Feet to the Fire "We're Not Mother Teresas in Flak Jackets"

Chris Hedge is the journalist who believes that since war images and stories were sanitized, war became easy to wage because people don't understand the tragedy of war and the cost of war. He says that the warmakers manipulated war and carried out current war in Iraq that should have never been fought. "War is packaged and sanitized the same way the poisons of tobacco or liquor are packaged and sanitized. We see enough of the titilation and excitement to hold our interest, but we never actually see what wounds do to bodies"(Hedge, p521). He also believes that minimal of censorship is needed in war, but only in terms of troop size and armaments and where they are and etc. He feels that majority of the journalists today are not doing their job right. He believes that they act as "stenographer for people in power", not journalists who report real stories. He says that journalists today are "celebrities with a lot of makeup on", pretending to be journalists". (Hedge, P531) He believes that good journalists should speak for the victims and write honest and true stories of war. He says that good journalists are people who are against the athorities. But, reality is that when journalists report a war where their country is actively involved, they need to search for "mythic narrative". Create heroes, and look out for evil deeds that the enemy committed against "our people". "Most effective medium that we have to create heroes is the press. That's what the press does in war and has done in war since the creation of modern war correspondents in the Crimean war."(Hedge, P525) This is the reality of journalism at war today. Although there are journalists lik Hedge who tries to change that.