Blackfive, whose politics are pretty apparent from his sidebar, posts a thoughtful if rambling essay by Lieutenant Colonel Tim Ryan, a task force (Battalion +, I’m afraid I don’t know what that means) commander in Iraq. The Lieutenant Colonel takes the media to task for not accurately reporting on events in Iraq:
What about the media’s portrayal of the enemy? Why do these ruthless murderers, kidnappers and thieves get a pass when it comes to their actions? What did the media not show or tell us about Margaret Hassoon, the director of C.A.R.E. in Iraq and an Iraqi citizen, who was kidnapped, brutally tortured and left disemboweled in streets of Fallujah? Did anyone in the press show these images over and over to emphasize the moral failings of the enemy as they did with the soldiers at Abu Ghuraib?
His assessment that life is improving in Iraq contravenes nearly everything else I’ve heard, including his own government (the CIA’s WMD experts leave because of “the violence in Iraq”). That said, his opinion carries considerably weight, because he’s on the ground and so many journalists aren’t.
Ultimately, I’m glad whenever the media is taken to task. Unfortunately, what he’s complaining about–shallow, sensationalist reporting and under-informed journalists–is systemic to the media world. I’d like to read some thoughtful replies from senior executives at media companies. The most compelling Iraq reporting I’ve seen has been from Kevin Sites, who’s there more or less on his own ticket. I’ve also found occasional email messages from Just Another Soldier to offer a tremendous portrait of life for the average American grunt.
Why do both sides of the political spectrum accuse the media of being biased the other way? In truth, the media is biased towards blood. It’s unfortunate for American conservatives that FOX News, the TV network in their corner, lives and dies by a “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality. All politics aside, no one is likelier to sensationalize American deaths that FOX.
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Col. Ryan complains (in essence) that the armed forces of the most powerful nation on Earth, the one that holds itself up as the example of democracy, and that claims to be helping nurture democracy Iraq through his efforts (and those of 150,000 fellow soldiers and an unknown number of “contractors”), should not be held to higher standards than murderers, kidnappers and thieves. I would counter that we are supposed to be better than that — much better. Torture, rape, and the killing of innocents must be condemned, whether they are committed in the name of “resistance” or in the name of “democracy.”
I heard plenty about Margaret Hassoon, including pleas by her husband that her murderers reveal the location of her body, on Democracy Now, a program on the left-wing Pacifica Radio Network (www.democracynow.org). The reports of Dahr Jamail (http://dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/), an un-embedded, independent reporter in Iraq, are featured on another program.
I’ve thought a lot about media bias over the last year or so. Along the way I came to a couple of conclusions.
One of them is that the answer to “is the media biased” can be answered by looking at ones position relative to the market that the publication is targeting. If you’re Stephen Harper the Toronto Star is biased left.
Individual outlets are biased towards serving their own commercial interest. There is no other motivation that comes even close to the influence of maintaining and increasing revenue.
I agree with your observation that the media is sensationalist. The sadder observation is that thoughtful, probing, sensitive in-depth reporting cannot seem to find a market in North America. That type of reporting cannot compete.
It seem that we cannot look away from the traffic accident that is the current media.
Darren – you and KevinG are right about the media. However, Stve2 has a point as well. It’s not news (not as much anyway) when terrorists act like terrorists. It is news when the U.S. army acts like terrorists.
Of course, I see the perspective of everyone here. But let’s be honest. The war is a guerrilla war, one which “the most powerful military on earth” does not train for. They train for tank battles and gallant Naval battles. They train for dogfights and sattellite surveillance. These were the currency of the cold war and as much as one can argue that the cold war is over, 50 years of ingrained training takes time and a radical demand for other kinds of warfare to change. The U.S. Army and Marines and the Navy docs that go with them don’t train to be prison guards, they don’t train for car bombings and suicide bombers, they don’t train for house-to-house searchs and patrols down narrow alleys where dissidents with RPGs may appear above them in a window with no warning.
So I’m not defending the abhorrant behavior of some of the military numbers. I come from a military background and work for them now. It’s despicable and you’re right, the media should have called them out. However, people need to understand that 1) combat does strange things to people, 2) training for tanks does not translate into guerrilla urban warfare, which ultimately leads to strange things happening in the heads of these men and 3) no war in American history has ever been fought in front of the television camera. “War crimes” are normal and have been for thousands of years. It’s part of war. It was just hidden from the public because the public has not been trained to cope. Thus the outcry from the media and viewers.
Cheers. 🙂
Aaron: Thanks for your thoughtful comment. I definitely concur that ‘war crimes’ are commonplace in and as old as war itself. We should be disgusted, but not surprised.
I’m not sure I agree with your statement that “no war in American history has ever been fought in front of the television camera.” We can go as far back as Vietnam, where grim footage front the battlefield aired during news broadcasts, and apparently swayed US public opinion. There was similarly plenty of first-person footage from the Gulf War (remember what’s-his-name reporting from that Baghdad hotel?).
I think one significant difference in this war is the portability and ubiquity of camera equipment and the Internet. Every soldier probably has a digital camera and Internet access (at least from time to time). It was far too easy to photograph prisoner abuse, and then distribute it across the Web. The same goes for videos being produced and distributed by Osama and the rebels–it’s much easier to reach a broader audience.
Combine those technological advances with increasing Internet usage and declining interest (especially among the young) in network TV, and you’ve got the first war documented by the many-to-many principle.
Darren,
No war in American history has been fought in front of the television cameras. 😉 In Vietnam, there was war reporting where the average citizen was introduced to war and the expected result was an outraged public. However, no war in American history has had cameras ON-SITE during the invasion, embedded reporters doing LIVE broadcasts, reporters sending footage back as the Marines or soldiers were actually attacked, reporters accompanying the men as they stormed the mosque in Fallujah, etc. Even in Gulf War I, there was footage of the city of Baghdad under siege (do you remember where you were the day the air strikes began and the night sky of Baghdad was lit up with anti-aircraft warfare?) but again, there was no embedded reporters letting the public witness the inner workings of the air campaign and the 100 hour ground war that followed? No, I stand by my claim that no American war has been fought in front of the cameras.
This entry got me thinking about that concept and I’m developing an entry for my own blog based on it, but I only want to put up one major entry per day and today was engulfed by the Inaugural… 🙂
Aaron: I disagree on Vietnam. The only significant difference between the reporting in Vietnam and today was technological advances that have made it easier to report from the trenches (lighter and more reliable equipment), and decreased the time between capturing the story and broadcasting it.
Reporters in Vietnam had as much or more freedom than they do in Iraq today. From this site:
“War correspondents travel freely through Vietnam, often by military transport…General Westmoreland also wants more control over information, but his efforts to have censorship installed fail because war has not been officially declared.”
From this site: “During Vietnam, journalists had nearly unfettered access to the battlefield.”
From this site: “”Vietnam was the most free press exercise in the history of this country.” Also, “148 newspeople were killed while on duty covering the war.” Finally, I’d recommend listening to this 6-minute Real Audio piece, about reporting from the battlefield.
your second source is a broken link, Darren.
Darren, do you have trackback enabled. I just published my entry and wanted to ping you…
Thanks to Darren for allwoing me to post the link to We Can’t Cope.