COIN & The Media (catch all)

[J Wolfsberger]

To amplify on my earlier comments, there are still enough of the old school journalists who believe in telling the story straight to make the difference clear. (From your comments on various threads, you seem to fit in that group. Don't take what I wrote personal. )

As for your comments about embedding, I recall an interview with an editor or publisher from the MSM, circa 2002 or 2003. (Sorry, I can't recall more detail than that.) His complaint about the embed process was that the journalists became too sympathetic to the soldiers. (I think he referred to it as bonding with the people they were supposed to be covering.) He didn't like it because it wasn't producing enough dirt.

IMHO, the adversarial relationship is a creation of the media. If they wanted to end it, they would have to begin by rejecting the current concept of journalistic "ethics" and return to the older ideal of dispassionately presenting the facts.

As an example of a journalistic I respect, check out Charlie LeDuff at the Detroit News.

[Ken White]

IMHO, the adversarial relationship is a creation of the media. If they wanted to end it, they would have to begin by rejecting the current concept of journalistic "ethics" and return to the older ideal of dispassionately presenting the facts.

I'll add that I hear and agree with everything Bayonet Brant said -- but...

I agree that Journalism would strongly benefit from being joined by persons with some military experience -- two points occur to me. There won't be enough former military types attracted to journalism to swing the net media anti-military / great unwashed attitude and, worse, those who do opt for such a career will generally have only limited military experience and possibly some biases of their own...

I've spent my entire 75+ years around one service or another, 45 of them in the Marines or Army or working as an Army Civilian employee, am very interested in many aspects of the profession, read a lot -- and I still learn new things every day. I'm not at all sure the average SPC/SGT or 1LT/CPT will bring that much to the profession. It will help, surely but I doubt that it'll produce the major change in knowledge --and more importantly, attitude, that is required for better cooperation and reportage.

The counterpoint of sending military people as interns or assistants to local media outlets may have some benefits -- provided one could get Congress and the media to accede to it. John T. Fishel on another thread suggested that the US Government could solve the unity of command problem in a given nation or theater by the President simply pointing his finger and saying "You are in charge." That is unlikely to happen because Congress would object (Republicans if a Democratic President were to do it or vice versa; ostensibly over Departmental roles and missions, practically over tainting either 'side' with the other). Same thing applies to embedding the Press in the military or the reverse. The adversely affected (in their view) side will get their allies in Congress to object. Consider the MV-22 in service despite the objections of a couple of SecDefs, strong lobbying by other industry entities and the Army and only lukewarm support by the Navy...

But I digress -- back to the Military and the Media. The cliche oil and water are appropriate. I hear and appreciate what Bayonet says -- I strongly doubt it will make much difference; the cultures -- as Spud pointed out LINK are too different...

[Spud]

I've spent my entire 75+ years around one service or another

Holy #### ... Grandad?

[Ken White]

Holy #### ... Grandad?

that you are getting perilously close to geriatric abuse. Not now an international crime but as those twerps from the Baby Boomer generation approach maturity it will certainly become illegal...

You have been warned!

(Oldest Granddaughter has an Iraq tour under her Riggers Belt... )

[Spud]

You know us Aussies ... no respect for the old and feeble Every now and then someone over here brings up the idea of of the big E. Nothing like clearing a way to the top by knocking everyone off who's over the hill.

Jas

[Ken White]

You know us Aussies ... no respect for the old and feeble

Poms???

... Every now and then someone over here brings up the idea of of the big E. Nothing like clearing a way to the top by knocking everyone off who's over the hill.

However, now that you mention it, I do recall that as a 'Stryne trait, tall Poppies and all that...

And it's true here, too -- 'at's why I became retarded, to open some room for the less competent...

[ODB]

SF Soldier becomes the first amputee to complete Jumpmaster Course
By SFC Jason B. Baker

FORT BRAGG, N.C. (USASOC News Service Feb. 6, 2008) – For most Soldiers when they join the Army there are a set of schools they set their eyes on as goals to complete. Schools like, Air Assault, Ranger and Pathfinder. For any airborne qualified non-commissioned officer the natural goal would be the Jumpmaster Course.

For one NCO achieving this goal faced more than just a minor set back; but Sgt. 1st Class John (Mike) Fairfax, Special Forces Intelligence NCO, Headquarters Support Company, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), became the first amputee Soldier to successfully complete the Jumpmaster Course, Nov.15 and performed his first duty Dec. 3.

Link

[BobKing]

Several years ago Robert Kaplan spoke to a SOF class at the Army Command and General Staff College. I can't recall whether he uttered these exact words or not, but I left thinking he had explained how most of the media were "Journalists First, Americans Second." I know he made the point that much of the media see themselves as "citizens of the world."

His visit was shortly after writing "The Media and Medievalism"

In that article, he writes about the Marines fighting in Fallujah, and how they were forced, by the actions of the media, to call a cease-fire resulting in "snatching defeat from victory."

Specifically:

No matter how cleanly the Marines fought, it was not clean enough for the global media, famously including Al-Jazeera, which portrayed as indiscriminate killing what in previous eras of war would have constituted a low civilian casualty rate. The fact that mosques were blatantly used by insurgents as command posts for aggressive military operations mattered less to journalists than that some of these mosques were targeted by U.S. planes. Had the fighting continued, the political fallout from such coverage would have forced the newly emerging Iraqi authorities to resign en masse. So American officials had no choice but to undermine their own increasingly favorable battlefield position by consenting to a cease-fire. While U.S. policy was guilty of incoherence — ordering a full-scale assault only to call it off — the Marines were defeated less by the insurgents than by the way urban combat is covered by a global media that has embraced the cult of victimhood.

I would recommend also checking out Kaplan's "The Media and the Military"

[Cavguy]

In that article, he writes about the Marines fighting in Fallujah, and how they were forced, by the actions of the media, to call a cease-fire resulting in "snatching defeat from victory."

I think the threat of the entire Iraqi Governing Council to resign and the decision of AMB Bremer/LTG Sanchez all had a wee bit to do with it.

Most of that was not because of our media - but the reaction generated by Arab media.