CNN vs. Blogger/Google continued...
Had a number of interesting reactions and responses, since posting and sending the screed below earlier today.
A fellow flack at one of the other outfits pointed me to this piece regarding the Pentagon's plans to 'embed' 500 reporters with their front line troops.
Hmmm. Couple of things here that leave me unconvinced:
Point 1. The article says: "Pentagon guidance issued to field commanders two weeks ago orders U.S. military units to provide the news media, "minimally restrictive access to U.S. air, ground and naval forces."
"Minimally restrictive access" is classic Powell/Cheney doublespeak. No evidence to suggest we should expect anything better than the 'minimally restrictive access' enjoyed by AP photographer and Pulitzer-winner Scott Applewhite - an accredited media pool member covering Desert Storm I - who was punched, handcuffed and abused by US Army MPs and had his film of the aftermath of a Scud attack ripped from his camera.
Scott is only one of dozens of journalists to have been treated to this particular brand of 'minimally restrictive' cooperation.
"For the 10 percent of us who went out to the field... we encountered multiple layers of control, at least one of which always seemed to be there. Barriers seemed to raise automatically to blur the reality; buffers were always at the ready to blunt the sharp edges of truth...For American troops, the single most violent event of the war was...an Iraqi scud missile...crashing through...a barracks...Scott Applewhite, an Associated Press photographer, was in the parking lot of the hotel...The military had spent hours showing US reporters how quickly they can handle casualties... But when he came near the real thing--as real as this war got--15 US and Saudi military police officers descended upon him.
"He was handcuffed, beaten and had one of his cameras smashed as he stood his ground, insisting that he was an accredited US journalist and had every right to be there. They demanded his film...For a couple of fleeting moments, the AP photographer had broken through the invisible barrier, a kind of plastic bag or cocoon of controls that the military preferred to keep around reporters in this war. While some of us managed to get out of the hotels, most of us never escaped the cocoon."
(Source: John J. Fialka. Hotel Warriors: Covering the Gulf War. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1991, pp. 56-57).
Point 2. The article appears on CNN, goddamit. Well of course it does.
What the hell went wrong with CNN? And when? Or was it always this much of a Whitehouse mouthpiece, and I've only just twigged it?
In the interests of balance, however – CNN also has this report from Martin Savidge - one of the reporters 'embedding' with the US Marines en route to Iraq.
Savidge certainly appears to be the real deal. He’s the guy who kicked up a huge fuss in Afghanistan and ended up getting a little deeper ‘embedded’ than he may have bargained for, going from this:
"We had been camping out, literally, at the Kandahar airport, living on the base for about six weeks. You could see military coming and going, and it was frustrating that this sort of activity was going on and we couldn't go on it. We really were very much in the dark. The only insight we had was in the next day's briefing (when) they might tell us how many people were detained. And a lot of times information was coming directly from the Pentagon."
To this:
"I went outside to see what was happening, and then all hell broke loose. The ridge line where we came from had heavy mortar fire, tracer fire, heavy machine gun fire. It started as a small 'pop, pop, pop' and became a full-scale attack."
After his on air rant about access during CNN’s “American Morning with Paula Zahn”.
So who knows.
I still think we’d get a more complete picture if:
a. we could equip a corps of hardcase bloggers willing to ‘embed’ in the front lines and report live to the blogosphere everything they see, and;
b. the network for the HipTop/Sidekick thingy that Jeneane carries extended to Iraq.
Meanwhile, I also came across an interesting, earlier version of the Patrick Sloyan piece that lit my blue touch paper this time, here.
Final thoughts before (uneasy) sleep, from William Arkin, writing in the LA Times:
"Increasingly, the administration's new policy -- along with the steps senior commanders are taking to implement it -- blurs or even erases the boundaries between factual information and news, on the one hand, and public relations, propaganda and psychological warfare, on the other. And, while the policy ostensibly targets foreign enemies, its most likely victim will be the American electorate"
Times like this, it can feel kind of queasy being a flack. But it could be worse. At least I don't work here.
