How objective should the US media be right now?

[Rufus T. Firefly]

So I turn on CNN this morning, about 4 hours after the attacks commenced, and caught one reporter starting his report with something like: "Earlier this morning, we...uh...I mean, the US government..."



Obviously, a Fox reporter wouldn't have even bothered with the correction. But it does make me wonder (he said, putting on his media professor hat -- that's right, the one with the propeller) what y'all think. How objective should the US media be right now? Have they reported on the national and world-wide protests? Should they fall in line behind the military because the nation is at war? Should they give civilian casualties as much attention as military victories? Should they run footage of civilian carnage if they have it, a la Vietnam? Whaddaya think?

[Pekka]

Well, they are US media. The US is in the war. How objective do you really expect them to be? I'm not thinking about outright lies, but they will definitely choose what they show and how they show it. In my opinion it's naive to think anything else.

[Pekka]

But.. it's standard.. nothing wrong with it.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I have vivid memories of the government's "management" of the media during Gulf War I, Panama, and even Grenada; I'm certainly not being naive here. But I'm wondering to what extent people approve of a patriotic/lapdog (take your pick) media in wartime.

edit: Actually, it occurs to me that the question of lying is an interesting one. Okay, the media shouldn't lie. But suppose the government lies -- truth being the first casualty of war and all that. Should the media take it upon itself to expose those lies in the middle of a war? Or should they wait until later (as they did in Gulf War I), when such exposure will no longer threaten a war effort?

[Pekka]

I don't know.. I think only foreigners will sometimes protest the balance of the news since we get all kinds of news, the US news and the Iraqi news. Sure the balance is on the US side from the beginnig to the end, but it still differs a little because it doesn't focus on certain things.
And that doesn't matter naturally what others think, it's American news station for American people so they should keep doing what they do.

I have a feeling that CNN is not THAT bad when Fox is something else. CNN will lean to American side and hearts, but that is to be expected.. but I believe their news are better than Fox for example..

I think people will approve it. It's the US in war, so they like to hear good news, they want to know what's going on with their boys. They don't necessarily want to hear about massive losses (which are not possibly comign at all here), or the suffering of the Iraqi people.
For example if they need to do an interview and they can only pick one.. there is one Iraqi who suffers a lot and is miserable and all that, and then there is one Iraqi who hates Saddam so much he is not 100% against the US here.. who do you think they're gonna pick?

[Pekka]

Rufus, I think they should wait. THey should definitely report it and make a big case, but only after the war.

[Case]

IMO, the media should be even more objective and critical then they ususally are. After all, the US government is now engaged in an expensive war which is putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans at risk, and that's not something which happens every day. As such, the government (and it's employees; the US military) needs to be held to the highest standards.

[Alexander's Horse]

The US electronic media is facile. It's fallen a long way since Vietnam. Its mainly due to media ownership - Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner? Now there's a couple of liberals for you!

Most foreign ministries have CNN or Fox on, we have zillions of TV's on here, but with the sound turned down because the US reporters are just so pig ignorant, much like many US citizens these days (and who can blame them?). You only need the captions!

The US networks seem more interested in people with good looks than educated opinions. TV coverage has been "bimbo-ised" and dumbed down. There's a viscious cycle of dumbing down the coverage, which dumbs down the viewers, which means the coverage has to be dumbed down some more and so on..

What should they do? Turn them off. Basically I think the commercial networks are beyond help. While they have audience, they'll continue like this.

There's serious speculation here that Al Jezeera will take over from CNN as the preferred real time source.

[FrustratedPoet]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
The US networks seem more interested in people with good looks than educated opinions. TV coverage has been "bimbo-ised" and dumbed down. There's a viscious cycle of dumbing down the coverage, which dumbs down the viewers, which means the coverage has to be dumbed down some more and so on..

Yeah! We need more ugly people reading the news!

On a more serious note, I agree with what Case said.

[Alexander's Horse]

I don't think what sections of the US media did in Vietnam was right.

I think the coalition country reporters should just try to be factual and I think they still try to do that. Some journos will be more partisan, editorialise - and that is part of journalism too. I don't really have a big problem with the way they do it.

But I'm an expert so I don't actually need someone to join the dots for me. And maybe my expectations and standards for analysis are a lot higher than the ordinary viewer. The coverage simply isn't pitched at me.

The US PBS network does some excellent work. And the United States media has some very fine traditions of journalism and quality publications which I am sure are going to continue.

My main regret in this war is Bobby Batista is not reporting. I enjoyed looking at her tits, working out which eye to focus on, whether she was really cross-eyed or not. High brow stuff like that

[Rufus T. Firefly]

AH: Spot on, except that Ted Turner really is a liberal, and a fairly outspoken one at that. However, since he hasn't controlled CNN in years, that hardly matters.

[Pekka]

Alexanders Horse put it pretty good

[Chemical Ollie]

The Al-Jazira (don't knock my spelling) would perhaps balance the one-sided propaganda both parts of the conflict spam out.

[GeneralTacticus]

Should the media take it upon itself to expose those lies in the middle of a war? Or should they wait until later (as they did in Gulf War I), when such exposure will no longer threaten a war effort?

IMO, they should definitely expose the lie immediately. If the government lied in a way that would hurt the war effort if it were exposed, well, screw them. It was their decision to lie, and they would have no right to complain about the consequences of being found out.

[Sava]

Stupid liberal media... they a bunch of damn commies!