| Submit your comments on this article |
| Iraq-Jordan |
| Media are easy marks |
| 2005-02-06 |
| HISTORY repeats itself, Karl Marx said, "first as tragedy, second as farce." In the days immediately following Iraq's historic election, two videotapes from "insurgent" groups were distributed to the news media. One purported to show an American soldier being held hostage. The second purported to show that a British C-130 transport aircraft, which crashed on election day, had been shot down by a surface-to-air missile. The "American soldier" was Cody, a G.I. Joe action figure. This is obvious from the picture, but the Associated Press and CNN bit hard. The cause of the C-130 crash is still being investigated. But experts at Jane's Defence Weekly have doubts about the claim of "insurgents." "The missile footage has just been grafted onto the front," said editor Peter Felstead. "And it looks like a surface to surface missile to me." Other experts note the wreckage footage was shot in daylight, while the C-130 crashed just before nightfall. It is highly improbable "insurgents" could have been on the scene before the sun set, and there were British soldiers all around the next morning. Media outlets that were quick to report the insurgents' claims had little to say about the hoaxes. Nor did they speculate on what the hoaxes might mean. Last Sunday's election demonstrated the massive support of the Iraqi people for democracy, and the relative impotence of the "insurgents." The "river of blood" they promised was barely a trickle. Eight suicide bombers killed 36 Iraqis besides themselves. Of these, seven were foreigners (six Saudis and a Sudanese). The only Iraqi suicide bomber was a child suffering from Down syndrome. That is, as the Iraqi writer Nibras Kazimi put it, "eight against 8 million." And on what basis, one might ask, do the media call seven foreign terrorists "insurgents"? The terrorists had to do something to revive their plummeting prestige. That they resorted to clumsy frauds is not a sign of strength. "The captured toy story could be pretty significant," said the Web logger John Hinderaker (Power Line). "The terrorists need, more than anything else, to be seen as awesome, terrible figures. If they stop inspiring fear, they are finished. So the one thing they cannot stand is ridicule. Their pathetic effort to pass a doll off as a captured American soldier will [make] them laughingstocks throughout the Arab world." It's also interesting that the terrorists turned to the news media to recover lost momentum. Journalists who fell for these hoaxes may merely be idiots, and their silence about the implications of the hoaxes may simply be the by-product of embarrassment. But more to the point, why are major media so quick to disseminate anything that a terrorist group, or purported terrorist group, releases? For the terrorist, it is like being given millions of dollars in free advertising. The major media have from the beginning exaggerated the strength and popularity of those they mislabel "insurgents," to the disgust of American soldiers. "I'm tired of hearing the crap, the whole, well 'We are barely hanging on, we're losing, the insurgency is growing,'?" Marine Sgt. Kevin Lewis told Dan Rather, in Iraq for the election. "It's just a small amount of people out there causing the problems. It's a small number, and we're killing them." The scandalous remarks of Eason Jordan, CNN's top news executive, last week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the failure of the major media to report them suggest the distortions are deliberate. Mr. Jordan told a panel that the U.S. military had killed a dozen journalists in Iraq, and that they had been deliberately targeted. When challenged, Mr. Jordan could provide no evidence to support the charge, and subsequently lied about having made it, though the record shows he had made a similar charge a few months before, and also earlier had falsely accused the Israeli military of targeting journalists. Mr. Jordan's slander has created a firestorm in the blogosphere, but has yet to be mentioned in the "mainstream" media. Gee, I wonder why not. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #14 Eight suicide bombers killed 36 Iraqis besides themselves. Of these, seven were foreigners (six Saudis and a Sudanese). We need to work on securing a border. For training and to gain lessons learned, the Military should be praticing by securing our borders. |
| Posted by: Penguin 2005-02-06 9:52:39 PM |
| #13 We have a full generation whose education was ... wait, let me think of the correct technical term for it ... shitty. These people are now in jobs, including in the media. And the next generation isn't getting anything better. We have got to insist on some rigor in our school curricula. The idea of a "fact" should not be foreign to our students, even as we also distinguish fact from opinion. It would be nice if they had even a passing familiarity with statistics and how to use them correctly. Some history -- you know, those facts again -- would be nice. So would some science. |
| Posted by: too true 2005-02-06 4:29:41 PM |
