21–30 of 43 posts
The pre-war coverage had some problems but I thought the reporting about the war, on the whole, was pretty decent. I read a lot about torture and about the lack of press freedom in Iraq.
The American mainstream media is severely dysfunctional. Cable "news" networks are biased outlets for each political party to deliver their message. Even more-traditional network news outlets like NBC News have sacrificed the appearance of a separation of the reporters from the politicians they're supposed to report on by hiring family members of recent and current political figures. On NBC's current payroll are Jenn…
Tl;dr Iraq never had more than 12 embedded journalists covering 100,000 troops, and they had to be nice or get removed. Democracy needs transparency and journalism is one of the best means of ensuring this - and it was totally strangled in Iraq so that abuses by Pro-US Iraq groups got no criticism in US - and this leads to no criticism of our military and administration. This fails to be healthy.
The piece is just shy of 1200 words. Is a tldr really needed? Would that his analysis was longer.... Back to Hedges' books.
Her. Why are people still misgendering Chelsea Manning?
I am glad to hear from Chelsea. Does anyone's know how she is fairing?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my very limited understanding of embeds, it appears that they are journalists who form part of the army team. It is not clear to me if they are protected/have access to military secrets by virtue of being part of the team; however, it appears to be implied. In such a scenario, I am not sure how the question of neutrality even ever appears. If you are embedded, you are by definition not neutral? Surely, there are…
Of course other ways exist! In these, you will have your head blown off by 18 year olds who mistake your camera for a RPG. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike
Rather easy to take potshots, now that Iraq is falling apart. If this outcome was so obvious why wait until now to write an op-ed? The pre-war coverage had some problems but I thought the reporting about the war, on the whole, was pretty decent. I read a lot about torture and about the lack of press freedom in Iraq.
It's outcome was known and obvious from the get go. You kill the dictator that repress another extremist. What did you think it was going to happen? No retaliation.
America's 'Wars' from Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, War on Terror (and War on Drugs) have all been, very, very, very bad. I can't think of a military campaign that accomplished their goals, unless said goals were to cause as much shit as possible and get paid shit ton for doing so.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175854/tomgram%3A_engelhardt...
Is it any surprise that newspaper war stories are usually one-sided and glib, considering they are written by journalists who: a. have "established relations with the military", b. are rated by military contractors as likely to produce "favourable" coverage c. are subject to revocation of access AND blacklisting for "controversial reporting" A system that is designed to promote the army's point of view and penalize t…
The concept of press freedom doesn't necessarily seem to include an implied obligation that the government must help them do their jobs.
Is it any surprise that newspaper war stories are usually one-sided and glib, considering they are written by journalists who: a. have "established relations with the military", b. are rated by military contractors as likely to produce "favourable" coverage c. are subject to revocation of access AND blacklisting for "controversial reporting" A system that is designed to promote the army's point of view and penalize t…
We have rapid access to more information today about daily violence around the world, be it in Syria or Iraq or Nigeria or North Korea,* than under any other era of information technology.
The problem isn't distribution of information. The problem is that people can't be bothered.
* NK is probably the best example of problems with access to information, their regime keeps a very tight lid on things. Even so, we still all know the country is undergoing systematic repression, forced labor, starvation as a method of controlling the people, along with brutal gulags where torture, rape, and death are your most likely short term outcomes. Look at the "news" stands though. People are only interested in celebrities. They're most likely to associate NK with Dennis Rodman over anything else.
Tl;dr Iraq never had more than 12 embedded journalists covering 100,000 troops, and they had to be nice or get removed. Democracy needs transparency and journalism is one of the best means of ensuring this - and it was totally strangled in Iraq so that abuses by Pro-US Iraq groups got no criticism in US - and this leads to no criticism of our military and administration. This fails to be healthy.
There were many, many times where there were more than 12 embeds.
Is it any surprise that newspaper war stories are usually one-sided and glib, considering they are written by journalists who: a. have "established relations with the military", b. are rated by military contractors as likely to produce "favourable" coverage c. are subject to revocation of access AND blacklisting for "controversial reporting" A system that is designed to promote the army's point of view and penalize t…
I read that far more as a problem with journalism than a problem with the military. None of those points in any way limit the freedom of the press to report neutrally, or in any other way they want, on a war. Even if being an embedded reporter might not be a constitutionally protected right and might be subjected to military control, that's not the only way the media can report on a war. It's just the easiest way, an…
"Reporting the activities of drug cartels ends up favoring the cartels because they only accept journalists who tell their side of the story."
"We were going to do a big expose on medical malpractice in Regional Hospital, but the administration refused our request for a month-long officially sanctioned observer mission within the hospital so we couldn't."
"It's no wonder that news reports always praise the police, since your ride-along privileges get terminated right away if you don't play along."
Yeah, reporting from a war zone is dangerous and difficult and getting help from the military makes it a lot easier. But that's their job.