Change in media reporting

[SWCAdmin]

I got a chuckle out of this piece of internet fluff. Almost posted it in the Kitakidogo Social Club forum. But since I laughed and then cried, I thought I'd share it here and see if it spawned a serious discussion.

I am working my way through "The Utility of Force" at the moment, appreciating its concept of "wars amongst the people," and see this caricature as a satirical spin on a real, real issue.

This is how the Normandy invasion would be reported today. Sounds familiar.

June 6, 1944. -NORMANDY- Three hundred French civilians were killed and thousands more wounded today in the first hours of America's unilateral invasion of continental Europe. Casualties were heaviest among women and children. Most of the French casualties were the result of artillery fire from American ships attempting to knock out German fortifications prior to the landing of hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops.

Reports from a makeshift hospital in the French town of St. Mere Eglise said the carnage was far worse than the French had anticipated and reaction against the American invasion was running high. "We are dying for no reason," said a Frenchman speaking on condition of anonymity. "Americans can't even shoot straight. I never thought I'd say this, but life was better under Hitler."

The invasion also caused severe environmental damage. American troops, tanks, trucks and machinery destroyed miles of pristine shoreline and thousands of acres of ecologically sensitive wetlands. It was believed that the habitat of the spineless French crab was completely wiped out, threatening the species with extinction.

A representative of Greenpeace said his organization, which had tried to stall the invasion for over a year, was appalled at the destruction, but not surprised. "This is just another example of how the military destroys the environment without a second thought," said Christine Moanmore. "And it's all about corporate greed."

Contacted at his Manhattan condo, a member of the French government-in-exile who abandoned Paris when Hitler invaded said the invasion was based solely on American financial interests. "Everyone knows that President Roosevelt has ties to big beer," said Pierre LeWimp. "Once the German beer industry is conquered, Roosevelt's beer cronies will control the world market and make a fortune."

Protestors said America's aggressive actions were based in part on the assertions of controversial scientist Albert Einstein, who sent a letter to Roosevelt speculating that the Germans were allegedly developing a secret weapon, a so-called "atomic bomb." Such a weapon could produce casualties on a scale never seen before and cause environmental damage that could last for thousands of years. Hitler has denied having such a weapon and international inspectors were unable to locate such weapons even after spending two long weekends in Germany.

Shortly after the invasion began reports surfaced that German prisoners had been abused by Americans. Mistreatment of Jews by Germans at so-called "concentration camps" has been rumored but so far remains unproven.

Several thousand Americans died during the first hours of the invasion and French officials are concerned that uncollected corpses pose a public health risk. "The Americans should have planned for this in advance," they said. "It's their mess and we don't intend to clean it up."

[Adam L]

That's probably how it would be reported today. It's a very, very serious problem. Here, are a my opinions on this issues causations:
1. People are too trusting of the media and do not seem to have the skills or background knowledge (or ability to find the background knowledge) needed to really evaluate what they are dealing with.
2. What's most alarming is that it is often the most educate (by this I mean a lot of degrees as oppose to actually being "educated") who are most ignorant and gullible in this regard.
3. For many people (especially those mentioned in #2) it is a matter of their desire to feel good about themselves via feeling badly. You can never underestimate how much people will brainwash themselves in order to feel better about themselves, or just in general (note: sometimes people enjoy feeling badly.)
4. Reporters need to go to “journalism school.” Imagine if they just hired a good writer/researcher with understanding of the ethical and legal issues. Imagine if he actually had a strong and broad education that allowed him to have some understanding of what he was looking at. It would be horrible, they might actually get a reporter that reported on what was going on. OMG!
5. They are also practically free from scrutiny. They extend their “journalistic rights”granted to them far beyond their legal limits and protect their own to a reckless and irresponsible degree.
6. Public Journalism! This is frightening stuff.


Adam L

[Fuchs]

It's not even close.
That speculative text is just the expression of a cliché.

Such a distorted view of the reporting originates a lot in the distorted view of a conflict as shared by service members.
Reporters are civilians, and they try to cover the whole story more often than a soldier wants to think about the whole story. It's not surprising that soldiers feel that the reporting is off - it's off their view of the conflict.

Reporters are (wo)men and fallible, in fact my rule of thumb about average newspapers is "1/3 right, 1/3 correct but misses the point and 1/3 wrong".
A regional newspaper chief editor once confirmed to me that journalists are just all-round dilettantes.

