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Old 08-07-06, 06:07 PM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Default "I Was a Mouthpiece for the American Military"

"There were times when I would hear detainees screaming during the questioning."

An embedded TV producer's frank assessment
Ken Silverstein.

In an interesting interview published this week in Foreign Policy, Newsweek's Rod Nordland spoke about the difficulties of reporting from Iraq. He said that the Bush Administration has been largely successful in managing the news “to the extent that most Americans are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been made” and revealed that some embedded reporters “have been blacklisted because the military wasn’t happy with [their] work.”

Many embedded reporters have managed to do fine work from Iraq, but there are significant obstacles for even the best and most determined journalists. I recently spoke with a former senior TV producer for Reuters who worked in Iraq between 2003 and 2004. The producer, who asked that she not be identified by name, arrived in Tikrit soon after the capture of Saddam Hussein on December 13, 2003, and was embedded with American troops for 45 days. She told me that, over the years, she has worked closely with the French army, NATO troops in the Balkans, and UN peacekeepers in covering war and conflict, but she said had never faced the sorts of restrictions imposed by the Pentagon on journalists in Iraq. "I was," she said, "a mouthpiece for the American military."

Harpers
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Old 08-07-06, 07:55 PM   #2
Mazer
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Quote:
most Americans are not aware of just how dire it is and how little progress has been made
Well, public opinion polls say that more than half Americans oppose the war, right? Maybe this journalist should take a look at the situation here at home, and perhaps take a little credit (or in this case, blame) for his nay saying and cries of "Quagmire! Quagmire!" Or maybe he should consider the notion that most Americans are aware of the situation in Iraq and take what they hear with a grain of salt. If Mr. Nordland had more respect for his audience he wouldn't be able to suggest that the administation was controling the media, but then he would have to face the fact that his reporting is inconsequential in the great scheme of things. Where's the Pulitzer in that?
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Old 08-07-06, 08:32 PM   #3
RDixon
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"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it.

There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.

The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press?

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes."


John Swinton - Writer for the New York Times - 1880

The more things change the more they stay the same.
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Old 09-07-06, 05:43 AM   #4
theknife
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Originally Posted by Mazer
If Mr. Nordland had more respect for his audience he wouldn't be able to suggest that the administation was controling the media, but then he would have to face the fact that his reporting is inconsequential in the great scheme of things.
huh?
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Old 09-07-06, 10:08 AM   #5
Mazer
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What I'm saying, knife, is that this man thinks Americans are stupid and believe everything the president says. If he thought instead that his audience is intelligent and perceptive then he would have only himself to blame for writing stories that aren't getting through to the public. But he's blaming Bush, which means he has no respect for his audience.

News flash: his stories are getting though, but he's complaining anyway. What a jerk.

Last edited by Mazer : 09-07-06 at 10:18 AM.
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