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Invasion honeymoon is over; news media get contentious [Quagmire Flashback]
Chicago Tribune ^ | Published March 30, 2003 | By Steve Johnson

Posted on 04/13/2003 1:03:25 AM PDT by JohnHuang2

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld began his briefing Friday by talking about "mood swings" in the media. The White House reportedly is frustrated at some reports questioning U.S. military strategy.

Some in the media are equally frustrated with what they see as a lack of hard information in Pentagon and Central Command briefings. And there is contention over who was responsible for raising public expectations for a quick war: the media or the military and the administration.

As the Iraq conflict presses on, the battle to control and shape the news back home is heating up. With the invasion's initial jolt of adrenaline wearing off, the press last week began moving toward a more traditionally adversarial role, asking harder questions about strategy. Even so, some media executives and critics were questioning whether the coverage has been hard enough.

"Did the so-called war experts get it all wrong?" CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer asked on air, a tone that was typical of some television coverage by week's end and a far cry from what many critics viewed as cheerleading when the U.S.-led campaign began.

As if to punctuate the shift, the Pentagon late in the week ordered the first reporter to leave Iraq, contending that Philip Smucker of the Christian Science Monitor revealed potentially harmful information about troop location in an on-air conversation with CNN.

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: handwringers; stevejohnson
Sunday, April 13, 2003

Quote of the Day by Paul Atreides

1 posted on 04/13/2003 1:03:25 AM PDT by JohnHuang2
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To: JohnHuang2
Apparently for the liberal media this this war has turned out to be the Mother Of All Defeats.
2 posted on 04/13/2003 1:04:35 AM PDT by goldstategop (Lara Logan Doesn't Hold A Candle Next To BellyGirl :))
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3 posted on 04/13/2003 1:04:51 AM PDT by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: goldstategop
We have been at war in Iraq for 23 whole days, My God, why are we still winning? It`s just not fair.
4 posted on 04/13/2003 1:06:59 AM PDT by bybybill (first the public employees, next the fish and, finally, the children)
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To: bybybill
See ,over three weeks now and they don't have the interim government in place and CHAOS .People were burning cars..wait that's in Minnesota..wrong Chaos.
5 posted on 04/13/2003 1:51:02 AM PDT by MEG33
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To: JohnHuang2
The admission by CNN of past sins should settle any argument as to whether most of the media is credible or not.
6 posted on 04/13/2003 1:55:29 AM PDT by cynicom
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To: goldstategop
Gets contentious? ROFLMAO. Can anybody name ONE day they haven't been?
7 posted on 04/13/2003 1:58:35 AM PDT by Howlin (It's a great day to be an American -- or an Iraqi!)
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To: JohnHuang2
"the press last week began moving toward a more traditionally adversarial role"

HELLO. Silly me, I thought the press was supposed to report the facts, show both sides, be fair and balanced.

Now I see. The press is supposed to be "adversarial".

Like it was during the Clinton administration, no doubt.

8 posted on 04/13/2003 3:06:20 AM PDT by sd-joe
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To: JohnHuang2
John, you are enjoying this entirely too much. ;-)

Gloat away......

9 posted on 04/13/2003 3:11:01 AM PDT by TomB
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To: JohnHuang2
On the question of a quick war, media critic Marvin Kalb, a senior fellow at Harvard University's Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said, "The media did not make up the expectation that they expected this to be a brief, essentially bloodless war. They got that from officials, from the vice president and the Joint Chiefs chairman."

Not so, said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer at a Friday briefing that was almost exclusively about the question of expectations. Fleischer cited presidential speeches, including the State of the Union address, in which the difficulty of war was emphasized.

The whole game for journalism is to raise expectations high enough to assure that the actual result will disappoint. The final result must be bad news--"No news is good news," because good news doesn't grip your attention, therefore "isn't news"--isn't reported.

Just as the tape of the Rodney King arrest, which in context exculpated the police at the first trial, was quickly edited down by journalists to the part that made the police look worst--and endlessly replayed to help instigate the riot which followed that first verdict.


10 posted on 04/13/2003 4:41:29 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion
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To: Howlin
This sounds like the same tune the press has been playing for the last three weeks. I had to double check the date of the story. Does this pass for journalism in Chicago?
11 posted on 04/13/2003 5:09:44 AM PDT by AFPhys (((PRAYING for: President Bush & advisors, troops & families, Americans)))
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