But the fictional text above is not anywhere near representative. It's based on a cliché, not on reality.
A realistic fictional text would have included this:
- time
- location
- numbers
- first success indicators/reports
- expected casualty range (official and/or "experts" guesses)
- key statements of the press conference/release, probably a quote
- mention of the supreme commander of the operation by name and rank
- probably an improvised map
- at least one photo, for example of a sky full of combat aircraft
- mention of an impressively destructive bombardment that leaves little chance of survival
- some very despising words about the enemy (OK, maybe "fascists" or "Nazis" would have been despising enough)
- outlook on what the operation might cause in the medium term

Journalists write about environmental hazards of military actions/hardware when they've got no better stories.

They usually don't jump on the very first stories of civilian casualties and war crimes, but instead there's a threshold: If too much happens, they're fed up and begin to report about it, taking examples and emphasize these few examples (which then seems out of proportion to uniformed personnel, of course).
Foreign (neutral or unfriendly nations') press is of course a bit or drastically more unfriendly towards military operations (lower or no thresholds).

[Ken White]

It's not even close.
That speculative text is just the expression of a cliché.

Uh, yeah -- the text is also satire. Broad, yes but still satire.

Reporters are (wo)men and fallible, in fact my rule of thumb about average newspapers is "1/3 right, 1/3 correct but misses the point and 1/3 wrong".

A regional newspaper chief editor once confirmed to me that journalists are just all-round dilettantes.

Wwe can agree on the latter. With regard to the former I can essentially agree but would point out that those figures effectively make them wrong 2/3 of the time...

They usually don't jump on the very first stories of civilian casualties and war crimes, but instead there's a threshold: If too much happens, they're fed up and begin to report about it, taking examples and emphasize these few examples (which then seems out of proportion to uniformed personnel, of course).

Agreed. However, their threshold is as subject to their bias as are the uniformed personnel to their biases.

Foreign (neutral or unfriendly nations') press is of course a bit or drastically more unfriendly towards military operations (lower or no thresholds).

True. Thus the invitation to broad satire...

[Adam L]

That's probably how it would be reported today.

With the direction this thread seems to be heading I want to make sure everyone knows I was joking when I said that.

Thanks,
Adam L

[Fuchs]

With the direction this thread seems to be heading I want to make sure everyone knows I was joking when I said that.

Thanks,
Adam L

Yeah, OK.
But I've heard such comments before, and they were meant more seriously.

[Adam L]

Yeah, OK.
But I've heard such comments before, and they were meant more seriously.

Look, I see we obviously have very different opinons of the media. I do not view the media in general at all favorably these days. It's next to impossible to find anything resembling the news on television. Even the BBC is pretty bad. Part of the problem is a good 50% of everything shown is not newsworthy. The newspapers (I can only speak as to US/Canadian papers) are in about the same shape in my opinon. I've usually been a NYT/WSJ reader, but the NYT has taken a nose dive the last decade or so. (especially the last 5 years) I think I should point out that my disdain for the media is independent of my opinions on how they are covering conflicts world wide. Their coverage of all matters is most often quite dreadful in my opinion.

Adam L

[RTK]

Look, I see we obviously have very different opinons of the media. I do not view the media in general at all favorably these days. It's next to impossible to find anything resembling the news on television. Even the BBC is pretty bad. Part of the problem is a good 50% of everything shown is not newsworthy. The newspapers (I can only speak as to US/Canadian papers) are in about the same shape in my opinon. I've usually been a NYT/WSJ reader, but the NYT has taken a nose dive the last decade or so. (especially the last 5 years) I think I should point out that my disdain for the media is independent of my opinions on how they are covering conflicts world wide. Their coverage of all matters is most often quite dreadful in my opinion.

Adam L

It's not just isolated to American media. My favorites list on my browser has 22 American media outlets, from my smalltown boyhood news rag to the big 3 networks and other big 3 cable news networks. I look at all 22 each day because I'm not sure what to believe. So I take snipits of each, look for common themes and figure I'm getting the 70% solution of the facts.

Additionally, I have 27 media sites, to include a search engine for all the world's online newspapers, for countries outside the US. These include BBC, Sky, Der Spiegel, IHT, Tehran Times, The Kurdistani, NPRK propeganda, etc...

I read because I'm interested in what the other views are as well. However, some of the writing, even through the translation, of some of the other media outlets in the world is even more slanted than the famous FoxNews v. CNN. One only needs to look at the Palestine Times v. Jerusalem Post.

