Apparently set off by Ted Turner's graceless and ham-handed description of Rupert Murdoch as a "warmonger," media outlets across the world are now bemoaning the state of each other's pathetic "news" coverage during the war in Iraq.
While the sentiment concerning Murdoch may be valid, Turner denouncing Murdoch is as morally uplifting as Stalinists denouncing Nazis. CNN raked in the bucks with similarly fake war coverage from their "embedded" "journalists," (about whom and their counterparts the "unilaterals" who are otherwise known as "real journalists" see many of the entries on the blog of Kady O'Malley).
This set off a minor epidemic of similar outbursts from other media outlets. The BBC has attacked American television and Ashleigh Banfield of NBC has stated the media "filtered realities."
This would be rather more edifying if it were the penitential sackcloth and ashes wailing it should be, as every major Western media outlet (even to some extent the BBC) failed to do their jobs of reporting the truth during the entirety of the war, presenting instead jingoistic power fantasies to stoke the war machine. About the only major American TV journalist with nothing to apologize for is Peter Arnett, and come to think of it, he's from New Zealand. And fired. An honest journalist being so rare, though, he is unlikely ever in his life to have trouble finding employment.
Despite the near-universal failure of the news media to act as anything but mindless cheerleaders and stoke the fires of fascism, every media outlet seems to have nothing but harsh words for every other media outlet but themselves. I don't want to hear mutual recriminations and accusations. The only thing that could make this failure any less galling is even one heartfelt apology.
I don't expect one, though.
Posted by muldrake at April 26, 2003 06:39 PM
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