It's the War, Stupid!
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Categories: Media Accountability, Peace and Armed Conflict, Ranting and Venting
Categories: Media Accountability, Peace and Armed Conflict, Ranting and Venting
Congress and the News Media Does Not Seem to Think So
Michael O'Brien
I thought there was a war on. For the past 5 years, the nightly news was awash in reports from embedded correspondents. Like turning off the lights, the war seems to have disappeared. Yes, there has been a decline in American combat casualties along with the daily bloodbath resulting from sectarian violence.
But this is still a shooting war where American troops and Iraqi civilians die on a daily basis. Many Iraqi's still lack fresh water, sanitation and electricity. Over 2 million displaced civilians are either homeless or have left the country. Thousands of American families still suffer from the agony of losing loved ones.
Add to that an occupation with no end in sight and things look pretty grim.
Wounded soldiers and veterans are still groping through a morass of bureaucratic red tape on the road to recovery. An alarming number of U.S. Army soldiers have chosen to leave their problems behind by taking their own lives - 121 in 2007 alone. That translates to a suicide rate of over 17 per 100,000 troops, a jump of 60 percent since late 2002 when the rate was 11 per 100,000.
According to a recent Associated Press report, there were over 2,100 suicide attempts during 2007. That there were 500 such attempts in 2001 should give everyone pause, including television news editors and members of Congress.
As the war on Iraq and the human cost fades from the nightly news, other issues have filled the void. To watch the corporate-controlled news media, reporting on the war has all but disappeared. The apparent shift in the headlines is troubling on several levels.
Like a mirror image of our national state of attention deficit disorder, the American news media is a fickle institution, often allowing itself to be drawn to and fro. Like a leaf in the wind, the focus the ongoing presidential primaries has been blown toward domestic economic problems. Not a small change since the war - and the resulting carnage - was at the top of the issues list for most voters just six months ago.
A national election cycle has an undeniable effect on news coverage and I understand that. Who will be the next President is no small story and the question has global implications. What I do not understand is how the far removed we are from the realities and consequences of the war on Iraq.
So where, oh where has the news coverage gone? From what I can tell, television news - and the Congress - has taken what my father used to call a busman's holiday. They have gone to the ballgame.
That's right, steroid abuse among some of the biggest stars of Major League Baseball has grabbed the spotlight. Not to be ignored, the National Football League suffered through its own cheating scandal. It seems that members of the New England Patriots coaching staff were caught having video taped the defense signals of an opposing team.
Oh, the humanity!
Veteran Congressional watchdog, Representative Henry Waxman sprang into action. Dropping ongoing investigations of a corrupt Administration, Waxman's House committee held hearings on whether pitching ace Roger Clements chemically enhanced his performance. The cable news wing of NBC, MSNBC, along with Fox News, dropped everything to provide wall-to-wall coverage of Clements, who appeared before the committee along side his alleged drug pusher. The evening news cycle was dominated by the testimony of Roger the Rocket.
I should point out that Congressional hearings were held to establish why more soldiers were turning to suicide. The Surgeons General of all the military branches were called in and questioned - on CSPAN. I give full marks to the Congress for investigating the problem, but where was the news media?
Were they still at the ballgame? Sadly, they had box seats.
On the heels of Waxman's ground-breaking trip to the land of better baseball through chemistry, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter was turning over the dirt on another win-at-any cost scandal. I watched as Specter vowed to get to the bottom of who destroyed the tapes. Thinking for sure that Spector was referring to the destruction of CIA video tapes of illegal torture inflicted on detainees, I was disappointed.
Specter had his britches in a twist over the NFL and its destruction of the cheating tapes. In a press conference carried by several networks, Specter was beside himself at the thought that the NFL would dare destroy the evidence and he vowed to investigate.
Americans are tired of the war and most of us want to end it. The Congress has tried to pin the blame for this fiasco on the Bush Administration. Congressional investigators have been thwarted at every turn by the most corrupt and secretive Administration in our history. Like trying to fill a leaky bucket, their efforts have failed.
