War's Hidden Cost

I feel that collateral damage during war is unavoidable. Even in modern times when countries like the United States have such precision bombers. Especially soldiers killed by friendly fire. That's what this reading is about the deaths and killings of civilians and soldiers killed by friendly fire. There is another name for soldiers killed by friendly fire and that's fratricide. In a bombing attack on the "steep mountains" of Tora Bora the U.S. soldiers pulled out dead women and children. The Pentagon doesn't really know how many civilians are being killed during the Iraq War, like previous wars before it. The Pentagon doesn't really trust the tallies done by the Taliban. "The Pentagon makes no attempts to estimate how many civilians it's bombs have killed." The only people who seem to care about all the civilians being killed are the human rights groups and the Red Cross. Although before every airstrike that the U.S. does the military does count and looks at the potential risks to civilians. Sometimes if the risks are really high the site of the bombing could be vetoed. But most of the time only if there is a "reported atrocity by U.S. forces would a serious investigation be carried out". Although collateral damage can't really be avoided it comes as quite a shock when you see pictures of women and orphans that are in the hospital with heinious wounds. And these pictures are helping politcial support in Britain switch from supporting the war to being against the war. Even in the Islamic world countries like Pakistan one of the U.S.'s allies the pictures of innocent civilians being killed or wounded are turning their attitudes towards the war from supporting the war to being against the war. Civilians deaths and wounds is just an unfortunatly sad side of war.

MEDIA; Hearts, Minds and Satellites

In "MEDIA; Hearts, Minds and Satellites" by Jim Rutenberg he talks about how CNN is being faced with negativity towards the images they are showing on their network. Their work is unclear and there have been numerous jokes as to what some of the images are on the screen. CNN lost all direction and sales especially from the Fox News Network and they also lost over 400 employees. They are trying their best to bring themselves out of this mess and get their title back as the "world news leader." The occurring of Sept. 11th brought a great opportunity for the network to redeem themselves and they did everything they could to redirection themselves. The network went under new leadership which was supposed to have CNN in great shape, but they ended up keeping people from the last administration. CNN lost much of its advantages and is trying hard to keep it. They are faced with a media world that has changed a lot since the Gulf War, they used to be the only network giving 24-hour news and was able to keep almost everyone's attention. Now they face numerous competitors, Fox News Channel being one. CNN has been able to regain their superiority but not as much as they would have liked to. Fox is still biting at their feet when it comes to coverage and sales. They are matching almost all the images that CNN has shown. CNN's rating's have already increased and they feel they have gained a young audience. They feel that they have in them what they need to be the leading network again. People feel they don't but the network as CNN executives say "have plenty more to show, and that it has plenty of tricks up its sleeves."

New situation, New dilemma

No war before is as information-intense as the ones after the Sept. 11th, although they still carry certain slant. News network almost extended to every corner of our lives. With the development of new technology and internet, people can always keep pace with the war almost simultaneously. And what make these wars distinct is that they are conducted after being severely attacked by anonymous forces. Ordinary American people are living under panic and anxiety, and they are expecting a strong government to provide them with safety. Holding on to this notion, war declared on terrorism becomes indispensably the top agenda of public concern. No doubt, this is also the principle the press should stick to. “American reporters were following the prevailing opinions. They are not independent. They don't like to go against the prevailing current of opinion.” (Feet to the Fire, P111)
From direct contact with the media perspective, not mentioning the strict unification of voice from within the white house, Bush always walks in this own way and his attitude towards them depends on his own mood. Bush has media walking a fine line by selecting the “appropriate” reporter he pleases who can follow his instructions and pass on his ideas to the public; holding behind-the-door press conference to let them know what can and should be told to the audience and restricting information access to the media by state-of-the-art technology, such as using large amount of public money to secure exclusive rights to all new high-quality commercial spy satellite images of Afghanistan, etc. however, when he doesn’t feel like talking with so called “lapdog” media, he would ruthlessly disregard them or even cut off communications, which always intensifies the potent mixture of frustration and ennui among White House reporters who came here with great expectation from the government and themselves. What they can do is only “sit in real-time limbo, lost in the dust of the Internet and cable”. (Fortress Bush, Ken Auletta)

