Accurate News Reporting or Part of the Terrorism Propoganda Machine

[DunedinDragon]

I've been wondering exactly how accurate the reporting from Iraq is, and I think I finally found an answer from a source I can believe. The following is an excerpt from an independent site for military members both active and non-active. I think this says a lot about the MSM and how they are being played like a fiddle by the terrorists propoganda machine.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htiw/articles/20060925.aspx

Outsourcing Combat Reporting to the Enemy
September 25, 2006: U.S. troops continue to be mystified at the odd reporting coming out of Iraq. What the troops witnessed is not what reporters are sending back. The bylines on those stories are American, as are the talking heads they see broadcasting from Baghdad. Some troops attribute the inaccurate reporting to bias, with journalists sending back what they want to be the truth, rather than what is actually happening. The troops see a very different Iraq from the one journalists are reporting.

But the fact of the matter is that few of these journalists are reporting much. On any given day, fewer than a dozen reporters are embedded with combat units, and actually out there. A third or more of these are working for military oriented publications ("Stars and Stripes," Armed Forces Network). Most journalists are in the Green Zone, or some well-guarded hotel. There, they depend on Iraqi stringers to gather information, and take pictures for them. In reality, these reporters could do this from back home, and many more media organizations are doing just that.

Nothing new about using local stringers in dangerous areas. It's common sense, given that the bad guys are in the habit of kidnapping, or just killing, foreign reporters. The problem is, the pool of available Iraqi talent is mostly Sunni Arab. Many of these folks side with the bad guys. And all Iraqi journalists, especially those working for foreigners, are subject to intimidation, or bribery. While some of the foreign reporters may be aware of all this, some aren't, and many of the rest don't care. The truth won't set them free, but supplying stories their editors are looking for, will.

It wasn't always this way, but that's the way it is these days. And, sadly, about the only people to notice the problem are the many troops who have been in Iraq, and don't have an editor telling them what to think, and report.

See if you can see why they can't understand the differences. Here's a couple of articles from Stars and Striped embedded journalists. Haven't seen a whole lot on THESE stories:

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=38933&archive=true

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=38933&archive=true

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=39260&archive=true

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=38901&archive=true

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=40317

http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=39183&archive=true

 

[Thin Black Line]

The troops see a very different Iraq from the one journalists are reporting.

I would hardly say that this is "outsourcing...to the enemy." Also, what we
saw in Iraq differed from both ends of the political news spectrum. It
was not the "things are getting better all the time" smoke spewed from one
end nor the Abu-torture-picture-parade BS dumped by the portajohn load
from the other.

What we are digusted with is that from either perspective that the real news
gets lost in the political circus used for pushing pet agendas.

I traveled a lot in Iraq. A group of 3rd country reporters were embedded
with us for a little while. We also had a few US reporters interview members
of our unit. I had a couple different reporters who indicated they wanted
to go out on a mission with my team and were then no where to be found
when it was time for the rubber to hit the road. As a result, they did not go
to the smaller FOBs I rountinely visited in my AO.

So we end up having reporters who "report" official press releases or others
who want to report whatever rumors make it back to the fobbits inside the
larger camps/LSAs. I imagine there are a few who talk to some locals who,
depending if they've had consistent power/water supply that day, are either
in a good mood or a bad one.

But, hey, DDragon, hasn't that been true in every war

 

[crazed_ss]

Are the reports coming from Iraq inaccurate or are they unbalanced?

I mean, a bomb goes off in Bagdad and 30 people are killed. How can you really report that innaccurately? .. Bombs are going off over there and a lot of people are dying.

Now, I understand that people might have beef with the fact that all the news we hear from Iraq is about bombs and death. That sholdnt be suprising.. Everyone knows that the news always reports the worst of the worst.