Had a number of interesting reactions and responses, since posting and sending the screed below earlier today.
A fellow flack at one of the other outfits pointed me to this piece regarding the Pentagon's plans to 'embed' 500 reporters with their front line troops.
Hmmm. Couple of things here that leave me unconvinced:
Point 1. The article says: "Pentagon guidance issued to field commanders two weeks ago orders U.S. military units to provide the news media, "minimally restrictive access to U.S. air, ground and naval forces."
"Minimally restrictive access" is classic Powell/Cheney doublespeak. No evidence to suggest we should expect anything better than the 'minimally restrictive access' enjoyed by AP photographer and Pulitzer-winner Scott Applewhite - an accredited media pool member covering Desert Storm I - who was punched, handcuffed and abused by US Army MPs and had his film of the aftermath of a Scud attack ripped from his camera.
Scott is only one of dozens of journalists to have been treated to this particular brand of 'minimally restrictive' cooperation.
"For the 10 percent of us who went out to the field... we encountered multiple layers of control, at least one of which always seemed to be there. Barriers seemed to raise automatically to blur the reality; buffers were always at the ready to blunt the sharp edges of truth...For American troops, the single most violent event of the war was...an Iraqi scud missile...crashing through...a barracks...Scott Applewhite, an Associated Press photographer, was in the parking lot of the hotel...The military had spent hours showing US reporters how quickly they can handle casualties... But when he came near the real thing--as real as this war got--15 US and Saudi military police officers descended upon him.
"He was handcuffed, beaten and had one of his cameras smashed as he stood his ground, insisting that he was an accredited US journalist and had every right to be there. They demanded his film...For a couple of fleeting moments, the AP photographer had broken through the invisible barrier, a kind of plastic bag or cocoon of controls that the military preferred to keep around reporters in this war. While some of us managed to get out of the hotels, most of us never escaped the cocoon."
(Source: John J. Fialka. Hotel Warriors: Covering the Gulf War. Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1991, pp. 56-57).
Point 2. The article appears on CNN, goddamit. Well of course it does.
What the hell went wrong with CNN? And when? Or was it always this much of a Whitehouse mouthpiece, and I've only just twigged it?
In the interests of balance, however – CNN also has this report from Martin Savidge - one of the reporters 'embedding' with the US Marines en route to Iraq.
Savidge certainly appears to be the real deal. He’s the guy who kicked up a huge fuss in Afghanistan and ended up getting a little deeper ‘embedded’ than he may have bargained for, going from this:
"We had been camping out, literally, at the Kandahar airport, living on the base for about six weeks. You could see military coming and going, and it was frustrating that this sort of activity was going on and we couldn't go on it. We really were very much in the dark. The only insight we had was in the next day's briefing (when) they might tell us how many people were detained. And a lot of times information was coming directly from the Pentagon."
To this:
"I went outside to see what was happening, and then all hell broke loose. The ridge line where we came from had heavy mortar fire, tracer fire, heavy machine gun fire. It started as a small 'pop, pop, pop' and became a full-scale attack."
After his on air rant about access during CNN’s “American Morning with Paula Zahn”.
So who knows.
I still think we’d get a more complete picture if:
a. we could equip a corps of hardcase bloggers willing to ‘embed’ in the front lines and report live to the blogosphere everything they see, and;
b. the network for the HipTop/Sidekick thingy that Jeneane carries extended to Iraq.
Meanwhile, I also came across an interesting, earlier version of the Patrick Sloyan piece that lit my blue touch paper this time, here.
Final thoughts before (uneasy) sleep, from William Arkin, writing in the LA Times:
"Increasingly, the administration's new policy -- along with the steps senior commanders are taking to implement it -- blurs or even erases the boundaries between factual information and news, on the one hand, and public relations, propaganda and psychological warfare, on the other. And, while the policy ostensibly targets foreign enemies, its most likely victim will be the American electorate"
Times like this, it can feel kind of queasy being a flack. But it could be worse. At least I don't work here.