Rivals Criticize CNN Method of War Reporting

In Rutenberg and Carter's article Rivals Criticize CNN Method of War Reporting, they talk about how CNN owns the satellite dish but it is shared with Al Jazeera. "In return, CNN will get exclusive interviews with an English speaking Al-Jazeera corresspondent based in Kandahar". CNN struck this deal to get pictures and interviews that other network that are in compeition wiith them cant get. Furthermore, for several weeks Iraqi goverenment only allowed CNN to report in Badhdad. This gave CNN the upper hand they would get the story first and report it. Their were some limitations on CNN though. Peter Arnett who was a correspondent was limited. "They said the network alreadily accpeted restrictions placed upon it by Baghdad- which closely monitored Mr. Arnett and limited his movements to places and events that supported its version of events- in a return for acess". This shows that CNN did have to follow rules and had to be limited. Another limitation that CNN had was when they left their gear on foreign soil to get access to the war that was going on. "Something they say they are prohibited from doing by their own guidelines". This statement shows that there are rules and guidelines that they need to follow and their is a limit to what they can do. CNN has ties to Al Jazeera which gives them an advantage, but they also have "World Reports" this is a conferencein which foreign governemnt officials appear. This has proved to help CNN a lot, to pave a way for CNN to make a deal for acess with Baghdad. "CNN plays to win".

Al Jazeera

In the Line of Fire by Carlson, his article breifly talks about Al Jazeera and Hafez Mirazi. "He is the Washington bureau chief of al-jazeera, the controversial Arab TV news network". Al Jazeera launched in 1996 it wanted to produce new programming. It would bring up things that Arab tv never discussed like government corruption , polygamy in the Arab world. This helped to open up a new way for the Arab's. "It opened up freedom of speech in the Arab world". Al Jazeera ia very popular and has an audience of 35 million and about 150,000 in the United States. Arabs are made becuase al-jazeera has interviews with Israeli and American officials. "Al-Jazeera's unpopularity with Arab governments nearly runined the network's plans to cover the war in Iraq, Mirazi says". Colin Powell and Richard Myers went on al-jazeera for a brief interview. Al jazerra is compared to the American networks on the war coverage. CNN and other American media only covers the American side. "And you'd find analysts speaking about the Iraqi perspective and the Arab side, you won;t find that on American television". That statement is very true when ever i would watch the news on the war i would always see the American side. If we wanted to talk and see things on the other side they would turn us to the Iraqi defense minister.

Crawls March Across Tv Territory

In this article by Farhi, it talks about tv news channels. When the war first started i remember that in order to get the mail they wnated people to wear gloves becuase of anthrax contamination. Another huge issue that was going on war the Terror threats. There were alsways terror alerts on tv and having cops on bridges and sub ways making sure taht everyone would be safe. Although i think by having cops everywhere and terror alerts on the tv everyday could drive someone to feel unsafe alone. The crawl is another thing that tv does now a days. While watching the news and hearing them talk about one thing at the bottom of the screen they are giving others news as well. " There's so much on this story in a given day, and not enough screen for it". They want to cram in as much information that they can possibly give. Even if they have a guest speaker on talking about one issue they have the ticker going on to be able to let people see other news. On CNBC they have the stock market average for the day as well on the bottom of the screen. This could be a huge impact on CNBC now a days becuase people dont want to always look at the newspaper so they can flip to this channel and at the bottom of the screen see how their stock done. I think this is a great way for people to choose their channel over the others.

Al Jazeera

Fox News and Al Jazeera are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum. After watching both "Out-Foxed" and "Control Room," it appeared to me that Al Jazeera was more objective than Fox. Granted, Al Jazeera took a position against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. It still seems to me that Al Jazeera's reporting was more truthful and less biased.
I understand that pictures are more persuasive than words and Al Jazeera uses imagery as a vital element to its reports. However, the images shown on the network are the casualties of war on both sides, and they are images that American networks cannot show.
The "Out Foxed" documentary portrayed Fox News and Rupert Murdoch in a negative light. "Control Room" was the opposite for Al Jazeera. It was a documentary supporting the network.
Even with all this in mind and admitting that both networks are not completely unbiased, I believe that Al Jazeera is more credible and more objective than Fox News.

