Afghan Patriots - Living with the Taliban (Video)

[JMA]

Good decision-making (and I'm aiming at the political decision down to individual voters here) requires good information (or luck).

It's for this reason why propaganda has been banned in some countries; it biased the information pro-war and was too often about misleading the electorate. That's not acceptable in a democracy.

We need either neutral information (German media strives for this, and comes close with a relatively limited influence of partisanship on news) or balanced information (the U.S. approach as it seems).


Now from this point of view, it was an unacceptable imbalance and lack of neutrality to have reporters embedded on one side, but not on the other. It's irrelevant which side has the information advantage here - there shall be no such information advantage.

Voters shall not be mislead, never be pushed to support a war that's not worth its expenses or probably altogether stupid. On the other hand, they shall not fall prey to hostile propaganda overmatch and cower away from warfare against their interests and values.
Warfare isn't about winning at all costs; it's about taking the least terrible path. Yes, sometimes it's better to accept defeat than to keep on fighting till an eventual declaration "victory" (or till a more serious defeat).


It's a good thing to see such a video. The fourth estate does its job (or begins to do it).


Btw - yes, this reporter has balls of steel. Or he knows he's ill and will die soon anyway.

Why would the Taliban allow a journalist to embed? They must be learning from the coalition how to manipulate the media. What we saw was not combat it was a game (maybe deliberately he was kept away from the real action). I have read articles on my little war written by so-called unbiased journalists and will say that the terms independent and unbiased are not words that should be used to describe journalists (any journalists) and as such journalists should be considered biased until THEY prove otherwise.

Show me one of your independent German journalists and I'll show you a liar. (I'm being serious on this challenge)

[Fuchs]

Why would the Taliban allow a journalist to embed? They must be learning from the coalition how to manipulate the media. What we saw was not combat it was a game (maybe deliberately he was kept away from the real action). I have read articles on my little war written by so-called unbiased journalists and will say that the terms independent and unbiased are not words that should be used to describe journalists (any journalists) and as such journalists should be considered biased until THEY prove otherwise.

Show me one of your independent German journalists and I'll show you a liar. (I'm being serious on this challenge)

The Taliban would (if at all) allow embeds for the same reason as Western forces allow embeds (if at all) - pursuing their advantage. It's about symmetry.


I don't really care about journalist names - instead I judge every text anew, we have very few really famous journalists anyway.
Every human lies sometimes, so I don't really care about occasional lies and I have no real hope that all reporting can ever become accurate.
I do see a huge difference between journalist ethics in Germany and the U.S., though. Most readers here are from the U.S. and used to the "balanced" approach of journalism. I mentioned the "neutral" approach (attempted but not really mastered by CNN, too) as the other conceptually relevant one.

[JMA]

The Taliban would (if at all) allow embeds for the same reason as Western forces allow embeds (if at all) - pursuing their advantage. It's about symmetry.


I don't really care about journalist names - instead I judge every text anew, we have very few really famous journalists anyway.
Every human lies sometimes, so I don't really care about occasional lies and I have no real hope that all reporting can ever become accurate.
I do see a huge difference between journalist ethics in Germany and the U.S., though. Most readers here are from the U.S. and used to the "balanced" approach of journalism. I mentioned the "neutral" approach (attempted but not really mastered by CNN, too) as the other conceptually relevant one.

Is there really an American that does not know that the reporting on Iraq and now Afghanistan is controlled to a remarkable extent by the military/US government.

I watch Aljazeera to compare the news and get other insight into Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere). Does that help yes. After all I want to know the truth.

A neutral media? That is a fiction so lets not spend time talking about it.