Attitudes twards the media
Hi Folks,
In a recent post in the What is our message thread, I asked
Quote:
Do you know if anyone has actually studied this [anti-media bias amongst serving troops] (i.e. interviews, focus groups, etc.)? If someone has, I would really like to look at their data. If they haven't, I would like to set up a research project to do so.
Well, so far nobody has posted, PM'd or emailed me about such studies.
What I would be interested in knowing is this: If I put such a study together, do people here think that a) it is worth looking at and b) would you be willing to take part in it (anonymously)? Obviously, the study would have to be conducted online.
Marc
Some are perhaps trying to fix this !
Hi Marc !
I pondered over your request with a Saku on Ice (a wonderful Estonian beer :p ) when an American journalist that I've know for a while came in.
He told me to check out Accuracy In Media. www.aim.org
Their mission statement:
Quote:
Accuracy In Media is a non-profit, grassroots citizens watchdog of the news media that critiques botched and bungled news stories and sets the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage.
Some good blogs and stories there. Sounds perhaps too promising, but figured you could use the help :)
Here's a good short read:
Why We Are Going to Iraq
By Jeff Emanuel and Victoria Coates
April 4, 2007
Quote:
In our writings here and elsewhere, the two of us have spent a great deal of time, ink, and energy discussing the Iraq war and attempting to convey stories about the mission that can't be found in the mainstream media. We've criticized the quality of the media's own reportage on events in the Middle East. We've pointed out episodes of anti-war bias, ignorance, and outright fabrications ad nauseam, all the while seeking to "correct the record" with a better reflection of events and developments as they actually are, rather than as they appear through the mainstream media's anti-war, anti-Bush prism.
Why have we spent so much time and energy on this pursuit? Because the evidence we see suggests a very different picture of the situation on the ground in Iraq than the one which the media presents day in and day out.
Regards, Stan
Further Consideration: Survey of Newsies
Okay, first, if someone can backchannel me how to do the thing where you make it obvious you're quoting someone, I'd really appreciate it.
That said, as I've backchanneled Marc, I think that were we to proceed with a survey of newsies, it would be critical that our criteria for who to survey be set completely aside from any results coming from the military survey. They need to be based on something like self-definitions of "beat" ("do you consider yourself primarily a Pentagon or national security correspondent?") or by empirical criteria, like number of tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, or total time in those bureaus. If the point is to simultaneously or near-simultaneously produce these parallel surveys as a way of exploring the attitudes these two groups hold, to look for the "flash points" (to use Marc's term) or the attributions the groups hold that can become the basis for resolving conflict and moving forward ina more productive way, the newsies have to believe they had as much or as little input into their survey as military personnel had in theirs, that it is rigorously fair, and parallel in every way.
My 2@.
cd
Alternative approach to "newsies"
If I were developing this project - I'm not, Marc is - I most likely would not use survey methodology to get at the newsies. This is a rather more limited group than the military and the more influential ones are even fewer. Therefore, I would address them in a series of selected in-depth interviews. This approach would, I think, cut the cost and the time as well as get satisfactory answers.
If You've Deployed In the Last 24 Months . . .
Thank you for the suggested names of journalists, but I have a slightly different question. My sense is that there are two competing pressures pulling at outlets. On the one hand, b/c the price of covering the war is reaching astronomical heights, more and more outlets other than those at the very top tier (the nets, the newsweeklies, the very top dailies) are at least considering pulling the plug on bureaus.
At the same time, smaller reg'l dailies and local TV stations, even when they otherwise may not be very good, feel obligated to provide very high quality coverage of bases and units in their area as part of their mission. For ex, papers in North Carolina which might not be on your list of the top papers in the country routinely provide excellent military coverage b/c there are so many bases in the state, and despite the fact that our local television stations are simply excecreble, there are reporters here who have covered the military for twenty years and do a good job of it. My sense is that even though many of these outlets certainly don't have deep pockets, they will still periodically send reporters out to embed b/c that's part of how they define their mission of covering the units in their communities.
Here's my question: is that still true? If you've deployed in, let's say the last 24 months, have you seen reporters embedding with your unit from outlets other than the nationals? Local television outlets, daily papers from media markets, let's say smaller than the Boston Globe (yes, I know they've pulled the plug on foreign coverage entirely, but that's a recent move, and that's a good place to draw the line b/w "national" and "reg'l" daily.)
No need to name names here, a simple, "yes, it's happened," either regularly or periodically would be of great use.
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
My experience with the media is reflected in the title of this post. Some were good and listened carefully. Some were bad in their direct manipualtion of facts to meet preconceived ideas. Some were just ugly in their blatant staging of events to create news. In the latter category I would place the reporters in Goma who hired locals to shift bodies around like stage props just outside the press cage along the road as shown below. PIC is courtesy of Stan Reber)