NEWS ANCHORS? AWAY! -- Let's 'Unembed' Embedded Media Bias

NEWS ANCHORS? AWAY!
-- Let's 'Unembed' Embedded Media Bias

by Lin Anderson

The best idea to come out of the Iraq campaign thus far -- I mean, aside from bombing the Information Ministry there -- is the "embedding" of reporters with combat units in the field. Whether the combat units themselves consider this a dandy notion is, however, an open question. Journalists can be a real trial in the best of times, as my ex-wife will tell you long into the night.

Embedding reporters may, at the very least, finally put the lie to one of those quotes that everyone is blathering out loud at cocktail parties these days -- that hoary chestnut which has it that, "The first casualty of war is the truth."

Like most hoary chestnuts -- which, by the way, are legal in Nevada -- this is a rewrite of the actual quote by U.S. Senator Hiram Warren Johnson, who intoned in 1918 that "The first casualty when war comes is truth." Senator Johnson later earned the Congressional Medal of Irony by expiring on August 6, 1945, the day the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima.

Talk about going out with a bang.

As noted, Senator Johnson's reworked quote is now routinely falling from the lips of the (Somewhat) Smart Set at gatherings large and small. You can't miss it. Just sort of lean against the doorframe in the kitchen, and observe Brad, the stockbroker in the green golf shirt with the name of his firm embroidered on it (the firm went under a year ago, which is why he has to wear the shirt). When you hear someone in the group say something like, "But I thought we were winning the war easily," turn your attention immediately to Brad, who will chuckle darkly.

"You know what they say," Brad will intone with a knowing nod. "The first casualty of war -- " pausing to thoughtfully sip his cabernet -- "is the truth."

Then Gary -- the crowd cut-up who was being groomed for a district manager spot at Enron shortly before the collapse and now has about as much chance of catching on with any firm as Valu Jet has again taking to the skies of Florida -- will pull his hair off his forehead and, in his best Nicholson voice, bellow, "You can't HANDLE the truth! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

After which there will be sporadic chuckles turning to an hour of polite conversational murmurs until things again pick up when an attractive junior exec pitches head-first into the bean dip.

The first casualty of the party is Audrey Drew from accounting.

Of course, once the shooting dies down in Baghdad and we all go back to our "normal" lives hanging around and waiting for Pyongyang to pull something stupid, we'll have time to consider the lasting impact of planting scribes and electronic journalists in amongst our troops. While we are surely getting closer to the "truth" of military action, we must -- in the midst of all this innovation and mind-boggling immediacy -- continue to deal with our traditional TV-news anchorheads "embedded" behind their desks, performing their usual task of providing instant editorial comment on all that "truth" we all have just seen and heard with our own eyes and ears.

The American "big three" -- Brokaw, Jennings and Rather -- remain the Town Fathers of Anchorheadville, although the Triad faces punishing cable bombardment from "Fair and Balanced" Fox and the ding-dongs over there at once-proud CNN -- the network which made its reputation during Gulf War I, came proudly marching home, married a Socialist, and is now madly scrambling to figure out how to report a popular war without ticking off the wife.

Parenthetically, and pathetically, there is no better illustration of the strange Politburo mindset of the Cable News Network -- and, indeed, the yawning chasm between embed and anchorhead -- than last week's incident in which CNN's embedded reporter, Walter Rodgers, had the all-fired nerve and audacity to say he was having great fun roaring across the desert with U.S. Marines while reporting "one of the greatest stories I ever saw."

This did not go down very well with anchorhead Aaron Brown -- who you may recall just a smattering of weeks ago declined to let a little thing like a space shuttle disaster interfere with all the fun he was having at the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic. Brown -- smirking exactly like your constipated great aunt -- asked Rodgers if he'd like to, er, clarify that comment.

CNN continues to grapple with its freefall in the ratings, as its execs tearfully beseech the very heavens for an answer. Someday it may occur to them that serving up humorless, cant-ridden, agenda-driven news delivered by priggish anchorheads may not be the best strategy for enchanting the homefolks.

But anyhoo, while CNN doggedly lumbers along like the one remaining loyal party apparatchik who continues to maintain the Berlin Wall toppled due to seismic activity, and Fox merrily continues adding viewers not simply because it is conservative, but because it allows its people to blast a little wit now and then, the grey network Triad (ABC, CBS and NBC) presses on, trying hard to convince everybody it's 1980 and they're still the only game in town.

I have had a unique opportunity to observe Tom, Dan and Peter more than I normally would, since my newspaper office is not equipped with cable and is therefore subject to the vagaries of "over the air" news and entertainment. Of the Triad, Brokaw's performance has been far and away the best -- and I say this not because I once worked for an NBC affiliate, but because Brokaw by and large keeps his opinions to himself, and allows his reporters to report and his analysts to analyze. Brokaw's manner always indicates he is well aware that a world in crisis simply does not revolve around Tom Brokaw -- indeed, that you'd have to knock off several million others before Tom could take his turn being the sun.