Right or Left in Journalism?

Fox Portrays a War of Good and Evil, and Many Applaud

Is there right and wrong when is comes to journalism? Is there inhumanity and humanity within journalism? Do the news networks have an opinion? Are American journalist American?

Osama bin Laden, according to Fox News Channel anchors, analysts and correspondents, is "a dirtbag," "a monster" overseeing a "web of hate." His followers in Al Qaeda are "terror goons." Taliban fighters are "diabolical" and "henchmen."
This is a topic that has been related to every war that has ever taken place since the start of journalism. However, it has never been a center of controversy the way it has in this war. The “War on Terror,” and the “War for freedom,” is American’s war in the Middle East. It is our war, that we have created do to our patriotism for our country. The question is should it be our journalist’s war as well? I think this is a mute point and cannot be argued because as the documentary on Aljazeera said there is a “mirage” that blankets our sight. We are born indoctrinated with our western perspective, as others are indoctrinated with theirs. To say that our side is the right side is only what we know to be true. Therefore we can say that there are two sides of every story but at the moral heart beat of our society we can only HONESTLY see one side (USA) as the right, just, and truthful side. Do I mean in terms of political view? Absolutely not, I am talking about natural rights as Lincoln spoke of and as Fredrick Douglass proclaimed. I may live in the east coast and you may live on the west but we are all Americans. You may be a member of the left wing I a right wing conservative but we are all Americans. North vs. South civil war breaks out in America we were all still Americans. Although the civil battle we fight now has become far more complex and has become a battle of intellectual, and political propaganda. This war is about ratings and acts on multiple levels yet we are all still American. And as an American I am someone who is foreign not to my country but, to my history and ethnicity. I have been infused by the American ideal; I have been swept by the current of American propaganda. As Creel describes I feel as though everyone round me is being brain washed but I myself are free. However, the reality is I am trapped and that trap we coined the “American dream,” let’s not be naive. In the final analysis, Mr. Ailes said, "I don't believe that democracy and terrorism are relative things you can talk about, and I don't think there's any moral equivalence in those two positions." He added: "If that makes me a bad guy, tough luck.” “I'm still getting the ratings."

John Anthony Termini

Media: Hearts, Minds and Satellites

During the year 2000, “CNN's competitors -- most notably the Fox News Channel -- stole its thunder as it lost market share, mind share and direction. Its glory days in the Persian Gulf War had become a distant memory, and members of its staff, cut by 400 people just a few months ago, walked with heads hung low.” (Media: Hearts, Minds and Satellites) The coverage of Sep. 11th no wonder brought hope to its possibility of winning back its previous glory. It “engaged in a kind of geopolitics that its competitors have tried to use against it in times of war, questioning its ethics and implying that it is willing to cozy up to regimes at odds with the United States just to win a competitive advantage.” However, on a second thought, aren’t all media group living in a dog-use-dog world? CNN singed contract with Al Jazeera to get access to information; Fox--“most notably an invitation to battle CNN on a new front, internationally”, created an international news presence where it had none by hiring a CNN correspondent who was stationed in Afghanistan after Sept. 11 without a contract. Meanwhile, “it has at the same time made itself available to dozens of new cable and satellite systems worldwide, for free.” Even more interesting, we can see great similarity between Al Jazeera and Fox despite the basic difference in stance. They are both good at manipulating conflict, arousing emotions, such as fear among audience and propaganda rhetoric. They both play their chessman conservatively, passionately and successfully. In a nutshell, they recall audience’s mindset to extremes on their specific direction.

