UPDATED - ColdType

A MILITARY VIEW
EVEN experienced military people were turned
off by all the media pandering. Writing in Army
Times, Gulf War 1 veteran Ralf W. Zimmerman
wrote:
“Often contradictory news coverage of our war
on terror has made me a bit suspicious of the
control the Pentagon and other government
agencies are exercising over what can and can’t
be reported. Without access to the Internet
(despite all its flaws) and other reliable western
media sources, I’m afraid I’d have a rather
incomplete picture of what is really shaping up
in the world around us.
“American war reporting seems to be governed
by extremes, especially on television. We
get either a sketchy tabloid report or the Pentagon’s
edited party line. Both are readily available
and mainly strive to entertain the public or to
whip up superficial patriotism.”
Many media organizations became an adjunct,
to the selling of the war for political and economic
reasons as well.
Why?
There were three principal reasons:
1. Institutional changes in our media system.
2. A shift in our media culture.
3. A new sophistication by the military and
government in the art of news management.
MEDIA SYSTEM CHANGE
THE American media system today is totally corporate
dominated, market driven and hence, at
its core, conservative in the sense that it rarely
rocks the boat or challenges the status quo. It is
more consolidated and, more paradoxically, frag-
WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?
245
mented than ever. Diverse in appearance, it
tends towards uniformity in content and conformity
in method. Most news outlets act more
alike even as they seem more different through
positioning and “branding.”
All fight for market share and “mind share.”
All target the same demographics, covet the
same advertisers, and offer similarly formatted
and formularized programming. Infotainment
has been dominant for 20 years on television. As
entertainment companies took over news organizations,
showbiz techniques were fused into
newsbiz presentation style.
This institutional dimension to the problem
has been overlooked by most critics.
The rise of Fox News has not changed this
dynamic, even if it has added more polarization
and patriotic correctness to the television spectrum.
Studies have shown that whenever a broadcaster
seems to be winning the constant race for
ratings and revenues, others clone their look and
adapt their attitude. Fox built its format on the
experience of right-wing talk radio, adding personality,
harder edge politics, and aggressive posturing
to a news business known for centrism and
blandness. As the new kid on the block, it played
the patriotic card by hitching its wagon to a popular
president who understood how to play to fear
and insecurity while wrapping himself in the red,
white and blue to boost approval ratings.
By positioning itself as an alternative and antidote
to a non-existent liberal media, it appealed
to a hard core audience and those estranged by
mainstream middle-of-the-road news. It served
as the media shock troops for the Bush war
offensive often framing news in a pro-administration
direction while insisting on its fairness
and balance.