Iraq: The Media Wakes Up

There's a great article in New York Observer about the lackluster way the media has covered this war. They compare the Iraq coverage to the groundbreaking coverage of Vietnam and notice how, save for major events, Iraq is little more than some quick updates on a CNN scrawl. This is largely due to the crappy state of news in general (Brad and Angelina > Global Warming), but the coverage is just lacking in scope and depth in general. It makes the point that the fact that people are so shielded from the war only makes worse the fact that 3 years later, we're still trying to figure out what this war is even about.

I think part of the problem is that at the beginning, the media was very gung-ho for the war. They helped sell it. Because we were still in the post 9/11-glow and anything that made us pump our fists and say "Go America!" had to be good. I was working at NBC Nightly News when the war began; I can personally vouch for this. It was all supposed to be flags, shock, and awe. We were supposed to work with the sort of general story that was agreed upon by the corporate suits and the Pentagon. Everyone in the news business was so excited, because they saw the footage and were thinking "Wow, this makes for great television". And it did; everyone loved it- The first made-for-TV war.

Then, when the war started to go downhill (and the rationale for the war proved to be mostly hot air and misinformation), the media only slowly started to change their approach. They wanted to dig at the truth, but the polls were still on the war's side and the suits wanted to avoid appearance of 'liberal bias'. The genuinely good reporting about the war was left to people like Jon Stewart (who's sadly one of the genuine media heroes in this whole mess), who could get away with it because they wrapped the truth in jokes. But now, with the polls turning on the President and the war, and people in Washington like Murtha speaking out on how we can end the war, the media is starting to really hit on the war. The media used to be leaders, now they are followers. Still their work now is not great, but they're trying. Hopefully it makes a difference. In the end, for me, it doesn't change the fact that in 2002 and early 2003 when we needed an independent media to really dissect the case being made for war, they were asleep at the wheel, drunk on what they felt was patriotism.

The article:
Where Was the Media Between Invasion and Murtha?-

Networks Gave Vietnam War Twice the Minutes Iraq Gets; Baghdad Bureaus Cut Back; Amanpour: ‘Patronizing’

...While Vietnam is remembered as the television war, Iraq has been the television-crawl war: a scrolling feed of bad-news bits, pushed to the margins by Brad and Jen, Robert Blake, Jacko and two and a half years of other anesthetizing fare. Americans could go days on end without engaging with the war, on TV or in print.

“There’s a dearth of seriousness in the coverage of news,” said veteran war correspondent Christiane Amanpour, “at a time when, in my view, it couldn’t be more serious.”

....

In 2003, after the invasion, media companies were warned not to feed the American news consumer too much material on the downside of war. The media-consulting firm Frank Magid Associates advised broadcast outlets that its survey results suggested that viewers had very little appetite for stories about casualties, prisoners of war and anti-war protests.

“There’s this kind of general, industry-wide view that Americans don’t like anything tough, don’t like anything complicated, don’t give a shit, don’t know how to spell the country much less care what’s going on there,” Ms. Amanpour said. “I find that a very patronizing attitude.”...