Justus For All

Thought 1 -

Whatever forum is used, be careful what is said. “Mission accomplished!” obviously is not.

Thought 2 -

Difficult for me to put into words here, but what I am thinking is along the lines of “…use the culture of those you are trying to address… in an understanding, constructive and useful way… not deprecatory, denigrating or destructive…”

FWIW

‘Mission Accomplished’ is old news with a variety of interpretations. Lets not get into that.

What I am more speculating on is what conduct should we expect from our media? In WWII the media was obviously on our side, to the point where it seems very weird today. On the other hand, we won that war.

I think that there is a balance for the media between being patriotic partisans and tools of the enemy. It seems to me that this balance isn’t being well struck right now, and often the media is a tool for the enemy, not from malice but for more complex reasons.

The job of the media is to report fact. There is a secondary function of interpretation and comment.

I believe that the process fails at three, not two, points.

At the lowest level, interpretation and comment has become defiled by the need to capture and hold an audience (meaning readers of papers as well). Hence we have the advent of newsertainers such as Paul Holmes (in NZ) and the likes of Limbaugh in the US. As a result, “interpretation” has devolved to the propaganda of one point of view, and of satisfying the biases of the intended audience. Commentary has been debased from informed opinion - Alistair Cooke was the master - to the inflammatory ravings of the talk-back host trying to drum up some response, ANY response from his audience.

At the next level up, there has been, over the past 15 years by my count, a gradual, insidious and inexorable move away from direct to indirect reportage. Hence (and I was going to dig this out for a post of my own last weekend) we have the current “realisation” in the US, of the use of NVR’s (I think) - the purpose made video “press releases” - that networks pick up, voice-over or broadcast bald without any attribution or recognition of the source.

My first brush with this was a “human interest” story broadcast on late news here about three years ago. I can not for the life of me remember the subject matter, but the first 15 secs of this “news item” had appeared as an advertisement on another channel earlier in the evening. What was being presented as a “news item” was in fact a well disguised advertorial.

But there is another level to this as well Dave, and the reason why I mentioned “Mission accomplished.” I have no desire to debate that or its creator any more than you. I could have used the divisiveness of “You are either with us or against us…”; equally relevant.

The point is that when we speak to other cultures, we would be better served by understanding “how to say” as well as “what we say”. Not after we have successfully invaded, but before. The “progress” that you report this morning with Iran and its intentions for nuclear power and research is a case in point. If the ROW had said “Enough” six months ago and taken arms against Iran, would we now have the situation where Iran is prepared to consider, at least, what is expected of them? I imagine that the threat of the US’s “over-whelming” force would be your reason for Iran back-tracking; I would present the diplomacy of the European nations as having as much effect.

It is that latter point that I was wishing to add.

First off, this post isn’t really about government pronouncements or diplomatic efforts. I post on that sort of thing frequently enough that I think commnets on that subject can be made in those posts.

This post is about how the media should behave in a terror conflict, given that a key ‘battlefield’ of a terror conflict is the media itself.

While I certainly think that there is a difference between hard news and commentary or opinion segments, I don’t think that having the later is necessarily wrong. Sometimes there is an unfortunate blurring that is problematic, but I don’t see anything wrong with shows like Rush’s, although I don’t listen to him myself.

Media passing on press releases as news that they have indepentantly reported on may indeed be a media problem, I don’t see how it being a problem with the media in dealing with terror however.

Dave, you miss my point once again.

The media, the “news” that it broadcasts, the words it selects to make the news, the words that those IN the news use to communicate to the people ALL MAKE THEIR MARK ON THE PERCEPTIONS OF BOTH HOME ELECTORATE AND THE ENEMY.

But then if you can not see that then there is no point…

I don’t deny that Probligo.

However, rather than talk about everything, what I am interested in exploring in this post is a specific idea, i.e. how the media should deal with terror that is designed in part to manipulate them.

There are many things that many different people should or can do in dealing with terror. To some extent, all those things will effect all other things. That is both obvious and trivial. I think though we can, at times, discuss just SOME of those things.

If you think some of those things are integrally connected to that issue, perhaps you could actually make that point and explain how. I don’t believe that our diplomatic posture with Iran has a huge impact on how the media and terror attacks create a negative symbiotic relationship and how the media often serves as an unwitting tool for terrorists, but if you are certain that it does, perhaps you could explain that.

OK, in words of no more than two syllables…

Let us assume you want to make a friend of someone, say a person whose father was intensely disliked by your parents. Let us assume that there is good reason for you wanting to make a friend of that person; reason that has as much if not more benefit to you as to the “enemy”.

Do you start the process of making friends by screaming abuse, calling him names, making him look small and stupid?

If his initial response is to throw a rock at your front window, will it be easier to make friends with him if you go out and beat him up, and then threaten to shoot him if he does it again? Or do you sit down with him and his family and try to work out the best way of handling the situation?

Now, to make the bridge to the media and its role in times of war…

Which do you think the local media should be more responsible for -

“Keeping the home fires burning” by keeping up the publication of “anti-enemy rhetoric” - (I hope that word is not too difficult) on behalf of your government or other interest groups.

or

“Responsible reporting” - accurate and objective reporting of what is actually happening.

The point that I was trying to make was that the MSM - and blogiverse - is trying hard to keep the first going in their desire to retain and hopefully increase “audience share”.

As a result the second - of objective and accurate reporting - is either being ignored or failing miserably through the need to satisfy the audience.

If those who are “responsible for making friends and enemies” at a national level adopt the approach of making friends by making friends by screaming abuse, calling the “enemy” names, making him look small and stupid, by threatening to shoot rather than finding a rational solution to an obvious problem then should the news media adopt the same, follow the party line?

Or should the MSM and blogiverse be responsible for ensuring the truth is known, that the electorate is well informed with the truth no matter how unpalatable that truth might be.

I believe it to be the latter.

OK, in words of no more than two syllables…

Ah, I love that. It’s probligo’s big WORDS we don’t understand, not the incoherent thought patterns and fallacious arguments he attempts to articulate with them.