[selil]

....I do not view the media in general at all favorably these days. It's next to impossible to find anything resembling the news on television. ....

That and many of the other criticisms in this thread of the main stream media are created by an expectation gap of reality and fantasy. The fantasy is that for Americans in general the news organizations exist to provide factual representation of a dialog in politics and events. The reality is that there is no such rule or expectation. The first amendment protects political speech along with expression (just ask Larry Flynt) for the media, person walking down the street, or even crazy people outside military funerals.

The media in general (CNN to CBS) does not exist to provide balanced reporting. The expectation since Ben Franklin and the Federalist Papers is that there will be spin, cajoling, coordinated yellow screaming, nasty pitiful arrogant, caustic spin in the reporting to bend the will of the people. You don't have to like it but as Hurst said you go report it and I'll start the war (something like that).

Let's talk about the evening news. The early growth of the television market created this fantasy of balanced journalism. Whether we are talking about Walter Cronkite "The most trusted man in America", or Edward R. Murro "Goodnight and Goodluck" chasing the evil pixies of Macarthyism the reality is they all had biases. It is just people agreed with their biases. Who in the world would expect 18 minutes of content at an average of 45 seconds per story, 3 minutes for the big head line of the day, to have any relevance what so ever? Most of the Internet content from large media outlets is simply regurgitated hash done the same way because that is what they do. Only opinion pages are not given short shrift, and all of the large media outlets have shut down post-broadcast editorials. No more Edward Murro challenging our intellect or politics.

The editorial boards of most news organizations are egotistical, sycophantic, arrogant, back stabbing, advertiser driven, petty groups who see the world through a myopic view of journalistic furor. Rather than consider them the spinners of lies and untruths it is the volume of sifting and the shallow level they think that is the problem. Most of the news organizations have cut their staffs to near zero, the regurgitate AP and Reuters like great truth, and people drink even more from the desiccated teat of information.

The blogosphere isn't much better. I look at the top rated blogs by technocrati and other rating systems and what are they doing? They are rehashing AP and Reuters creating commentary on the stories in a vacuum of self censure and egoism. Most blogs take the mindless chatter and spew it forth just the same as the news organizations only with opinion embedded. The primary value of such being their nature to aggregate stories. There are very few places like Small Wars Journal that creates content that has had peer review layered to mitigate the mind numbing baseless arrogance found in the main stream media.

All of that said the media is working with one caveat exactly as planned. The signal to noise ratio is unbalanced by the existence of media conglomerates and centralized ownership. This creates an echo chamber of ideas as owners pick and choose staff based on their own biases. The public has a tendency to gravitate towards the agent they agree with rather than the one that provides better reporting. Thus we see diatribes against The Clinton Network News (CNN), and the I won't say it (FOX) news organizations. Yet that is still how it should be. Debate with out rancor is a fine thing to wish for, but I wish to be good looking and young again too.

Hopefully in the cauldron of the media we can still find the nugget of information, but it isn't that people are stupid, or that the media is inappropriately biased, or that people have no critical thinking skills, or that people are dumber than they used to be, or perhaps that there is a left/right wing conspiracy, but it is true that things in the media space should be uncomfortable.

There is a wide gap between the fantasy of fair-balanced media and the reality of the humans and systems. It isn't that it is broken as quite the contrary it is working just the way it should. The speech and expression that makes us the most uncomfortable is likely the most protected speech just for that reason. The real fear is not that they do their job poorly in the main stream media but that they stop doing their job all together. That job is not to get the facts straight but to get the point across. Those are two different goals. As indoctrinated as we Americans are all to this fantasy concept of fair-balanced media it is difficult to accept, but it says no where in the first Amendment does it say fair/balanced/truth. It is freedom of speech/press that is protected not their veracity.

You really don't want to watch a factual news broadcast where they tell you the water in the flood zone has risen 3 feet due to three bazillion gallons per minute flow rate, and increasing. Instead the story is broadcast as the toll on the living and dying and the reach into the lives of the effected. The compelling story is the suffering which is where we get "If it bleeds it leads" and other disaffected stories.

