UPDATED - ColdType

view of events there that put our Big Media to
shame. (http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com)
BIG MEDIA POST MORTEM
DO you know the name Thomas Ricks? He is the
military correspondent of the Washington Post,
as respected a mainstream print reporter as
there is. Back on March 27th he wrote a frontpage
story quoting “defense officials” who predicted
that the US military would be in Iraq for
ten years to come. A pile of bricks fell on his
head. He was denounced for making it up by Bill
O’Reilly of Fox “News” Network, whom he now
calls a “clown.” People in the Pentagon swore up
and down that no one said any such thing. They
implied the Post had no source.
The next day, the Post, in a rare moment of
courage, published a picture of a General Wallace
who had made the estimate and had the
guts to say so. That shut up the naysayers. General
Sanchez, the man in charge of the US occupation,
has now confirmed that US forces cannot
leave. He also revealed that the US is facing a
more sophisticated and organized adversary
than ever before. In short, the Iraqis have
regrouped and the war threatens to flare up
again. It is getting worse, not better. And only
incidents are being covered, without regard to
the big picture.
WAR AT A MUSEUM
RICKS was on a panel at the Museum of Radio
and Television on October 2 along with NBC
anchor Tom Brokaw, two NBC correspondents,
the network’s sole self-admitted liberal military
analyst Bill Arkin and former Pentagon Media
OCTOBER POSTSCRIPT
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chief Torrie Clarke (now with CNN). Tom
Brokaw moderated.
The discussion was nominally about the publication
of a book, skillfully crafted by veteran producer
Marc Kusnetz with Brokaw. It celebrates
the story of NBC’s war coverage. The book
comes with its own DVD featuring a selection of
the coverage. The book is handsomely produced
with lots of color photos and reminiscences by
embeds and other NBC journalists. It will make
interesting reading.
TRIUMPH OF THE WILL, PT 2
PROMOTING this endeavor was a short, overthe-top
greatest-hits video that lionized NBC’s
network team. It packaged the war and NBC’s
work as if they were an epic – not unlike the
highlights underscored with dramatic music that
NBC gave us of the Olympics. (To borrow an
ABCism, the subtext was the “thrill of victory
and the agony of defeat.”) Sound the trumpets.
The hype is not the real concern here. We have
seen plenty of that. The real problem is that the
war it commemorates as a victory for NBC and
the USA – in that order – is not over yet. Your
News Dissector pressed Tom and Co. to acknowledge
the many shortcomings of the coverage and
take responsibility for TV news’s complicity in
selling the war. It was a charge, predictably, that
no one on the panel embraced or copped to.
Only the audience in the room seemed to agree.
They cheered me on.
Brokaw asked me if I was saying NBC was “on
the pipe” – i.e., carrying the Administration’s
water. He defended the network’s coverage with
great passion as if all bases were covered, all
viewpoints heard. I like him. He is willing to