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The Media’s War
Matt Sanchez, a U.S. serviceman in Iraq, penned a great piece over at National Review Online on another war occurring in Iraq: the media’s war.
A couple of poignant and revealing excerpts:
The media has a conflict of values. A successful insurgent will always get more recognition than a successful infantryman — no matter how many successful infantrymen there are. In an arm-wrestling match between progress and propaganda, the reward of media coverage for bad behavior has a Pavlovian effect on attention-seeking terrorists.
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As I read much of the Western press I wonder, who side are these guys on? Of course, the answer is that they’re supposed to remain neutral, but this neutrality is a luxury afforded the media by a standard that only one side will meet. When Time magazine interviewed a bombmaker claiming to be responsible for “rising American casualties,†they forgot to ask the “sophisticated and tenacious enemy†the tough questions like, “What’s your exit strategy?†or “How broken is the insurgency?†“Could you define victory?†or even the most basic, “Why are you doing this?â€
The fact that the press demands accountability from one side and offers servility to the other is a very cunning strategy to win an asymmetrical war.
That is, it’s as if the press were conducting a war of its own.