Wide Open

“Al Jazeera is the only twenty-four-hour Arab news station. In addition to its fast-moving, video-heavy newscasts, it has built an audience through its talk shows, which probe political, social, and religious issues previously untouched by Arab media.” (Inside Al Jazeera , Rick Zednik) Al Jazeera won the battle in “echoing” public opinion by giving both sides of the issue a chance to let their opinion heard. It fully grasped the essence of arousing emotions among audience through radical and controversial ideas, therefore almost irked all governments but ironically also seemed like the mouthpiece for all sides. For the American government, they love it and hate it at the same time but finally “surrender” to its powerful influence. On the one hand, Pentagon hates the fact that Al Jazeera’s frequent coverage of civilian casualties as well as obvious rhetoric propaganda against US that prevails on Arab streets, while on the other hand, through long time battle with it, US government decided to take a soft way to approach it for fear that a failure to engage with the network would be to leave its journalists to the influence of the Saddam Hussein government, with which it has considerable contacts. In other words, the US government also wanted to utilize it as a tool for American propaganda. In liaison with all sides, both Arabian World and Western countries, Al Jazeera not only sets its unshakable status as the most popular news channel, but also makes a good profit despite the low advertisement revenue from companies due to the fear of its political controversy.

The fox News Memo!!!!!!!!!!

The Fnc also Known as the Fox News Network, claims to have a fair and balance news But in my opinion it is anything but that. According to the text, "The fact is daily life at the fnc is all bout politics management". If you worked for the fox news network you had to spin the story the way the network told you too. There was tremendous pressure from fox to tell the story the way they want you to tell the story.The reading also stated "Editorially, the fnc newsroom is under the constant control and vigilance of management." This to me is a clear indication that the fnc bosses put alot of pressure on ther employees, to spin the story the way fox wants them to. The foe news network created this "memo" outlining what they would cover in there morning stories and it would also tel theem how the stories should be covered. This in my opinion is a bad idea because this does not allow the viewers of this network to be able to form there own opinions with out the network giving there spin on it.

Feet to the Fire - Ted Koppel

One theme that was repeated over and over again by Ted Koppel during his interview with Kristina Borjesson was that “hard” news is just a commodity. When it’s not in demand, advertisers aren’t willing to pay for ads, and the shows get dropped. Likewise, he attributes the high cost of foreign news coverage and lack of domestic demand to expense.

In one troubling supposition, Koppel contends, “Americans have always been a little bit narrow-minded about foreign reporting”. He then goes on to say, “I’m working for a network … which has a fraction of the people overseas today that we had overseas when I was a foreign correspondent.” So either Koppel's theory about news being a commodity is wrong, or Americans are only "a fraction" as interested in foreign events as our "narrow-minded" predecessors.

Near the end of the interview, Koppel reveals what he believes to be the result of Americans apathy towards real news.

“…the consequence of that is going to be that the United States goes through some difficult times over the next five or ten or fifty years, then eventually if not they, then their children will say, “You know something, we need to pay a little more attention to what is going on overseas.”

Hopefully sooner rather then later.

Crisis Coverage and the Candy Bar Imperative

In Feet to the Fire: The Media After 9/11, in chapter one: Crisis Coverage and the Candy Bar Imperative, Ted Kopple has many interesting topics. The one that most interest me is the comparison of access to the Iraq war and the Vietnam war. In the Vietnam war there were no limitations, you can stay with the unit as long as you want. On the other hand that's not the case with the Iraq war they say, "OK, you're going to be with the unit and you have to stay with that unit until the fighting is over."
Here Kopple is trying to mark an distinction for the young reporters, which I personal think is very informative.

When Images Compete as Fiercely as Armies By Jefferson Morley

After reading this article we learn aspects of the biases in Western and Middle Eastern journalism. Images truly are Competing as Fiercely Armies would, this is enabling the full truth to be exposed. Theres also so many more options for the public to choose from. “Now the world can choose from not only al-Jazeera, but other all-news channels, including the Abu Dhabi channel, which focuses on news in the Gulf states, and one-month-old al-Arabiya.". Just as Jefferson said its a lot different then the Gulf War in 1991, where the public counted on CNN and only CNN. But I think that the different coverage that’s out there shows a great deal how different people view the situation, and we learn their opinions. But it’s very hard for the government to manage the worlds various opinions. I never really thought about how complicating the media has got these days, now there’s so many various nations who are in competition with the United States for the coverage, to persuade the views about the war. Its just confusing to me because there’s so many different views sometimes you don’t know just how much truth you are getting.

