Politics: Embedded Like a Tick
Jack Shafer in today's Slate.com makes the point that "the general who devised the "embedded" program deserves a fourth star." Shafer's point, made well, is that the embedded journalists are offering incredible coverage, all of which has been wildly pro-U.S. forces, and that this is something that "decades of spinning, bobbing, and weaving at rear-echelon briefings could never achieve."
However, there is an important line, which Shafer approaches, but doesn't cross. These embedded reporters are offering, as Shafer points out, "soda straw" views of the fighting, and these are more useful for snapshots which somehow should be bound together into a more cohesive narrative of the war. Shafer doesn't come to the necessary conclusion: that the picture we're getting at home is comprised entirely of these flag-waving, happy to be alive, reports from the front. (For something insightful, check out Jon Lee Anderson's excellent New Yorker "Letter from Baghdad.") These reports also betray the bond between the embedded journalists and their assigned military unit.
These rah-rah reports talk all about how "we" engaged some enemies, how "our" supply lines are working out, etc. etc. The reporters have gone native to their units, reporting as if they were just a slightly more cogent U.S. soldier talking to people back home. The information may not be biased in a traditional way (i.e. untrue) but it is biased because better outcomes get reported and worse ones get downplayed.
My friend AB points out why this is so critical. Relevant, valid, at times bloody reporting from the Vietnam war was what made America at large understand how badly things were going. (AB also points out, referring to an item we've agreed on before, that the protest movement in the United States didn't accomplish this task.) This trenchant reporting was possible because, in Vietnam, reporters moved about freely, pursuing information, seeing more than a soda straw view of the war. Per reporter, they were seeing more, and drawing more conclusions, by exercising their discretion and delivering those insights to the people back home. They were observing a line between themselves and the work of the soldiers and sailors they were reporting on.
In my opinion, this war is unjust. Still, I don't want a reporter to tell me only that things are going terribly. War is the sum of many battles. Some will go poorly and some will go well. Conscientious reporting will tell us about both, and offer analysis that demonstrates what those successes and failures mean to the overall effort. Would a reporter who spends all day with a bunch of soldiers under fire, embedded in their unit, freely offer critiques of their actions, tactics or methods when he videophones his remote in at the end the day?
Sadly for the American public, he won't. He will cheerlead. The Americans who rely on the media to maintain some freedom of thought will be denied that service if our media becomes this war's PR machine. And with an administration so willing to accept lies and distort the truth through its official channels, American's don't have a lot of hope for making reasoned, informed conclusions on thier own. And they certainly aren't getting any help from most of the mainstream media.
Jack Shafer in today's Slate.com makes the point that "the general who devised the "embedded" program deserves a fourth star." Shafer's point, made well, is that the embedded journalists are offering incredible coverage, all of which has been wildly pro-U.S. forces, and that this is something that "decades of spinning, bobbing, and weaving at rear-echelon briefings could never achieve."
However, there is an important line, which Shafer approaches, but doesn't cross. These embedded reporters are offering, as Shafer points out, "soda straw" views of the fighting, and these are more useful for snapshots which somehow should be bound together into a more cohesive narrative of the war. Shafer doesn't come to the necessary conclusion: that the picture we're getting at home is comprised entirely of these flag-waving, happy to be alive, reports from the front. (For something insightful, check out Jon Lee Anderson's excellent New Yorker "Letter from Baghdad.") These reports also betray the bond between the embedded journalists and their assigned military unit.
These rah-rah reports talk all about how "we" engaged some enemies, how "our" supply lines are working out, etc. etc. The reporters have gone native to their units, reporting as if they were just a slightly more cogent U.S. soldier talking to people back home. The information may not be biased in a traditional way (i.e. untrue) but it is biased because better outcomes get reported and worse ones get downplayed.
My friend AB points out why this is so critical. Relevant, valid, at times bloody reporting from the Vietnam war was what made America at large understand how badly things were going. (AB also points out, referring to an item we've agreed on before, that the protest movement in the United States didn't accomplish this task.) This trenchant reporting was possible because, in Vietnam, reporters moved about freely, pursuing information, seeing more than a soda straw view of the war. Per reporter, they were seeing more, and drawing more conclusions, by exercising their discretion and delivering those insights to the people back home. They were observing a line between themselves and the work of the soldiers and sailors they were reporting on.
In my opinion, this war is unjust. Still, I don't want a reporter to tell me only that things are going terribly. War is the sum of many battles. Some will go poorly and some will go well. Conscientious reporting will tell us about both, and offer analysis that demonstrates what those successes and failures mean to the overall effort. Would a reporter who spends all day with a bunch of soldiers under fire, embedded in their unit, freely offer critiques of their actions, tactics or methods when he videophones his remote in at the end the day?
Sadly for the American public, he won't. He will cheerlead. The Americans who rely on the media to maintain some freedom of thought will be denied that service if our media becomes this war's PR machine. And with an administration so willing to accept lies and distort the truth through its official channels, American's don't have a lot of hope for making reasoned, informed conclusions on thier own. And they certainly aren't getting any help from most of the mainstream media.
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