Western media war reporting a farce

The western media's war coverage, especially that of the Fox network, is a farce. This according to the man that wrote the book on war reporting, Phillip Knight

People in Britain must feel the same way. Subscriptions to Al Jazeera there are up by 4,000,000.

As usual, the American public is in the dark about the state of world affairs. Nothing new however, the misinformation of Americans about this war is just another in the long line of international incidents -- Kosovo, as a recent example -- that they are country miles from the truth on.

Whipped into a patriotic frenzy, the credulous Americans happily swallowed the completely fictitious allusions to Iraqi complicity in 9.11.

This isn't the easiest of times to ask you guys to question the stories your government feeds you, but by God, question them you surely need to.

 

Good point !

 

OFFENSE AND DEFENSE

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH

The battle between Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon.

Issue of 2003-04-07
Posted 2003-03-31

As the ground campaign against Saddam Hussein faltered last week, with attenuated supply lines and a lack of immediate reinforcements, there was anger in the Pentagon. Several senior war planners complained to me in interviews that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and his inner circle of civilian advisers, who had been chiefly responsible for persuading President Bush to lead the country into war, had insisted on micromanaging the war’s operational details. Rumsfeld’s team took over crucial aspects of the day-to-day logistical planning—traditionally, an area in which the uniformed military excels—and Rumsfeld repeatedly overruled the senior Pentagon planners on the Joint Staff, the operating arm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “He thought he knew better,” one senior planner said. “He was the decision-maker at every turn.”

ctd http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030407fa_fact1

 

What exactly are we being lied to about? We have reporters riding with the troops. I guess maybe they are all just paid liars for Fox as well.

Facts: We have discovered huge terrorist training camps in norther Iraq.

Iraq has been firing banned missiles it claimed not to have.

We have uncovered substantial evidence of preparation for cchem/bio warfare.

"Saddam fedayeen" thugs have been murdering civilians and committing war crimes.

Iraqi TV has been spewing lies that are eagerly fed to Arab world by Al Jazeera and other irresponsible Arab media.

 

There has been an awful lot of Monday morning quarterbacking by Clinton-era generals, the same ones who sold out their troops for personal advancement. The latest hobby horse has been the "not enough troops" argument. Let's look at this carefully.

first, the basic principle is that we have civilian control of the military. The complainers seem to be saying that is a mistake. sorry, that's our system. Sometimes it breaks down, as when Robert McNamara and LBJ sent our troops off to Vietnam without adequate support to be slaughtered in jungle warfare. Sometimes it works brilliantly, as in Desert Storm. If Generals actually feel the civilians have made dangerous mistakes, their course of action is to resign and go public, not hide behind anonymous quotes to anti-American reporters.

Second, as traders, we all know the phrase don't put all your eggs in one basket. Rumsfeld is a seasoned vet of government and corporate worlds. He is not some wet behind the ears George Stephanopoulis type. We don't know exactly what kinds of WMD Saddam has. What if we put three times the number of troops we have in there and he somehow hits them with nukes? Where are we then? As they say in the Army, our shit would be weak.

Far better to be cautious. One thing we know, this Administration is not going to leave our troops hanging in the breeze like Clinton did in Somalia. See Blackhawk Down.

Finally, I see no evidence the plan is not working brilliantly. We would need huge numbers of troops only if we planned a frontal assault. Why would we want to do that when we control the air, control the ports, control the oil fields, control the borders and basically have Saddam backed up into a cave?

 

I don't understand why they let this propaganda machine continue its service...This should have been taken out on day 1.

Alfonso getting back to the thread..How do you know what a lie is or isn't?? Are you actually at the scene of the crime. Second a lie is to report something that is not true, not to report a biased opinion.....To report that a plane has been shot down when in fact it hasn't is a lie ( IRAQI TV ).. To report the war is going extremely well is an opinion that may have a little bias to it ( FOX NEWS ).....which lie where u referring to???

 

FWIW, i have a couple of friends in the media industry, a couple who are older and have been in it for 25+ years, and some younger ones around 30 who've been in the business since college...all of them agree that FOX is the most sensationalized, least honest venue for the news (and some work for the local FOX affiliate)

...and Geraldo Rivera works for FOX...need I say more???

 

So you would say that IRAQI TV is more honest in reporting this War than FOX NEWS???

If you notice the title of the thread says "Western media war reporting a farce" as oppossed to what Alfonso...IRAQI TV reporting the truth......

It is sad to see some Americans wishing their Country harm just so they can say "I told you so". I am opposed to War as much as the other anti-war people but I would never wish us harm and only hope that now that we are at War we dont make mistakes like act civilized and politicaly correct, shoot first ask questions later period......

 

Cubano, the fact that you actually consider what is, believe it or not, a respected news organization, in need of being "taken out", is a bit worrisome.

Do you really think that ALL they do is air propaganda? Or is your definition of propaganda anything that conflicts with your own domestic media reports?

The view that Fox news coverage was a farce was the view of Phillip Knightly. He is a highly respected former war correspondent whose interview I was listening to on the radio today. Unfortunately, I can't remember the specific examples he gave on why he rated Fox so lowly.

One of his more general premises was, I felt, a good one: that war organizations -- ie the military -- learn from each successive event how better to handle the PR and the media. That's to say, there's continuity between successive military leaderships. A "playbook" on how to play the media, if you like.

Whereas, he says, war correspondents typically don't last too long; they move onto other reporting, leave journalism altogether, are killed etc . Therefore they are at a distinct disadvantage when dealing with the military spin machines. (And please don't tell me you consider them anything but spin machines.)

As I said, he made specific references to aspects of the war he thought were basically ignored by the western media, although I can't remember what they were; and, quite a lot of what he talked about was specific to the Australian media. (One of his points there was that there is next to zero coverage -- by any international media organization -- of what role the Australian troops are playing.)

For my personal point of view, I am always highly skeptical of any news reports I see; something I would recommend to everyone.
My investigations into other international incidents, such as the various wars in the former Yugoslavia, leave with me no doubt whatsoever that the media tends to cover events the same way analysts cover stocks; all move together in a bunch and toe the same line. Invariably this leaves out a mass of, often crucially important, details.

 

IRQAI TV..giving orders to iraqi civilians to kill american soldiers for compensation would be numero uno on my hit list ( and It would be a MOAB that would hit it )...cmon give me a break. 2nd) Iraqi Tv's only function is to intimidate and use fear to keep the IRAQI civilians in check ( I dont know where you got "a respected news organization" from)

Phillip knightly says some coverage may have been ignored according to you.....Ok so they are biased in their reporting ( do you really know how the World works or do you think the World can be a text book definition?? )