Fox Biased?

On viewing the film about the investigation of Fox being biased and pro war really opened my eyes and at the same time disgusted me . As a media and communications student i have learned that our news should not sway to any side but be objective. In other words not have a bias. How can an audience truly experience and get the correct information , when the news is used as pro war propaganda . It is almost as if new isn't news anymore ; it is a story designed and edited in the favor of the news station's liking.
This is something that cannot be ignored , i feel like slowly our nation is becoming less of a democracy and our constitution is just a joke . The news should not be tampered with it says so in the constitution ; "Freedom of the Press", "Freedom of Speech".
Media figures such as Bill Oreilly should be dismounted , be fired . How dare he warn celebrities and people that if they dare speak against the war they should expect the worst to come . How can a man like that be so righteous and vocal when he was just recently involved in a sex scandal , he should talk more about his dysfunction as a human being and worry less about the young man he interviewed post 9/11 .
That young man had every right to say what he felt , he is after all protected by our constitution or is he ? Most of what he said was right anyways about the 9/11 possibly being a result of the U.S. government 's practices in foreign policy . The young man was just offering a mirror for many people to look at . Maybe if we were more aware of these conflicts overseas and given objective information about them we would have more of an understanding of what was done in the past and things to come .

Pentagon's Strategy for the Press

In this article by James Lemoyne , he reported that the Pentagon had been censoring reporters in how to report on the Gulf War. The restrictions that were placed on reporters were prohibiting them from traveling to units without a military escort and requiring stories to be cleared by military censors .
Reporters complained that "the rules limit their ability to gather information independently and by not allowing them to get close enough to the action or the people involved , obstruct informed and objective reporting."
This was a problem because our media should be without bias .People are entitled to objective reporting so that they could independently come up with their own conclusions not be swayed in the direction that favors the war.
What is the most disturbing about this article is the fact that Pentagon officials warned reporters" who asked hard questions that they would be seen a anti military " They were threatening the reporters that if they do not cooperate their accessibility to interviews would have been in jeopardy .
America is a " democracy " , why did they censor the news . This is something Stalin or a dictator would do . It is written in our constitution that there should be freedom in the press then why were they so strongly and severely censored.

Presenting Collateral Damage

In the New York Times' article, War's Hidden Cost, Rumsfeld is quoted saying: "We know for a fact that these were legitimate military targets in that area that were struck...We know that there was terrific traditional, consistent planning to ensure that only these targets were struck. We know there were no off-target hits, so there were no collateral damage worries in this series of strikes." The article goes on to examine the actual collateral damage: "80 dead and 50 wounded were carried out of the area, including women and children...more were left behind."

Does Rumsfeld really believe that civilians wouldn't be where military targets are, especially during war? Are his comments supposed to ease the American publics' conscience? To say that the targets were known (for a fact) to be military and that they were hit (and there weren't any miscalculations leading to missed targets) doesn't really account for the population that is trying to go on with its life even though there is a war going (or trying to find sympathizers by sacrificing their lives - depending on why there were so many civilians - to which I dare not speculate). It almost seems as though he is trying to blame the civilians for being around military places that they should assume would be targeted - and they should take it upon themselves to relocate as not to be killed.

Censorship and the Contents of News

Censorship and the Contents of News
--About Invisible Censorship


"Throughout my entire career. I have never been censored. I've been at ABC News for forty-one years, and throughout that time I have never been censored." –TED KOPPLE (“Feet to the Fire” Page 33)

