to what they believe will be most competitive in the market. If they failed to do that, they would go out of business since there is no government subsidy to prop them up. That said, these are nothing like the coverage MTV gives the war. You might likely forgive it since it is extremely leftist and sympathetic to anti-Americanism, but it is — as we say in the South — slicker than owl shit.
What?? showing POW’s in a humiliating manner, is something both sides are guilty of.
Geneva convention
“prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity”
How can you be so sure the US is not in violation? Did they tell you on CNN?
I assumed the email MercyStreet posted:
“We request news organizations not air or publish recognizable images or audio recordings that identify POWs.”
was concerning the showing of POW’s from both sides.
On re-reading the whole email quote, I earlier misinterpreted this as moraly justified, but now that you point it out, it is evident to be biased and immoral.