Wall-to-wall war coverage feeds a rush to judgment

USA TODAY ^ | March 31,2003 | Robert Bianco

[Kev-Head]

In a nation prone to impatience, television is the great enabler.

Having succumbed to an adrenaline rush in the first blush of war, the media has now crashed into fretfulness. Indeed, much of the weekend's TV coverage was devoted less to reporting on the war itself than to addressing concerns that the war was not going as planned, an image the Pentagon (news - web sites) rushed to refute on the Sunday talk shows.....

[narby]

Fox = America's News Network

[Amerigomag]

If this war lasts about the same number of days as the 1991 Gulf War it will be over about May 1.

If this war is shorter than the last, let's see if the two are compared by the press.

To date the press has not compared the length of these two conflicts but rather have left the impression that the 1991 conflict started when our ground troops physically invaded Kuwait in large numbers.

[You Dirty Rats]

It's a problem for the media, not the public.

USA Today's own poll shows this.

Earth to the media: People out in the country aren't as shallow as either you seem to think they are or as you are.

We all know you are upset that this war will outlast the time you had alloted for sound bites or even, God Forbid, encroach on the May Sweeps.

[harrym]

I heard a professor of "political communications" from S.F. State this a.m. on TV saying that the media is not biased, it merely tended to report more stories of civilian damage in some cases and less of humanitarian scenes. What kind of "newspeak" is this now? I thought that that was the definition of biased. There is a definite problem in communicating with the left, their definitions are completely 180 out from mine. We have no basis for discussion. That's a damned shame because it appears to be what is going on all over the country. Up is down for these people, everything is "relative", there are no hard and fast rules or definitions. Anyone who watches ABC or CNN and then tunes to Fox or CBS can see the obvious difference in coverage. Little things like breaks on ABC will flash up pictures of darling little Iraqi children and small Iraqi women being overshadowed by hulking American servicemen in full battle gear. Other stations show pictures of American troops and their families or the flag. This is so biased it makes me want to puke. World Wide Disney should be freeped to within and inch of their lives. I truly believe they should have the FCC take away ABC's broadcast license.