The fall of CNN, and what it means for the war

Reason ^ | March 24, 2003 | Tim Cavanaugh

[PaulJ]

What good is gained by showing the atrocities of war? Who doesn't know that war is hellish business? Nightly pictures of the dead and wounded can only work to lessen ones will to win.

I say there is plenty of time after the conflict to illustrate to the world what war means. Report on our setbacks but dwell on our victories, this is what's meant by supporting our troops.

[Pukka Puck]

Stuff and nonsense.

[cricket]

He needs to watch Fox News. . .

[martin_fierro]

Let me again underscore my total lack of qualifications to comment on military affairs....

Wish he'd have done that clearly in the first paragraph. It would've kept me from wasting time on this overwrought dreck.

[LS]

What a pompous windbag. This sentence is what separates me from the Libertarians and from (Un)Reason: "one of which is shame at allowing feelings of nationalism to trump those of humanity". Dude, I hate to tell you but sometimes one's NATION is the EPITOME of "humanity." It wasn't "humanity" that saved the Jews in Europe from eradication but the U.S. and Britain---and, oddly enough, the USSR.

It wasn't "humanity" that defeated Hitler and Japan, but the U.S. and its allies. Libertarians cannot grasp that "humanity" doesn't do anything. As Aristotle said, people are political animals, meaning that they organize in political societies to accomplish things. That is not a collectivist notion, either, but a realistic understanding that at some point every person is utterly dependent on someone else for something, and that governments are necessary to establish basic rules and enforce them. I didn't see "Humanity" rising up to stop the Soviets---and when it did, it was squashed. We saw what happened to "humanity" at Tianamen Square. But then we also saw what happend to "Nationalism" when Reagan turned up the heat and bankrupted the USSR.

Further, the "bloviated" FOX coverage with Rick Leventhal has been superb. He is right there. I don't know what Al-Jazeera could offer that might be better.

[Jim Noble]

>>While that is good news from the standpoint of compelling television, it heightens the sense that the administration is now in a race against time. Success in this venture has been posited on the absolute assumption of American invulnerability. To the extent that the Jazeera version of events presents a plausible case that America could lose the war, every extra day that the war takes to complete will make even victory look more and more like defeat<<

This is to some extent true.

We are the same people who elected Bill Clinton TWICE (now hopefully sadder but wiser-but still the same people).

We are the same people who have provided for an Army of only 450,000 to fight a world war against a relentless and implacable foe.

We are the people who have an expeditionary force overseas, tasked to bring "Iraqi Freedom" before completing Operation Death and Destruction.

There is every reason to be concerned about the effect of unopposed enemy propaganda on Al-Jazeera-and on MSNBC.

[Dark Wing]

ping

[Peach]

ABC thinking there is no value to showing our dead soldiers is in direct contrast to their eagerness to show dead Iraqi children, presumably at our hands.

As of yesterday morning, the Red Cross reported there was ONE dead civilian in Baghdad as a result of the bombing of that city.

[Timesink]

Why is this in Reason? Did The American Contrarian Conservative turn him down?

[metesky]

I was a Reason subscriber for years, but as I matured I realized that most of their writers don't know WTF they're talking about.

[ricpic]

Never having seen an Al Jazeera broadcast, I have no way of assessing the claim in this article that their coverage of the war is superior to that of western networks. But one thing is clear. Their broadcast of pictures of the bodies of dead American soldiers thrown pell mell on a dirty warehouse floor "plays" very well in the Arab world. We have been told over and over again, that not only is Islam a religion of peace, but that the mideast is full of ancient cultures with highly developed ethical systems worthy of our respect. But let's give Al Jazeera credit. They know their region, and it's "culture," better than we do. The fact is, we are dealing with a region of the world that is essentially in a massive condition of arrested development. Put simply, the Arab world is barbaric. The sooner we start fighting it, no holds barred, and stop trying to understand it, the better.

[PGalt]

The issue here is not how the actual war is going, but how the battle of images is going.

Reason? It's hard to reason with the irrational.

[George W. Bush]

Hopefully, this was only published onine. Trees should not die in order to disseminate such rubbish.

[Mr. Bird]

I can't think of a single instance over the past few days where the coverage from Jazeera's people traveling with American forces was not more exciting and compelling than anything on CNN, the BBC or MSNBC

And I can't think of a single instance over the past few years where the coverage in the Weekly World News was not more exciting and compelling than anything in the WashPost, NYTimes, or WSJ. Problem is, the "exciting and compelling" stuff is not necessarily true.

While the "image" war is important, the American people are pretty good at considering the source. In addition, it is fortunate that the US armed forces don't give a rat's ass...

[topher]

Saddam Hussein has a great friend in CNN.

America has an enemy in its own ranks -- CNN. CNN seems to be a subversive Fifth Column within the US.

Maybe it is time to Freep CNN.

[KKing]

I don't see it as unopposed. Having lived in Qatar two years and now back here in Kuwait, I've been afforded the chance to see news delivered much like the author describes in his article.

It truly is a 'We report, you decide' style of news and guess what? If I don't like what I see, I turn the channel or don't buy the newspaper. Al Jazeera is graphic but they don't let the reporter or news chief decide what he/she thinks the viewer should or shouldn't see... That is fair and balanced.

[Former Proud Canadian]

Jazeera ... is presenting a coherent and convincing picture—and that picture is of an American war effort going disastrously wrong.

Huh? War is bloody hell. The US has committed the equivalent of two fortified divisions to this battle. I don't think it is going "disastrously wrong".

[Copernicus]

Posted to *CCRM

[Sam Cree]

"and the messier the war starts to look, the more it will embolden both opponents of the war and those who actually oppose America."

These are the same people, actually, at least domestically.

"though significantly, they will no longer claim to be fighting for democracy"

Democracy? I had supposed we were fighting to rid the world of a dangerous and evil monster who has ambition to be a nuclear power and who gives harbor to Islamic terror.