Wednesday, April 16, 2003
Where is Johnny and Achmed?
What happened to Johnny? and Achmed?
Has anyone seen any significant number of casualties on TV? My guess would be no. How is it that possible?
When there is a terrible gruesome murder somewhere, we find many reporters at the home of the person's parents. They ask them inane questions like "what crossed your mind when you heard they found your daughter's body in the river?"
Where were the reporters when the servicemen's families found out about their young sons and daughters were killed in this war. Did our news media suddenly discover ethical journalism?
During the Vietnam war, horrible pictures were on our TV's every day, it helped end that war. It showed the fighting, the mortally wounded bodies falling to the ground, the bloody bandages on Gi's. The dog tags hanging on body bags. They showed the brutality, the senseless violence right in our homes. It was visceral. It was an assault to all of our senses. There is nothing romantic about war, far from it, it shows the worst part of being human. Our capacity to kill another human being.
Enter the Art Of Public Relations
"We're getting the band together," said White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett in September. The "band," explained News-week 's Martha Brant, refers to "the people who brought you the war in Afghanistan--or at least the accompanying public-relations campaign. ... Now they're back for a reunion tour on Iraq."
The government spent a lot of time and money with the "Band" during this war. And they were very good at getting the message out. It will be a quick war and this is a good thing for America. The Bush Message was "5 by 5" at home but very weak overseas.
Bush's PR campaign worked very well here, but it didn't play well overseas. Washington's reach was not long enough to manage the overseas' press releases.
They know the disregard Bush has for them and everyone else in the world. Bush does not worry about Europe, he knows that he can buy back some of their support with the lucrative rebuilding business they will eventually get in Iraq.
The game at home is the most important one to Bush. The Pentagon insured a compliant press by embedding reporters.
The embedded reporters were given strict guidelines which they had to agree to before going out with the troops. So they were not going to shoot and air any negative pictures. Is it any surprise at the extent that this administration went, to choreograph the war and battle progress messages? Embedded reporters were literally in-bed-with the military. The war seems so clean that it looked like a PG movie.
We saw bombs going off without any casualties. Soldiers laying down on sandy banks with their assault rifles pointed in the distance. We saw the artillery shooting great flames of fire in the dark night. There were no dead and mortally wounded to be seen anywhere. The military recently stated that they were not going to count any dead and injured. I guess, the dead are not even worthy of a tick mark on a piece of paper. They just don't exist to anyone, except to the relatives and loved ones, but hey, who cares about them anyway, they won't vote in November 2004.
So, this war has apparently ended up looking bloodless. Kudos to the "Band". They took the "War is Hell" and the "I am glad war is so terrible that we should not get to fond of it" notion and made it into "war is heck! " and "Those sandstorms got sand in my lunch!" type of war. Disney would be proud of the production effort. If you talk to the soldiers that fought the bloody battles first hand. I bet they didn't think it was a disney movie.
The Bush administration PR Team is still out there on the job, they are a hard working bunch, they were there right from the get go,and they are there today. They are now desperately looking for every little bit of information, they can glean from the rubble, to extrapolate, and justify the killing. We will see the fruits of their effort right until November 2004. So hold on to your seat for much more creative spins on the truth.
We were short changed here, people! WE want our MSNBC, WE want our CNN. We should want to see the war, to see what we are supporting. Show the armaments we paid for with our taxes. Show the damage those bullets and fragmentation grenades do to people's bodies. Show the destruction we caused. Make it graphic! Show the devestation! Maybe next time, we won't be so apathetic when a President chooses war as a first option. Sometimes war is inevitable, but we should carefully weigh the cost. How best to weigh the cost, than to first understand the cost and waste a war will bring. Pray for our soldiers folks. May they come back whole in body in spirit. May they put the horrors they saw behind them like a bad dream. never to trouble them again.
Has anyone seen any significant number of casualties on TV? My guess would be no. How is it that possible?
When there is a terrible gruesome murder somewhere, we find many reporters at the home of the person's parents. They ask them inane questions like "what crossed your mind when you heard they found your daughter's body in the river?"
Where were the reporters when the servicemen's families found out about their young sons and daughters were killed in this war. Did our news media suddenly discover ethical journalism?
During the Vietnam war, horrible pictures were on our TV's every day, it helped end that war. It showed the fighting, the mortally wounded bodies falling to the ground, the bloody bandages on Gi's. The dog tags hanging on body bags. They showed the brutality, the senseless violence right in our homes. It was visceral. It was an assault to all of our senses. There is nothing romantic about war, far from it, it shows the worst part of being human. Our capacity to kill another human being.
Enter the Art Of Public Relations
"We're getting the band together," said White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett in September. The "band," explained News-week 's Martha Brant, refers to "the people who brought you the war in Afghanistan--or at least the accompanying public-relations campaign. ... Now they're back for a reunion tour on Iraq."
The government spent a lot of time and money with the "Band" during this war. And they were very good at getting the message out. It will be a quick war and this is a good thing for America. The Bush Message was "5 by 5" at home but very weak overseas.
Bush's PR campaign worked very well here, but it didn't play well overseas. Washington's reach was not long enough to manage the overseas' press releases.
They know the disregard Bush has for them and everyone else in the world. Bush does not worry about Europe, he knows that he can buy back some of their support with the lucrative rebuilding business they will eventually get in Iraq.
The game at home is the most important one to Bush. The Pentagon insured a compliant press by embedding reporters.
The embedded reporters were given strict guidelines which they had to agree to before going out with the troops. So they were not going to shoot and air any negative pictures. Is it any surprise at the extent that this administration went, to choreograph the war and battle progress messages? Embedded reporters were literally in-bed-with the military. The war seems so clean that it looked like a PG movie.
We saw bombs going off without any casualties. Soldiers laying down on sandy banks with their assault rifles pointed in the distance. We saw the artillery shooting great flames of fire in the dark night. There were no dead and mortally wounded to be seen anywhere. The military recently stated that they were not going to count any dead and injured. I guess, the dead are not even worthy of a tick mark on a piece of paper. They just don't exist to anyone, except to the relatives and loved ones, but hey, who cares about them anyway, they won't vote in November 2004.
So, this war has apparently ended up looking bloodless. Kudos to the "Band". They took the "War is Hell" and the "I am glad war is so terrible that we should not get to fond of it" notion and made it into "war is heck! " and "Those sandstorms got sand in my lunch!" type of war. Disney would be proud of the production effort. If you talk to the soldiers that fought the bloody battles first hand. I bet they didn't think it was a disney movie.
The Bush administration PR Team is still out there on the job, they are a hard working bunch, they were there right from the get go,and they are there today. They are now desperately looking for every little bit of information, they can glean from the rubble, to extrapolate, and justify the killing. We will see the fruits of their effort right until November 2004. So hold on to your seat for much more creative spins on the truth.
We were short changed here, people! WE want our MSNBC, WE want our CNN. We should want to see the war, to see what we are supporting. Show the armaments we paid for with our taxes. Show the damage those bullets and fragmentation grenades do to people's bodies. Show the destruction we caused. Make it graphic! Show the devestation! Maybe next time, we won't be so apathetic when a President chooses war as a first option. Sometimes war is inevitable, but we should carefully weigh the cost. How best to weigh the cost, than to first understand the cost and waste a war will bring. Pray for our soldiers folks. May they come back whole in body in spirit. May they put the horrors they saw behind them like a bad dream. never to trouble them again.
# posted by Thomas @ 9:13 PM 
