 Sgt. Russell Klika, left, helps Pfc. David Choi edit a photo assignment shot at Fort Dix in Wrightstown, N.J. The Pentagon has been stepping up efforts to get more positive coverage of the war in Iraq. (Photo by Frank H. Conlon) |
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Posted on 07/25/2007 10:20:03 AM PDT by Incorrigible
Sgt. Russell Klika, left, helps Pfc. David Choi edit a photo assignment shot at Fort Dix in Wrightstown, N.J. The Pentagon has been stepping up efforts to get more positive coverage of the war in Iraq. (Photo by Frank H. Conlon) |
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[Fort Dix, NJ] -- Under a pounding sun, the two sweaty soldiers slowly rotated the top of a $160,000 satellite dish.
Sgt. Michelle Halpin turned a small crank as Spc. Brooks Taylor peered into a tiny computer screen, searching for the elusive electronic signal.
After 15 minutes, Taylor hit his mark.
"Got it,'' he said.
"Whew, just in time,'' Halpin replied.
Halpin and Taylor, National Guard soldiers, were training recently at Fort Dix in New Jersey for deployment to Iraq, where they will transmit videos by satellite to news organizations in America.
Theirs is a 21st century job in a war unlike any other as the Pentagon puts military journalists in the vanguard of a massive public relations campaign, meant to provide American media outlets with unfailingly upbeat coverage of the troops.
Since 2004, military journalists in Iraq have provided footage of military operations that routinely makes its way into network television news and cable operations such as CNN and Fox. Pictures shot by combat photographers also have appeared in hundreds of newspapers. And dozens of local TV stations have been able to interview local troops with the assistance of military journalists and their network of 80 satellite transmitters.
The U.S. military sees the effort as a crucial counterweight to a media-savvy insurgency that widely distributes images of deadly attacks on Americans.
The effort is also a matter of simple math.
Since the invasion, the number of journalists "embedded'' with the military in Iraq keeps falling. There were nearly 800 embeds when Baghdad fell in May 2003 and about 150 during the first national election in January of 2005. Last week, a military spokesman said there were nine embedded journalists in Baghdad. (That number doesn't represent American journalists who don't embed with the military.)
Changes in the way the war is being covered trouble some media experts, who say news organizations risk providing a distorted view if they cede too much of their coverage to the military.
"Journalism by definition has an obligation to the truth. Military journalism to me sounds like a contradiction in terms,'' said Lou Ureneck, chairman of the journalism department at Boston University. "They say 'truth is casualty of war.' Well, the military, by definition, is not for providing the truth, but developing a constituency to support what they are doing.''
Military journalists counter that they have an obligation to report the truth in what they send from the front.
"We do not make things up,'' said Sgt. Steve Reeves, an Alabama National Guard soldier with the 131st Mobile Public Affairs Detachment, which shipped out to the Middle East in June.
Then again, "We aren't investigative reporters ... we are soldiers first,'' said Reeves, 40, who in civilian life is an assistant city editor at the Tuscaloosa (Ala.) News.
In any case, the military says media outlets aren't looking to them for hard-hitting exposes.
What the military says the media wants — particularly broadcast outlets — is generic video snippets, known as B-roll, of such things as soldiers kicking down doors or tanks rolling through the dust as well as the ability to conduct live interviews with local troops in real time.
And thanks to a multimillion-dollar initiative known as the Digital Video and Imagery Distribution System, the military is able to provide all that via satellite transmitters to a control room in Atlanta.
Media outlets can search a growing video library and ask military personnel to track down local troops for live interviews. The initiative was launched by the Army in 2004 and has grown rapidly. It now includes contributions from all of the armed services.
"Before this launched, the quality of the video was horrible,'' said Army Capt. Scott Betts, an operations officer in DVIDS headquarters. "Suddenly we could send B-roll and do live interviews. It's been growing tremendously.''
It is now at the point where no military unit larger than a brigade, which has about 3,500 troops, goes to Iraq without one of the $160,000 satellite transmitters.
Military journalists like Taylor say they get their greatest thrills when they see their video footage aired by major broadcast outlets.
On a previous deployment to Iraq, he said, his video appeared on the "O'Reilly Factor'' on Fox, ABC's "Good Morning America'' and in a promotion for the Country Music Awards.
"Most people turn on the television and see combat footage and have no idea it was shot by a military journalist,'' Taylor said before leaving for his second tour.
The vanilla nature of video like that is another thing that troubles journalism experts.
"It's all about journalistic independence and all about honesty,'' said Bob Steele, an ethics expert at the Poynter Institute for Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Fla. "Clearly any use of that video shot and supplied by the military must be honestly and accurately described as such when it is used by news organizations.''
All of the nation's largest broadcast networks say they have strict policies for use of materials provided by the military — or any government or corporate entity.
"We do both an on-screen credit and a voiceover, to the effect 'This footage shot by the Army' so that our audience knows where the pictures are coming from,'' said Jeffery Schneider, an ABC News spokesman. "Obviously, we're very sensitive and keen in providing video and context.''
History indicates local broadcast and cable news outlets don't always follow those standards.
Two years ago, more than a dozen news stations around the country admitted airing positive news segments that were prepared by the federal government without giving viewers any information about who produced the material.
Betts, the DVIDS operations officer, said he has not seen any media outlets trying to pass material produced by the military as their own.
And the way Betts sees it, the military is simply filling a void by arranging more than 6,000 on-camera interviews for local television and radio stations. None of those stations had crews in Iraq.
"When you think about it, from the media's perspective, when it's free, it's a great deal,'' Betts said.
(Wayne Woolley is a staff writer for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. He can be contacted at wwoolley(at)starledger.com.)
Not for commercial use. For educational and discussion purposes only.
Yep. Given the comments from these "Media ethics" consultants, it's no wonder we can interviews with terrorists and video footage of them shooting US troops.
CNN and Wolf Blitzer did a top-notch anti-war media propoganda piece last night. On one side of the split screen was some correspondent blathering about the hopeless state of the war. On the other side, the screen was split into four panels, each showing clips of desperate looking chaotic scenes of bombings, etc.
The MSM never shows any aspects of normal life or improved life in Iraq; this has been their agenda since day one: create in the viewers mind an image of hopelessness everywhere in Iraq. Classic propoganda, and most Americans take it in undiscerningly.
why is good news in quotes?
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