Look at your own local news.. they're probably 100's of good things that happen in your city that could be reported everyday, but you will only hear about the murder and rapes from your anchorman. That's just the nature of the beast.. "if it bleeds, it leads"

 

[utahminirevolver]

Michele Malkin, a patriotic American journalist (kinda rare these days), recently wrote about how 'AP' stands for 'Associated (with terrorists) Press', giving very specific examples of their perfidy. IIRC, her writings are at www.michellemalkin.com

Scroll about halfway down the screen for the story of AP stonewalling for 5 months about one of their sources being held by the US military as a terrorist suspect.

 

[crazed_ss]

You forgot an "l" in that URL.

Michelle has her convictions. She's a little extreme for me though.. Saying the AP is associated with terrorists because she disagrees is a little much, IMO.. She's like a mini-Ann Coulter.

 

[Thin Black Line]

Malkin is a better writer than Coulter, but not being blond she is not the
darling of the right-left puppet struggle in the MSM that Coulter is.

 

[utahminirevolver]

Thanks for the spelling correction, crazed ss. I like the writings of both Malkin and Coulter, but as a happily married family man , I can't comment on the 'hotness' of either lady's appearance.

 

[DunedinDragon]

ThinBlackLine wrote:
So we end up having reporters who "report" official press releases or others
who want to report whatever rumors make it back to the fobbits inside the
larger camps/LSAs. I imagine there are a few who talk to some locals who,
depending if they've had consistent power/water supply that day, are either
in a good mood or a bad one.

But, hey, DDragon, hasn't that been true in every war

I'm not sure it really is quite honestly. Certainly in WWII and prior there was a keener interest by the media in reporting day-to-day operations than what we have now. For example, were the WWII media to be in place now, we would certainly have seen more coverage of the progress of Operation Together Forward. But they don't seem to want to get their hands dirty in the day to day details.

I agree that Stars and Stripes can often paint a more rosy picture that what might exist at the soldier's level, but it isn't afraid to report some of the problems they've encountered along the way in these operations either.

For me as regular civilian I at least can balance what's I DON'T get from the MSM by reading Stars & Stripes and try to reconcile the differences to get a feel for what's happening.

What bothers me is that the lack of interest by the MSM in daily operations and progress has to have a certain amount of demoralizing effect on the military folks trying to do the job.

 

[Thin Black Line]

For me as regular civilian I at least can balance what's I DON'T get from the MSM by reading Stars & Stripes and try to reconcile the differences to get a feel for what's happening.

What bothers me is that the lack of interest by the MSM in daily operations and progress has to have a certain amount of demoralizing effect on the military folks trying to do the job.

Here's something that ties your points nicely together:

One day at an LSA, certainly not a FOB, a highly placed person in the DoD
comes to visit. He is a person we would all know. He does the usual "we
all love you back home" stuff (hey, we love everyone back home, too).
He then has the public Q&A. No body armor or "we have to dig our vehicle
armor out of Kuwaiti junk yard" questions, but a young specialist had a good
one:

"Sir, a lot of us are concerned about how these long frequent deployments
are having an effect on our marriages. I just read the other day how the
divorce rate is really getting bad for those of us in the Army. I'm wondering
about your ideas about how we can address this?"

Response:

"What are you talking about?"

The SPC gets some heavy glaring by some CSM, withers away and retreats.

The article on increasing divorce rates for the Army (and how it was worse
for officers) was front page on the Stars and Stripes just a couple days
before the VIP's visit.

It's the civilian leadership being completely out of touch with the various
realities that the soldiers face which also have a very demoralising
effect.

Some of the ancient Chinese manuals on conducting warfare emphasize
that the leaders must live, work, and eat with their soldiers. We're not
talking NCOs, but leaders from the highest level. Look at what past armies
were able to do who literally had their Kings ride with them into combat.
I will not debate the moral rightness of their past conquests, but one can
still admire the motivation they inspired. Yes, there were harsh
punishments within the ranks, but the leaders were there --wearing armor,
carrying weapons, being exposed to the same level of risk, and eating
the same dust.

Now we have photo ops and leaders that parade in like the "perfumed
princes" (credit to COL Hackworth, may he RIP) of the late Ottoman or
Habsburg Empires.

 

[Art Eatman]

Good subject. Worthy of discussion. But at APS, not at THR.

Art