I was not surprised at all to see this part of the book. This is America, it is normal.
Because if you look at the the definition of censorship by Mr. Koppel, that is a situation that can only happened in Soviet Union and China during the Cultural Revolution.
"Censorship involving the government saying, 'You can not report what you want to report. You have to show me everything that you intend to put on the air and we will then decided whether you can or whether you can't'" (Feet to the Fire Page 34)
So where do we think the media especially Fox are so “pro-Bush”?
"The fact that the Bush administration, like the Clinton administration before it, like very administration I've know in the thirty-tow years that I've been working in Washington, tried to influence what gets on the air and what doesn't get on the air--that's not censorship. That's political influence." (“Feet to the Fire” Page 34)
That is also the same situation in China. When I was invited by David Tafler of Muhlenberg College last week to talk about what the media business is like in China with students and faculty, everybody was asking me about how the systematic censorship was working in China.
For people here, news in China was heavily censored and journalist was a dangerous job to do. However, the news continued to appear on internet and on TV here about "Chinese journalists thrown to jail" was actually the same story and the same "Journalist" instead of "journalists"--people just can not remember his poor Chinese name as people here having problems spelling my "stupid Chinese name" correctly.
Today, a country like China, with so intense business connections with rest parts of the world, does not have the possibility to carry out direct censorship. It just can not be possible. The reality there is just the same as the situation here--political influence. It is reasonable that China now still has some problem about free press, it is a country started to have contact with other countries only about two decades ago. You can not just put the system and standard of free press here on the situation in China. Just imaging what will happen if ABS, which is own by Disney, report something very bad about the social image about Disney Inc., some body will not get promoted and maybe will lost his job there.
For the first thing, most (not everyone) media agencies there was owned by the state. And nobody is really that stupid to report stories that will definitely put the state into an awkward position. And the state, actually want the media to serve as a "surveillance eye" instead of a "against party." And in this case, when it come to the point of reports, journalists really need to have the intelligence to decide if his report is going to serve as an "surveillance eye" or a "devil rebellion's advocate".
The ruling part of China, which has been in power for 57 years, definitely has more influence over media elites there than Bush administration here. And that is the reality. They don’t need to make phone calls to tell somebody to pull a report or a TV show--reporters and editor know how to do.

"The pressure comes from the ratings not doing well. When the ratings don't do well, sponsors don’t want to pay as much money for each thirty-second commercial anymore, and if the sponsors don't pay as much anymore, then the Disney Company doesn't earn as much any more." (“Feet to the Fire” Page 35)

That is the reality of media today. In a country like the United States of America, people really don’t need to read about the news too often. This is a couldn't be more stable society and the only that may influence people's living were just things like the effort of the White House to low or rise the tax. But ordinary people can not do anything about it. For people under any powerful state power system, it really doesn't make any big difference if they organize some demonstrations or not. Everyday different people demonstrate at different places in America to stop the war in Iraq but nobody really make any difference on the progress over the war.
The position of news media now is rather awkward--they are producing something that is not really a necessity for their customers. CNN does not really do a better job on serving the audience that Comedy Central, and news reporters to some degree carries the same weight as Eric Cartmen from South Park Colorado.
News today need to give the audience what they want to see instead offering the audience what the media think what they should see. This decides the media actually need to make compromise with the innocence of the generally public. News reporters may know better than their audience or may not. But when it comes to the taste and point of views about the news, they need to be no more "smart and long-sighted" than their audience. Nobody want to be proofed stupid, and the audience want to see something that can prove their smartness rather than their stupidity.
So when Fox said America should liberate Iraq, it reflects the feeling of its audience. When CNN talked about "brutality of Communists in Tiananmen" they really reflects American general publics idea about what China should like--they should be doing those things CNN alleged them doing.
"People watch television while they're brushing their teeth, taking a shower, taking care of other bodily functions, making love to their wives or their girlfriends. They don't pay very much attention to television It's not an activity. " (“Feet to the Fire” Page 29)
The problem now is not about censorship, it is about people's interest in news coverage. As long as the news is not directly influential to their daily life, most people do not have to turn on a TV and sit there for 10 minutes or longer concentrated to know what has happened in last 24 hours. People's priority these days for watching TV is no longer to get news (maybe haven never been like that), instead, they turn on a TV to have some sort of entertainment and relief from daily pressure. This means they selectively accept what is conveyed to them on TV news.
And contents of news actually reflect what people want to see.
If you complain about censorship, turn to another channel. They will know you don’t like it when they look at their rating.

