A Frustrated Task Force Commander in Iraq Sounds Off - on Media Distortions
A Task Force commander in Iraq provides a manifestly different account of the war in Iraq than what we see on the nightly news.
The Western mainstream media, no doubt, can point to their coverage of the war in Iraq and convince themselves that they are, in fact, telling “the truth”. In a specious and superficial way, they are telling the “truth”; however, it’s a deliberately shallow and incomplete “truth”. In reporting complex and ever-evolving events, what you leave OUT can be just as important, or even more crucial, that what you put IN.
A good analogy for Western media coverage of the Iraqi war – up to a point - is the parable of the group of blind men attempting to describe what an elephant is like. One man grabs the elephant’s ear and concludes that an elephant is like a large leaf; a second grabs the elephant’s trunk and says that an elephant is like a snake; a third touches its tail and is certain that an elephant is like a vine; a fourth a leg which is like a tree, and so on. Each is telling the “truth”, yet none comes close to successfully describing or understanding the whole picture.
Of course, in this fable the blind men are presumably acting in good faith. Conversely, the omissions of western media reporters and organizations covering the Iraqi war - relentlessly reporting on, say, only the “bad news” trunk, to the exclusion of the rest of the elephant - are clearly more deliberate and calculated. They no doubt can – or should – see the whole picture, but choose not to transmit it.
The Bush administration, Department of Defense, and the Army’s response to this deliberate incompleteness of coverage is puzzling and disappointing. The most effective counters to the relentlessly distorted and one-sided coverage of the war effort seem to be coming from the leaders and soldiers fighting the war. They’ve already got enough on their plates. Why should LTC Ryan – who, without question, is already plenty busy enough commanding a task force in combat – have to take the time to write a lengthy report to get the word out, when there’s a huge public affairs apparatus – make that several huge public affairs apparatuses – already in place within DoD and the Bush administration?
Our leaders and public affairs officials clearly need to do better in contesting and combating the big media distortions.
The Western mainstream media, no doubt, can point to their coverage of the war in Iraq and convince themselves that they are, in fact, telling “the truth”. In a specious and superficial way, they are telling the “truth”; however, it’s a deliberately shallow and incomplete “truth”. In reporting complex and ever-evolving events, what you leave OUT can be just as important, or even more crucial, that what you put IN.
A good analogy for Western media coverage of the Iraqi war – up to a point - is the parable of the group of blind men attempting to describe what an elephant is like. One man grabs the elephant’s ear and concludes that an elephant is like a large leaf; a second grabs the elephant’s trunk and says that an elephant is like a snake; a third touches its tail and is certain that an elephant is like a vine; a fourth a leg which is like a tree, and so on. Each is telling the “truth”, yet none comes close to successfully describing or understanding the whole picture.
Of course, in this fable the blind men are presumably acting in good faith. Conversely, the omissions of western media reporters and organizations covering the Iraqi war - relentlessly reporting on, say, only the “bad news” trunk, to the exclusion of the rest of the elephant - are clearly more deliberate and calculated. They no doubt can – or should – see the whole picture, but choose not to transmit it.
The Bush administration, Department of Defense, and the Army’s response to this deliberate incompleteness of coverage is puzzling and disappointing. The most effective counters to the relentlessly distorted and one-sided coverage of the war effort seem to be coming from the leaders and soldiers fighting the war. They’ve already got enough on their plates. Why should LTC Ryan – who, without question, is already plenty busy enough commanding a task force in combat – have to take the time to write a lengthy report to get the word out, when there’s a huge public affairs apparatus – make that several huge public affairs apparatuses – already in place within DoD and the Bush administration?
Our leaders and public affairs officials clearly need to do better in contesting and combating the big media distortions.
posted by Wascally Wabbit at 9:28 AM
1 Comments:
Wascally, well said.
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