UPDATED - ColdType

EMBEDDED: WEAPONS OF MASS DECEPTION
Patriotism Police hunt you down.” Fear of being
so hunted led broadcasters to do some hunting
of their own, perhaps to keep any potential critics
at bay. In the unbrave world of broadcasting,
Sorenson fired Peter Arnett for the crime of saying
on Iraqi TVwhat he had been saying on
MSNBC.
When MSNBC correspondent Ashleigh Banfield
publicly criticized some of the war coverage
as “sanitized,” she was “taken to the wood shed”
and chastised publicly by her bosses. This intolerance
towards dissent in the ranks sent an
unmistakable message to any others who might
raise similar questions. (It is still not clear if her
contract will be renewed.)
Was it just fear and intimidation that led so
many in the media to become willing boosters of
the “coalition of the willing?” Why was the
prospect of war constantly projected as
inevitable, and then widely accepted, even
eagerly anticipated, as “the next big thing?” It
seems clear that large sectors of the media were
not duped but rather complicit, even enthusiastic
flag-waving partners with the military
THE SEDUCTIONS OF EMBEDDING
THE embedding program helped breach the wall
between the media and the military, between
subject and reporter. Few investigated the origins
and financing of this program. Thanks to
Milwaukee Magazine, we now know why:
“Who paid for this media training, transportation
and equipment? Unwittingly, American taxpayers
picked up the tab for these and many
other expenses in the military’s embedded
media program.
“That’s one way of looking at it,” concedes Maj.
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Tim Blair, Pentagon officer in charge of the program.
Another way of looking at it is the embedded
media, by accepting military handouts at
taxpayer expense, betrayed the public’s trust
and venerable journalism policies against freebies.”
WHAT IT SOUNDED LIKE
CARTOONIST Aaron McGruder captured the frequent
flavor of the exchange between studio and
journalist in one of his Boondocks strips. His
principal character, Huey Freeman, is watching
the tube:
“I’m Aaron Brown, this is CNN. We’re talking
to one of our brave correspondents in Iraq.
Hello?
“Hey, Aaron” is the response.
“You are so brave to be out there.
“Thanks Aaron, I am brave but our troops are
braver.
“Yes our troops are brave. But you are very
brave as well.
“Yes Aaron, there is a lot of bravery here.”
“There sure is a lot of Bravery – IN YOU, my
friend.
“ . . . And that’s it. From Iraq, back to you
Aaron.”
This invented exchange captures a psychic
subtext of self-promotion and mission identification.
For many covering the war, the task clearly
had a personal dimension, the sense journalists
crave of doing something important, and being
part of history. In years past, this type of satisfaction
came from crusading, muckraking,
‘speaking truth to power.’ Today, it seems to
come from serving power and its many servants.