The FOX News Memo!

An article written by Charlie Reina, a former writer and producer for FOX tells the readers how bias FOX News really is. Chris Wallace, one of FOX's highest paid anchors tells us that FOX News is fair and balanced, but the lower employees of FOX who don't make the big bucks tells us a completely different story.

Reina has worked for many different companies including the associate Press and CBS and he was never told or "asked" to write or produce a show a certain way. This changed when he started to work for FOX. Reina says he was pressured by management to produce a show a certain way. The bias of FNC's is clear in the day-to-day operations. Each morning an eletronic "memo" is sent out to all members of the news room addressing what stories will be covered, and which stories would not. The anchor began with the Bush administration's and continues today. Present day memos are mostly concerned with the war in Iraq. The memo says what stories will be covered and the tone of the story.

In the end, the FOX News Channel is an extremely bias network. The anchors and journalist do not give there own spin on a story, they simplely report on and how the management wants them to. Therefore, you will never get the complete truth from FNC and is not a good source for honest news.

The FOX trot

The film we viewed in class about the FOX network reinforced many thoughts I have previously had about the network. I thought the film was obviously a piece of propaganda, the producers were also obviously not on FOX’s side. Gathering and interviewing a group of professionals on a subject manner, to simply get information on the topic is a good strategy to persuade people. If viewing an interview and the reporter and the interviewee have a free flowing, informative interview a lot could be accomplished in the way of persisting viewers. Some of FOX’s reporters don’t really use this interview method. My title for this blog is the “FOX trot” which refers to the interview method FOX reporters use, or the trot right over what the interviewee is saying. The reporter I found did this the best was Bill O’Reilly, he really used his physical presence to dominated over the interviewee rather then free flowing informative conversation . In the film we would see Bill O’Reilly repeatedly cut people off mid sentence if they were heading somewhere he didn’t want the interview to go. From listing to broadcasts like the Bill O’Rielly factor it is evident to me that Fox really only wants to report what they want people to see or listen to, becoming extremely one sided kind of news.

Media; Hearts, Minds and Satellites

This article made the media look like such animals. They did not care about the story or what happened in the story, if people got hurt or killed. All that they cared about was if their network got credit for it. One of the examples they used was when 9/11 happened Cnn saw it as an oppurtunity. That is horrible that the executives could even see a tragedy like that as an oppurtunity to better themselves. This article brought up some interesting questions and ideas that make you think twice before wanting to support a news station or network. Like i said earlier this article shows that the networks are more worried about ratings and how the story comes off and makes them look than if people got killed or hurt. For example today if a soldier gets killed in iraq its a race to who can make the story more compelling and get the better ratings.

When Images Compete as Fiercely as Armies

In "When Images Compete as Fiercely as Armies" by Jefferson Morley he discusses how the different TV media portrays the war and why. He shows similarities and differences between the Middle-Eastern and American news networks. The 1991 Gulf War was seen through the U.S. based CNN which was founded by Ted Turner, and now there are 20 Arab and American TV networks covering the war. The coverage of the war by the Middle East showed images that were horrifying, with children who died during an American attack that had no head. There are so many competing viewpoints and the American media does not have enough power to control the way people feel. There are way too many competitors for the American government to influence or control people. "The American government is now under political and public opinion pressure." They think that the effects of the media coverage will be used on the battlefield. They feel that as the war starts, new images will arise to show the way the propaganda war will go. Iraqi TV may be turned off because the U.S. is looking to be dominate. Either way you look at it, the media is not giving you the full story anyway of the war, on neither the Arab or American TV stations. It is hard to say who is to blame on the coverage on the war because it could just be that the public is just not interested in what is going on. In a way the media is to blame for not showing full coverage of the war because they are not giving the public the realities, and most of the time the public doesn't know the difference. I mean the public can't really play on what it really going on because they are not on the battlefield. They can only go by what the media gives them. I think though that the public is interested to an extent because if they weren't the networks wouldn't be so concerned about what images they are displaying.