One final thing. Censorship is always the last bastion of those who have lost an argument and the first step toward evil. Agree, disagree, but as long as the debate is in the open sooner or later the fallacious nature found in either argument will be shown. There is no practical limit on freedom of speech beyond slander, libel, and (argh) copyright. There is likely way to much restriction currently on freedom of speech from self censorship found in the political correctness movement. Today society is much more civil and as a result filled with much more drivel than in the 1960s. As a point where are the true scallawags of the media today? I can't find a Hunter S. Thompson, or Kerouac (chosen as opposites).

It is the nature of the soldier to try and control that which could harm. Huntington and other talk about the civil military relations and a big part of that is media. MountainRunner has an entire BLOG about the media and the government. The reality is that the soldier should have a perspective that is slightly onerous toward the media as at no point in American history has the media given the military a free ride. Love the soldiers, hate the war, is no dichotomy to the journalist. It is highly incongruous to the soldier to say you love them, and then vilify their work. However, it is no less damning to the military member to vilify an entire amendment to the Constitution, by crying censor the bastards, then it is publicly support a particular presidential candidate. In a flip of the journalist credo the soldier can say hate the journalists, love the right to freedom of expression. Which should drive most journalists just as crazy as they do the military.

[Gian P Gentile]

...and see this caricature as a satirical spin on a real, real issue.

Please define what you see as the "real, real issue" at hand here? I think I know what you are implying but want to be sure before I respond.

gian

[Steve Blair]

Please define what you see as the "real, real issue" at hand here? I think I know what you are implying but want to be sure before I respond.

gian

Or define what you see as the issue, since at the end of the day many issues are in fact a meeting between a number of individual interpretations of that issue. My own news grazing is something of a cross between RTKs and Schmedlap's (I have this major issue with coughing up about $100 a month to watch three channels, so no cable for this household), and I do find that there is a clarity of spin when you aren't saturated with outlets.

And as far as I'm concerned, The Today Show isn't news. Of course, Entertainment Tonight also claims to be news, so go figure....

[SWCAdmin]

Please define what you see as the "real, real issue" at hand here? I think I know what you are implying but want to be sure before I respond.

That the role of the media and its interaction with both society and conflict is a) huge b) dramatically accelerated from a generation or two ago (just more? or fundamentally different?).

Again, this specific satire just floated past me. Concur w/ Fuchs, the author needs to go back to satirical journalism school before landing the war desk at the Onion. I don't put it forward to advocate for or skewer whatever leaning anyone infers from it, but simply because it will cause so many to infer. Please continue to do so, fascinating observations, looking forward to yours, too, Gian.

[marct]

You know, there are some interesting assumptions operating here that haven't been pulled out and probably should be. First is the actual question of responsibilities - of the media, of the citizen, of the soldier. There appears to be an assumption that he citizen should "educate" themselves on current issues both via "formal" education and via the media. Second, that the role of the media is to act as a watchdog; uncovering what is going on that is (possibly) being hidden from the public. Third, that soldiers will, inevitably, practice some form of if not "censorship", then at least deception.

What I find fascinating is that none of these role-responsibility assumptions, barring a limited form of the third one, is backed up by any social structural factors. Citizens are nor rewarded (or punished) for their knowledge; indeed, for the past 70 years or so, there has been a progressive structural emphasis to "domesticate" citizens in order to make them more "predictable" for advertising, either political of corporate. The media are economically punished for taking the time to do a really good, in-depth job of analyzing issues (that "quest for eyeballs" problem). At the same time, academics are also punished for doing the same if it steps outside of the broad boardaries of the politically acceptable (not, necessarily, the same thing as Politically Correct; see here for an example). Finally, soldiers are structurally required to limit information that, in many instances, goes well beyond the actual requirements of OPSEC (cf Lt. Gen. Caldwell's comments here).

Part of the problem, I suspect, is the idealistic nature of a chunk of your (US) assumptions, especially those related to the idea of an invisible hand operating in the information/political economy. Personally, I think it is naive to assume that the media will not be co-opted by political and economic factions with specific agendas. Their entire livelihood is based on their ability to compete in the (supposedly) "free market" of information reporting. But where does the money come from?

This is why I believe that the blogsphere, and sites like SWC, are so important. The structural impetus is not crudely economic in the "I do X, you pay me Y" sense of the term. It is a much better example of a "free market" of information than anything that shows up in the MSM.

*****
just got a link to this which I think makes part of my argument for me...

L.A. Times to Cut 250 jobs, 150 in newsroom.

