UPDATED - ColdType

What are we seeing? Last night Aaron Brown
of CNN had former Times war reporter Sidney
Schanberg on to discuss coverage. He wrote
about that last week in The Village Voice. This
week he offers a “dissection” of government lies.
He told Brown that the structure of constantly
updated TV News scrambles all understanding.
He compared the coverage to keeping score of a
sports event. (The BBC’s news chief apologized
for a similar comment that aired there) Brown
praised Schanberg as a journo great and
acknowledged that it is challenging to keep up.
Over on Nightline, at the same time, General Ted
Koppel was war-gaming his marine division’s
next moves.
Murdoch: get it done!
THE GUARDIAN reports: “Referring to the
American people as ‘we,’ Mr. Murdoch said the
public was far too worried about what the rest of
the world thought of the US’s declaration of war
on Iraq. He said he believed Americans had an
‘inferiority complex’ about world opinion and
that Iraqis would eventually welcome US troops
as liberators.
“Mr. Murdoch told a conference in California it
would be “better to get war done now” rather
than have a longer conflict that could prove more
damaging to the world economy. “We worry
about what people think about us too much in
this country. We have an inferiority complex, it
seems,” he said at the Milken Institute Global
Conference yesterday.” Michael Milken, the convicted
stock fraudster who funded the Institute,
was one of the financiers of the Murdoch Empire
and a key advisor until a federal court ordered
him to cease and desist. He later paid millions in
SURROUNDING BAGHDAD
157
fines for dealing with/advising Rupert, contrary
to a court order . . .
War fatigue claims TV viewers
THE Networks are hoping to get the war over
with. In England, it is being reported that viewers
show signs of war fatigue. “Audience figures
for the BBC1 and ITV late evening news bulletins
dipped yesterday,” according to the Guardian.
The Onion jokes about this with a simple headline:
“NBC Moves War To Thursdays After
Friends.” The networks have already bailed out
of wall-to-wall coverage and now report war
news mostly on less watched cable networks.
Even as the volume of network coverage
declines, the level of media bashing is going up.
Yesterday, I reported on the denunciations of
media skepticism by the top brass at the Pentagon.
Today, there is a report that Tony Blair’s
home secretary Mr. Blunkett has been tasked to
rein in the reporters in Baghdad because “progressive
and liberal” opinion believes them. Earlier
in the week, Blair’s spin-doctor in chief, Alastair
Campbell, was even nastier.
“Saddam Hussein can go up and do a broadcast,
and how many of our media then stand up
and say what an amazing propaganda coup that
was. (Osama) Bin Laden can sit in his cave and
throw out a video and you get BBC, CNN, all
these other guys, saying ‘What a propaganda
coup’.”
He’s mad at the media, too
BEHIND all of these attacks on the press seems
to be growing anxiety in the White House. Unfortunately
we have no real embeds there (You have