Last night, the Australian media held their annual awards ceremony, the Walkley Awards. A somewhat funny event occurred when an iconoclastic blogger, founder of Crikey.Com, was presenting an award, and was physically attacked by an obviously drunk political editor from one of Murdoch's papers. He clearly didn't like the fact that the blogger, Stephen Mayne, constantly criticised the mainstream media for its bias, especially in matters political. His parting comment to the assailant, Glen Milne (who I have never really liked), was funny too: "Settle down, folks; it's just another drunk journalist". Indeed.
But journalism is in a bad way right now. There are the partisan hacks like Milne, who toe the governmental line (or Rupert's line, which is pretty much the same thing) and get published and broadcast. Then there are people reporting on stuff like this:
[Courtesy of Larry Moran]
The telling comment for me is this:
"I've believed for many years now, that journalism, particularly television journalism, by its failure to show the real horror of war, has become a lethal weapon, supporting governments that want to go to war." Robert Fisk, Middle East Correspondent, The Independent.
Journalists who want to get the real story out are blocked, by regulation (both self- and statutory-), by activist politically inclined editors and publishers, and by advertisers. Nobody wants to know what is really happening. The US military and government clearly learned from the Vietnam experience - untrammelled access to actual news is deleterious not to the progress of military activity, which might be a reasonable motive to censor, but to political support at home. Most Americans appear to have no idea of what is really happening in Iraq, and even less in Afghanistan.
Vizzini, in the Princess Bride, noted that one of the classical tactical fallacies was to engage in a land war in Asia. Of course, William Goldman, who wrote that screenplay and book, was referring to Vietnam. But it seems that we really do not learn from history. Unless, that is, one is in the business of spinning militarism and government agendas... they learn. Oh how well they learn. And we allow ourselves to be misinformed and give our ignorant consent, just because we call it patriotism.
Kudos, at any rate, to the BBC[?] team that did this story. These things are significant because they are so rare.
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Looks more like ITN to me.
I watched the first 5 minutes or so -- interesting that they cited the IBC instead of Lancet death toll. It's probably true (and sad) that there would be more opposition to the war if we saw more of the dead bodies.
I think you will find it was Channel 4 News, an independent TV company.
And, yes, I believe we should be shown the full horror of war. There should be no illusions about what bombing and shooting really does to people.
But will that do anything to stop the people who are carrying out the bombings and shooting from continuing their grisly work? No, I don't think so, especially if they believe it is achieving their objectives, one of which is probably to influence public opinion in the West so as to speed up the withdrawal of Coalition troops from Iraq
As for journalism, I assume that all reporting is biased because it involves selecting what to write about or what pictures to show and that process of selection is bound to be influenced by the political views of the journalists. Whether we call it 'good' journalism depends on whether our political views coincide with those of the journalist.
As for the 'war' in Iraq, I believe Coalition troops should and will be withdrawn, probably in the next couple of years. Anyone who thinks that will stop the bombings and shootings, though, hasn't been paying attention.
"As for journalism, I assume that all reporting is biased because it involves selecting what to write about or what pictures to show and that process of selection is bound to be influenced by the political views of the journalists. Whether we call it 'good' journalism depends on whether our political views coincide with those of the journalist"
Surely this is grossly unfair to the courageous Iraqi photo-journalists who are risking their lives. The are hardly being "selective" - doing weddings and birthdays would be far more pleasant for them.
Personally, I think rigourous news management is ultimately counter-productive. It has not undermined the perception in the US that the war is a shambolic mess.
If the news media showed the full gory truth of what the insurgents are doing, either people would say (a) This is too awful for us to get involved in, or (b) we can't give in to these murderers.
At the moment, it would more likely be (a) mainly because of the way Bush, Rumsfeld & Co, lied and cheated the US into the war. However, if you think back to the early Afghanistan conflict, I do not think a full view of the horrors of that conflict would have lessened the determination to kick out the Taliban.
In the subluniary sphere, it is approximately true that nothing is in the intellect that is not first on the networks. The worse thing about the media monopoly is not its censorship of uncomfortable material but the way that it stuffs the narrow space of the public mind with the obsession of the month. The significant news is around if you're looking for it. There just isn't any place left to put it.
Toby Joyce wrote:
The courage of such journalists is not in doubt but I suspect that the pictures taken by a Sunni photo-journalist will be different from those taken by a Shia photo-journalist which will be different from those taken by a Kurdish photo-journalist which will be different from those taken by a photo-journalist sympathetic to al-Qaeda in Iraq.
These days all sides are well aware of the power of the press and all sides do their best to manipulate it in their favour. In the recent Israeli incursion into Lebanon, for example, there seemed to be relatively little photographic coverage of Hezbollah guerillas, apparently because Hezbollah made it known that they frowned upon such a thing - and being frowned upon by Hezbollah could be very bad for a journalist's health. The Israelis were a little more open about what was happening behind the lines but were very sparing in what they released of coverage of the fighting.
The US authorities are undoubtedly doing all they can to control press coverage of the Iraqi conflict but its paucity is much more due to the fact that it is extremely dangerous for Western journalists to try and operate beyond the confines of the few relatively safe areas at the moment.
Hey, the Milne incident is also on youtube. It's funny.
I'm hoping that "Iraq: The Hidden Story" will be shown on Canadian television. Canadians need to be told the truth even though we managed to stay out of Iraq.
Larry Moran wrote:
Whose "truth" did you have in mind?
Really? I always thought he was referring to the board game, Risk. Those big chunks of Asia are killer to gain or defend!