Return-Path: <sentto-279987-3507-1004142292-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com> Delivered-To: fc@all.net Received: from 204.181.12.215 [204.181.12.215] by localhost with POP3 (fetchmail-5.7.4) for fc@localhost (single-drop); Fri, 26 Oct 2001 17:26:08 -0700 (PDT) Received: (qmail 22068 invoked by uid 510); 27 Oct 2001 00:24:15 -0000 Received: from n2.groups.yahoo.com (216.115.96.52) by 204.181.12.215 with SMTP; 27 Oct 2001 00:24:15 -0000 X-eGroups-Return: sentto-279987-3507-1004142292-fc=all.net@returns.onelist.com Received: from [10.1.1.222] by n2.groups.yahoo.com with NNFMP; 27 Oct 2001 00:24:52 -0000 X-Sender: fc@red.all.net X-Apparently-To: iwar@onelist.com Received: (EGP: mail-8_0_0_1); 27 Oct 2001 00:24:52 -0000 Received: (qmail 83022 invoked from network); 27 Oct 2001 00:24:52 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.27) by 10.1.1.222 with QMQP; 27 Oct 2001 00:24:52 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO red.all.net) (65.0.156.78) by mta2 with SMTP; 27 Oct 2001 00:24:52 -0000 Received: (from fc@localhost) by red.all.net (8.11.2/8.11.2) id f9R0P1U20627 for iwar@onelist.com; Fri, 26 Oct 2001 17:25:01 -0700 Message-Id: <200110270025.f9R0P1U20627@red.all.net> To: iwar@onelist.com (Information Warfare Mailing List) Organization: I'm not allowed to say X-Mailer: don't even ask X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL3] From: Fred Cohen <fc@all.net> X-Yahoo-Profile: fcallnet Mailing-List: list iwar@yahoogroups.com; contact iwar-owner@yahoogroups.com Delivered-To: mailing list iwar@yahoogroups.com Precedence: bulk List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:iwar-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com> Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2001 17:25:00 -0700 (PDT) Reply-To: iwar@yahoogroups.com Subject: [iwar] [fc:Truth.in.the.Packaging.of.War.News] Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Truth in the Packaging of War News SAN FRANCISCO -- Most of the American press goes to war by asking the Department of Defense for permission to tag along with the people doing the fighting. The bosses at the Pentagon then tell hat-in-hand delegations of editors and television executives,² Don¹t call us, we¹ll call you.² In other words, since the war in Vietnam ended badly for all concerned, the military has used and abused newspapers and television to show and tell the American people stories that range from ³carefully controlled ³ to plain old ³making it up.² Most news outlets operate under the thumb of an operation that should be called PNN, the ³Pentagon News Network.² We report what we¹re told because we are not being allowed to cover what is actually happening. There is, to be sure, a certain contest between the military and the press, and some reporters fight all the way to try to get around military restrictions on actual on-scene coverage. But the Defense Department almost always wins in the short-run -- which is what they are interested in when trying to maintain civilian and political support for the battles of the day -- because the military usually has three crucial elements of control: transportation, communication and guns. A 1982 Naval War College advisory on press treatment, based partly on British press methods during the war against Argentinia in the Falkland Islands, described the rules this way: ³Sanitize the visual images of war, control media acess to theaters, censor information that could upset readers and viewers, exclude journalists who would not write favorable stories.² That pretty much became American media strategy in the three actions since then, beginning with the little invasion of little 1983 Grenada. Reporters who tried to get to the island -- where the Pentagon said the mission was no more than the rescue of American medical students caught in a local civil war -- by boat and plane were turned away by American guns. The order of the day was:Stay away or weŒll blow you away. In the next action, the invasion of Panama that ended with the capture of dictator Manuel Noriega, the Defense Department, led then by Secretart Richard Cheney, simply locked up American correspondents on a military base, until the real fighting was over -- so that American readers and viewers were protected from the fog and chaos of actual war. The truth is so messy. Among the things that allowed Cheney to do was to discuss the great successes of the Air Force¹s new ³stealth² bombers, though it turned out later that the bombers actually missed all their targets. In the 1990 Gulf War, when more than a half-million Americans and allies invaded Iraq to return the palaces of Kuwait to their rightful and royal owners -- the royal family waited out the action on the beaches of the French Riviera -- it was Patriot missiles that were hailed as the new super-weapons. Generals and reporters,too, did voice-overs on Pentagon films that seemed to show the Patriots miraculously clearing the sky of Iraq¹s Scuds. And that version did turn out to be a miracle, because later investigations, by both the press and the military itself, indicated that the Patriots never once hit anything they were aimed at. My target here, however, is not the military. They do their job well and so does ³PNN².-- too well. Truth is the first casualty in war. Reporters and cameras get in the way -- and if you let them get too close they might report things about military efficiency that could upset the taxpayers paying for missile misses and stealth photography. My gripe is with my own business. The press,in general, prefers appearing authoritative in war coverage to admitting that we are being manipulated and lied to -- and that we do not actually know what is going on, particularly in the early combat of any war. Now the contest between the imperatives of the military and press is moving to the mountains and fields of Central and South Asia. The press has some new technology on its side, particularly portable videophones, but I¹m sure the military will have some new tricks,too. But it would be niave not to expect the military to create its own truths -- and disheartening to know that the press will report it pretty much as new gospel. What I would like to see this time around is correspondents emphasizing the difference between what they know and what they are being told -- ³How¹s it going out there, Dick?²...²How would I know they won¹t let us near the action.² COPYRIGHT 2001 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE ------------------------ Yahoo! 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This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : 2001-12-31 20:59:57 PST