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| DOD Finally Fighting Back Against MSM |
| 2006-10-28 |
| The U.S. Department of Defense is now taking its requests for corrections public through a website known as For the Record. Here, the Department of Defense is openly calling for corrections from major media outlets, and even noting when they refuse to publish letters to the editor. The most recent was this past Tuesday, when the DOD published a letter, that the New York Times refused to run, which contained quotes from five generals (former CENTCOM commander Tommy Franks, current CENTCOM commander John Abizaid, MNF Commander George Casey, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, as well as his successor, Peter Pace) that rebutted a New York Times editorial. This has been picked up by a number of bloggers who have been able to spread the Pentagon's rebuttal – and the efforts of the New York Times to sweep it under the rug – across the country. The Defense Department has been dealing with a number of misleading stories. From Newsweek's misreporting of a Koran-flushing incident (caused by a detainee, not guards as reported by Newsweek), to claims of prisoner mistreatment (often without context, including one instance where a detainee spat on an interrogator), to a massive rewriting of an embedded reporter's report on the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's efforts in Tal Afar, by editors of Time magazine, to the revelations about NSA efforts, the DOD has been barraged by numerous stories, many of which were followed by angry editorials. The DOD is pushing back, not only putting out requests to correct the record (with the refusals published as well), but also citing stories of heroes that the media has failed to cover – usually two or three a week. Among these are accounts of those who have been awarded medals for battlefield bravery, like Navy Cross recipients Robert J. Mitchell Jr. and Bradley A. Kasal, as well as Silver Star recipients Juan M. Rubio, Sarun Sar, Jeremy Church, and Leigh Ann Hester. The DOD has also followed CENTCOM's lead in running pieces on what terrorists actually say – another item largely ignored by the mainstream media. The Department of Defense is acting in an effort to avoid a repeat of the aftermath of the 1968 Tet Offensive. On the battlefield, American and South Vietnamese forces won a victory – effectively destroying the Viet Cong and crippling North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. However, media misreporting, including Walter Cronkite's famous mischaracterization of the war as a "stalemate", took away the victory that had been won on the battlefield. Such a scenario is less likely now, largely due to the presence of the internet (including blogs), talk radio, and other news networks – and the Department of Defense is taking advantage of alternative ways to get around the mainstream media. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #4 Taking the fight to the enemy. |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2006-10-28 22:40 |
| #3 It's a great idea, but I'm wondering if it's not 4 years or so too late. If I had known just how complicit the MSM would be with repsect to terrorist interests, I'd have demanded that this sort of effort be an intrinsic part of the War on Terrorism from the get go. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-10-28 21:40 |
| #2 It's a great idea, but I'm wondering if it's not 4 years or so too late. One of my biggest gripes against GWB & Co. was their utter failure to realize that the Islamofascists would eventually find willing allies in our mass media, and would use the MSM as a force multiplier. In the days immediately following 9/11, I was surprised to see all segments of the media behaving as if they were solidly on our side, but even then (while the WTC rubble was still smoldering) I knew that it wouldn't last. I told my wife, "give them six months and they'll be in full fifth-column mode". In fact it took more like six weeks...by the end of October, the media were beginning to burble and coo approvingly about "the resurgent peace movement" and its opposition to ANY military response to 9/11. I've spent the last five years in a state of mystification re the Administration's interactions with the media. For example...why, Why, WHY wasn't a modern Office of War Information started up by the end of '01? I'm not asking for "management" or censorship of the MSM, but the Administration should have realized that they'd need alternate means of getting their message out sans the MSM partisan rinse cycle. The blogosphere helps, sure...but where are the war-bond tours, or the feature films about Brad Kasal's or Leigh Ann Hester's exploits? "Hollyweird won't make a pro-war movie about the GWOT", you say? Maybe not...but maybe they would if they knew they'd get tax credits against the production costs, or maybe outright grants from the OWI. |
| Posted by: Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2006-10-28 18:38 |
| #1 Excellent. Thx, 'Moose. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-10-28 17:35 |