Reality TV: War on Iraq

[Megan Forbes]

Callous thread topic isn't it? I cannot believe what I'm seeing on the news this morning. A journalist and camera man are on the frontline, filming and commenting live as soldiers attempt to close in on a building in the desert. They suspect there are Iraqi soldiers in "Fox Holes" between themselves and the building. They are currently interviewing one of the soldiers on the tactics being used here. The soldiers reply was that the commander is fighting this section of battle with the best knowledge he has, and he would like to say "shut up and go away". I'm sure he would. If I was out there, I know I wouldn't want to be babysitting journalists. Is it just because this is my first experience of war in a first world country that I'm not used to this? Have all wars for the last 10 years or so had this sort of commentry here? Will parents of the soldiers out there be watching as their sons bodies get blown up by mines? It seems Big Brother and the like have done their job. Only in this :mad: "Reality Show" :mad: there are lives at stake. :((

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I may try to delete my CP cookies. But its almost like tossing the keys of the appartment into the river. - Andreas Saurwein

[Anna Jayne Metcalfe]

It was the same in 1991 - arguably worse then as there were fewer restrictions imposed on the journalists. Right now, I'm very glad I don't have a TV. Anna :rose: Homepage | My life in tears

"Be yourself - not what others think you should be"
- Marcia Graesch

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[Roger Wright]

I suspect that if we'd had this level of news coverage in the 1960s, the Vietnam conflict would have been over in two weeks. The public would have demanded a full out effort (rather than the politically managed marathon) to win it, or would have impeached Johnson for continuing to pursue the wasted effort that cost so many American kids' lives. As upsetting as it is, perhaps this new open disclosure will prevent the kind of long, dragged out actions that have been common in the past. Megan Forbes wrote: If I was out there, I know I wouldn't want to be babysitting journalists. Very true, and it can't be helpful to have reporters in your face, while you're doing your best to stay alive and look invisible, second guessing the decisions of your commander. You can take the reporter out of the tabloid, but you can't make a decent, reasoning being out of him... Ancient man conquered his rivals with the jawbone of an ass; modern man uses the jawbone of a politician.

[yaname]

Roger Wright wrote: I suspect that if we'd had this level of news coverage in the 1960s, the Vietnam conflict would have been over in two weeks. The coverage in Vietnam was not real-time, but when the video came back it showed the grisly side of war. Today's coverage is sanitized and has the look of a Hollywood production. I was somewhat surprised, although I shouldn't have been, that my coworkers where oohing and aawing the other day when Baghdad was being bombed. It was like watching fireworks on July 4. Also, the embedding of reporters gives the appearance of free access but it's tightly controlled by the U.S. military.

[Marc Clifton]

It seems that the Pentagon, Bush administration, or whoever, went to a lot of trouble to "embed" many, many journalists. More so than in any other US led campaign. The journalists have all gone to a special boot camp for training on how to handle themselves, and of course, the sensitive information that they come across. All of the information is of course censored by the various commanders--they've said this publicly, so it's no big secret that we only hear and see what the commanders want us to hear and see. I'm not finding that the news reporting of the war is any better. The biases are still the same, the "depth" is still nonexistent, the information is still questionable. Marc Help! I'm an AI running around in someone's f*cked up universe simulator.
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[Tom Archer]

There have been "front line journalists" from at least as far back as the Korean War. They are an essential part of war for several reasons. Number one, they bring the brutality of war home so that instead of this becoming a "game" of who got the most kills, you can see up close and personal that real human beings are being killed on both sides. Number two, the journalists act as a kind of "checks and balances". I'm sure very few people on this forum can appreciate the unreal pressure and tension the fighters go through during a ground attack. It would certainly not be inconceivable for people put in these situations to "flip out" and do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do. With reportes there, this is much less likely to occur. Number three: Even most of the people in favor of the invasion of Iraq are not "pro war" in the strictest sense of seeing people needlessly harmed. However, the simple (and sad) fact is that war is a part of life. It always has been and tragically always will be. As a part of history there needs to be people there chronicalling it. Cheers, Tom Archer, Inside C# Mainstream is just a word for the way things always have been -- just a middle-of-the-road, tow-the-line thing; a front for the Man serving up the same warmed-over slop he did yesterday and expecting you to say, "Thank you sir, may I have another?"