Media Mindfulness

NBC reports the latest blame game: the war in Iraq is the media’s fault. Kinda funny since the mainstream media, thanks to the Pentagon, is generally only allowed the US military’s POV (point of view). I suppose you could blame the government’s PR handlers for losing the war. After all, bombs don’t kill people, cameras do. Right? See, it is Vietnam all over again (for lame excuses, that is).

Anyhow, there are actually valiant journalists going out and reporting as fairly as they can given the circumstances. My colleagues and friends at the Baghdad Project photographed and interviewed Iraqi civilians without censoring any views. Some even expressed gratitude for the invasion (this was in the early days of the war). Reporter Zelie Pollon and photojournalist Laurent Guerin (a French veteran of the Lebanese civil war) performed a valiant job under dangerous circumstances, which shows that if you let journalists actually do their jobs, perhaps you would have the proper intelligence necessary to make an honest decision before you start the next war. (Of course that also means you would have to read some history and learn about the country you are targeting, too, before killing 30,000 people in the name of peace).

Oh well. If you feed disinformation into the corporate media, and the corporate media reports that disinformation uncritically (i.e. Judith Miller at the NY Times), then you should also blame bad disinformation for the war. If you believe your own lies repeated in the media, and then claim that you were misled by your own lies, well then, we call that an echo chamber (and that is the most G-rated comment I can make given the true incompetence of the situation).

Debate rages over media’s role in Iraq war - Nightly News with Brian Williams - MSNBC.com:

“Are the images Americans are seeing from Iraq due to the level of violence or is it just the messenger? And, as President Bush suggested Tuesday at a White House news conference, are the media also being used by the insurgents?”