There is absolutely no question, however, that Dan Rather believes that CBS News -- which CBS News considers the world -- orbits Rather's cluttered office, and that sentiment most certainly has evidenced itself in The Crawling Eye's coverage of the war. Dan tries so extremely hard to be authoritative that he comes across as the Voice of Doom even when the news is encouraging.

When Rather steps out -- as he does in his frequent visits to David Letterman's show -- he can be charming and even animated. But, boy, things sure are different there on the spartan CBS News set. A tremendous example of this may be found in Rather's frequent war updates during CBS's coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament. I will quickly summarize for you how this works:

DICK ENBERG: Oh my! What a shot! This crowd is on its feet as Kansas calls a time-out! We send you now to New York for this CBS news brief. Oh my!

DAN: CBS News. Dan Rather reporting from my ugly but utilitarian studio. Coalition forces are bogged down and things are getting dicey. It might all be going to hell. Might not. We'll see. Dan Rather in New York. Back to basketball.

Rather delivers his information in kind of a low, clipped, depressed monotone -- the same tone you hear those poor sap husbands use on Divorce Court. What's the frequency, Kenneth? Very low, it would appear.

It is a measure of the high regard in which I hold television, that I listen to the radio a lot; and there's this astonishingly overripe commercial for ABC TV News that flies into heavy rotation any time world events warrant. In a voice that is the audio equivalent of an Aaron Brown smirk, the fatuous announcer declares that "Peter Jennings and his band of ABC reporters ... are a viewer's best bet."

For godsake, don't bet the house.

The spot conjures Mr. Jennings as sort of a Robin Hood of News surrounded by a loyal, colorful cadre of Merry Correspondent Men. You half expect a John McWethy report to begin, "Ho, Sir Peter! All's deucedly quiet at the State Department!"

It's no secret at all that Peter's been suffering from Terminal Snit since President Bush was elected, and it simply keeps getting worse..............

REPORTERS FIRST!!!!!! This happened during a round table discussion.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96feb/media/media.htm

Why has the media establishment become so unpopular? Perhaps the public has good reason to think that the media's self-aggrandizement gets in the way of solving the country's real problems

by James Fallows

Snippet:

"Ogletree brought them into the same hypothetical war. He asked Jennings to imagine that he worked for a network that had been in contact with the enemy North Kosanese government. After much pleading Jennings and his news crew got permission from the North Kosanese to enter their country and film behind the lines. Would Jennings be willing to go? Of course, he replied. Any reporter would--and in real wars reporters from his network often had.

But while Jennings and his crew were traveling with a North Kosanese unit, to visit the site of an alleged atrocity by U.S. and South Kosanese troops, they unexpectedly crossed the trail of a small group of American and South Kosanese soldiers. With Jennings in their midst the Northern soldiers set up an ambush that would let them gun down the Americans and Southerners.

What would Jennings do? Would he tell his cameramen to "Roll tape!" as the North Kosanese opened fire? What would go through his mind as he watched the North Kosanese prepare to fire?

Jennings sat silent for about fifteen seconds. "Well, I guess I wouldn't," he finally said. "I am going to tell you now what I am feeling, rather than the hypothesis I drew for myself. If I were with a North Kosanese unit that came upon Americans, I think that I personally would do what I could to warn the Americans."

Even if it meant losing the story? Ogletree asked.

Even though it would almost certainly mean losing my life, Jennings replied. "But I do not think that I could bring myself to participate in that act. That's purely personal, and other reporters might have a different reaction."

Ogletree turned for reaction to Mike Wallace, who immediately replied. "I think some other reporters would have a different reaction," he said, obviously referring to himself. "They would regard it simply as another story they were there to cover." A moment later Wallace said, "I am astonished, really." He turned toward Jennings and began to lecture him: "You're a reporter. Granted you're an American" (at least for purposes of the fictional example; Jennings has actually retained Canadian citizenship). "I'm a little bit at a loss to understand why, because you're an American, you would not have covered that story."

Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn't Jennings have some higher duty to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot?

"No," Wallace said flatly and immediately. "You don't have a higher duty. No. No. You're a reporter!" (Emphasis mine)

Jennings backtracked fast. Wallace was right, he said: "I chickened out." Jennings said that he had "played the hypothetical very hard."He had lost sight of his journalistic duty to remain detached.

As Jennings said he agreed with Wallace, several soldiers in the room seemed to regard the two of them with horror. Retired Air Force General Brent Scowcroft, who would soon become George Bush's National Security Advisor, said it was simply wrong to stand and watch as your side was slaughtered. "What's it worth?" he asked Wallace bitterly. "It's worth thirty seconds on the evening news, as opposed to saving a platoon."

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