[Tom Odom]

You know, there are some interesting assumptions operating here that haven't been pulled out and probably should be. First is the actual question of responsibilities - of the media, of the citizen, of the soldier. There appears to be an assumption that he citizen should "educate" themselves on current issues both via "formal" education and via the media. Second, that the role of the media is to act as a watchdog; uncovering what is going on that is (possibly) being hidden from the public. Third, that soldiers will, inevitably, practice some form of if not "censorship", then at least deception.

What I find fascinating is that none of these role-responsibility assumptions, barring a limited form of the third one, is backed up by any social structural factors. Citizens are nor rewarded (or punished) for their knowledge; indeed, for the past 70 years or so, there has been a progressive structural emphasis to "domesticate" citizens in order to make them more "predictable" for advertising, either political of corporate. The media are economically punished for taking the time to do a really good, in-depth job of analyzing issues (that "quest for eyeballs" problem). At the same time, academics are also punished for doing the same if it steps outside of the broad boardaries of the politically acceptable (not, necessarily, the same thing as Politically Correct; see here for an example). Finally, soldiers are structurally required to limit information that, in many instances, goes well beyond the actual requirements of OPSEC (cf Lt. Gen. Caldwell's comments here).

Part of the problem, I suspect, is the idealistic nature of a chunk of your (US) assumptions, especially those related to the idea of an invisible hand operating in the information/political economy. Personally, I think it is naive to assume that the media will not be co-opted by political and economic factions with specific agendas. Their entire livelihood is based on their ability to compete in the (supposedly) "free market" of information reporting. But where does the money come from?

This is why I believe that the blogsphere, and sites like SWC, are so important. The structural impetus is not crudely economic in the "I do X, you pay me Y" sense of the term. It is a much better example of a "free market" of information than anything that shows up in the MSM.

*****
just got a link to this which I think makes part of my argument for me...

L.A. Times to Cut 250 jobs, 150 in newsroom.

Great points as usual, Marc. I would add a fourth consideration in media affairs. As a military guy for most of my life--but one assigned to work with non-military agencies--I have long watched our military culture and how it affects our views and how we describe those views, both orally and in writing. We as a military see what we report as correct and anything that differs from what we see as correct is by definition incorrect and possibly delberately so. "We don't like CNN so we change channels to Fox because we like them more,' is symptomatic of this tendency.

Inside the military, I had a similar experience as an intelligence analyst and operator dealing with manuever commanders. Intelligence is always a business of pessimism; manuever looks for and expects the positive. The friction between the two is apparent to anyone who has ever sat through an ops intell update. When the shoving is over, the positive wins.

Ergo most of what is going to come out as the facts in a military account of any event is going to tend toward the positive. That tendency also runs full tilt into the media's tendency to look for the bad news.

We are not going to "fix" this. We can only expect it and mitigate its effects when necessary. See: CALL Newsletter 07-04 Media is the Battlefield

Best

Tom

[marct]

Great points as usual, Marc.

Thanks, Tom. I seem to be on a structuralist jag recently...

I would add a fourth consideration in media affairs. As a military guy for most of my life--but one assigned to work with non-military agencies--I have long watched our military culture and how it affects our views and how we describe those views, both orally and in writing. We as a military see what we report as correct and anything that differs from what we see as correct is by definition incorrect and possibly delberately so. "We don't like CNN so we change channels to Fox because we like them more,' is symptomatic of this tendency.

Really good point, Tom. I've always suspected that one of the key friction points has been conflicts in the oral language, without people understanding why the differences exist and why they are necessary. I remember years ago talking with a bunch of anti-(Vietnam)war people in Toronto, and one of the comments made really stuck with me: (roughly) "the military uses 'sanitized' language to avoid responsibility for their actions." Hunh, what a crock! About a week before that little encounter, I had been having lunch with my great uncle, who was a WW I vet, and a bunch of his friends and they had slipped out of "sanitized" language for a minute or two, appeared to get very depressed and then started using it again.

But that friction with language comes out, especially when reporters quote people. Terms like "collateral damage", "friendly fire", etc. have a tendency to be taken by many of the civilian population as newspeak in the Orwellian sense. It's certainly not unique to military-civilian interactions, either . The way many people react to what politicians and corporations say is another great example of the phenomenon; phrases like "unavoidable readjustment in the economy", "rightsizing", "free trade", etc. are good examples.

Marc

[Ken White]

I could quibble around the edges but only microscopically and that only due to personal experience and bias.

Reality is always such a drag...