| #12 Dave D you can add 'scientific experts' to the list. I regularly find myself shouting 'That's not true' at the TV. While the problem is worst with politicized issues like climate change, a recent example was a siesmologist explaining how the Sumatra earthquake caused the tsunami that was directly contradicted by the video (of the tsunami) shown 30 seconds earlier. |
| Posted by: phil_b 2005-02-06 4:25:12 PM |
| #11 Let's not minimize the power of broadcast and print media. The vast majority in the US, and even higher percentage in the rest of the world, get the vast majority their info by these sources. Their viewpoint is broadcast day-in day-out without refutation, and form the foundation of most people's knowledge of the wider world. For instance, what percentage of the US population has heard the story behind Jordan's slur? 5%? What has the rest of the world heard besides "CNN Editor says Amercian soldiers shoot journalists."? While we actively search out primary sources of news stories in this war, those who do are still a small minority. The greatest impact I can have is to gather enough knowledge to be able to point out family and friends the errors, ommissions, and biases fed to them each and every day by the media. |
| Posted by: ed 2005-02-06 4:11:23 PM |
| #10 in my engineering freebies they are paid for by ads, but that's a good thing since the newest and cutting edge stuff is usually in the ads.... |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-02-06 3:09:58 PM |
| #9 There are in-betweens such as some professional society monthly magazines. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-02-06 2:59:17 PM |
| #8 General Rule: If a publication carrys advertising, the purpose of the publication is to deliver readers to the advertiser. If there is no advertising in the publication, its sole purpose is to deliver information to the subscriber. |
| Posted by: Mrs. Davis 2005-02-06 2:55:32 PM |
| #7 "Dave, I even have to grit my teeth at a lot of technical articles in engineering trade magazines." I'm in electronics, mostly the design of sensors for pressure, force and acceleration, and I no longer subscribe to ANY of the trade journals. In my opinion, they're almost worthless. The articles are poorly written, they're riddled with errors, and they focus almost exclusively on the latest whiz-bang video game technology instead of dealing with basic engineering issues. I get far better info over the Internet from manufacturers' websites. |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-02-06 2:50:36 PM |
| #6 Dave, I even have to grit my teeth at a lot of technical articles in engineering trade magazines. Having now written a few in recent years, I have worked with the editors and found out that they are as much a part of the problem as the solution. I've concluded that many engineers who drift into technical magazine editing do so because they are justifiably insecure with their engineering capabilities. |
| Posted by: Tom 2005-02-06 2:09:17 PM |
| #5 As an engineer I've always found it teeth-grindingly frustrating to read MSM articles having anything to do with science: the illiteracy (like referring to "kilowatts per day" as a measure of energy) and the innumeracy (like talking about an aircraft that weighs "80,000 tons" instead of 80,000 pounds) are just stunning. Even as a kid, during the early days of the space program, I would grit my teeth while listening to Jules Bergman or Walter Cronkite try to talk about science. But for some reason, it never occurred to me until just a couple of years ago to wonder if these people might be just as ignorant about everything else, too. I have hopes for the blogosphere: it brings publishing technology, and bandwidth, to people who have something to say and know what the hell they're talking about. It sure is a damn sight better than being lectured to by a bunch of idiots who couldn't get into Drama School (good point, DB). |
| Posted by: Dave D. 2005-02-06 1:59:01 PM |
| #4 Whether it is framing the news or even the emergence of a particular event, the MSM are no longer in power. The Jordan slander is an excellent example of how the MSM still do not understand that someone with a computer can go and transcribe what was said and in no time it will be seen by millions. They are being taken down a peg at a time. |
| Posted by: Remoteman 2005-02-06 1:49:02 PM |
| #3 The day of talking heads "framing" the news, is long over. That may be true here. It's probably less true in, say, the middle East. |
| Posted by: too true 2005-02-06 1:28:38 PM |
| #2 The thing I find the most enjoyable, in watching the media self-destruct, is the fact that AP, Reuters, Eason Jordan, etc, just don't grasp that they are yesterday's news. There is still a market for good reporters - the type that can accurately portray an event that transpired. But as for "framing" the news, the blogosphere can interact with interested experts in a matter of moments. Reporters can't compete with this body of expertise. The day of talking heads "framing" the news, is long over. |
| Posted by: 2b 2005-02-06 1:10:09 PM |
| #1 Back when I went to college, there was only one difference between the drama students and the broadcast journalism students.....at least the drama students could remember their lines. The broadcast journalism ones needed their scripts for even "impromptu" remarks. |
| Posted by: Desert Blondie 2005-02-06 10:27:54 AM |