Is the news media tired too? Are television news editors just looking for something different? I wish the answers to those questions were easy.
Any of us who have studied the news media may rightly conclude that, with the voice, comes responsibilities. Yes, we have a wide spectrum of news sources today and few of us have an excuse for not keeping up with current events. Some issues deserve coverage that goes beyond a mere 90 second news report. The war, and the tragic consequences it has wrought, is still the number one issue we must all confront.
The scope of these consequences is wider than life and death. The moral and economic future of the country depends on news coverage that reminds us - everyday single day - that the story is the war.
Michael O'Brien
I thought there was a war on. For the past 5 years, the nightly news was awash in reports from embedded correspondents. Like turning off the lights, the war seems to have disappeared. Yes, there has been a decline in American combat casualties along with the daily bloodbath resulting from sectarian violence.
But this is still a shooting war where American troops and Iraqi civilians die on a daily basis. Many Iraqi's still lack fresh water, sanitation and electricity. Over 2 million displaced civilians are either homeless or have left the country. Thousands of American families still suffer from the agony of losing loved ones.
Add to that an occupation with no end in sight and things look pretty grim.
Wounded soldiers and veterans are still groping through a morass of bureaucratic red tape on the road to recovery. An alarming number of U.S. Army soldiers have chosen to leave their problems behind by taking their own lives - 121 in 2007 alone. That translates to a suicide rate of over 17 per 100,000 troops, a jump of 60 percent since late 2002 when the rate was 11 per 100,000.
According to a recent Associated Press report, there were over 2,100 suicide attempts during 2007. That there were 500 such attempts in 2001 should give everyone pause, including television news editors and members of Congress.
As the war on Iraq and the human cost fades from the nightly news, other issues have filled the void. To watch the corporate-controlled news media, reporting on the war has all but disappeared. The apparent shift in the headlines is troubling on several levels.
Like a mirror image of our national state of attention deficit disorder, the American news media is a fickle institution, often allowing itself to be drawn to and fro. Like a leaf in the wind, the focus the ongoing presidential primaries has been blown toward domestic economic problems. Not a small change since the war - and the resulting carnage - was at the top of the issues list for most voters just six months ago.
A national election cycle has an undeniable effect on news coverage and I understand that. Who will be the next President is no small story and the question has global implications. What I do not understand is how the far removed we are from the realities and consequences of the war on Iraq.
So where, oh where has the news coverage gone? From what I can tell, television news - and the Congress - has taken what my father used to call a busman's holiday. They have gone to the ballgame.
That's right, steroid abuse among some of the biggest stars of Major League Baseball has grabbed the spotlight. Not to be ignored, the National Football League suffered through its own cheating scandal. It seems that members of the New England Patriots coaching staff were caught having video taped the defense signals of an opposing team.
Oh, the humanity!
Veteran Congressional watchdog, Representative Henry Waxman sprang into action. Dropping ongoing investigations of a corrupt Administration, Waxman's House committee held hearings on whether pitching ace Roger Clements chemically enhanced his performance. The cable news wing of NBC, MSNBC, along with Fox News, dropped everything to provide wall-to-wall coverage of Clements, who appeared before the committee along side his alleged drug pusher. The evening news cycle was dominated by the testimony of Roger the Rocket.
I should point out that Congressional hearings were held to establish why more soldiers were turning to suicide. The Surgeons General of all the military branches were called in and questioned - on CSPAN. I give full marks to the Congress for investigating the problem, but where was the news media?
Were they still at the ballgame? Sadly, they had box seats.
On the heels of Waxman's ground-breaking trip to the land of better baseball through chemistry, Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter was turning over the dirt on another win-at-any cost scandal. I watched as Specter vowed to get to the bottom of who destroyed the tapes. Thinking for sure that Spector was referring to the destruction of CIA video tapes of illegal torture inflicted on detainees, I was disappointed.
Specter had his britches in a twist over the NFL and its destruction of the cheating tapes. In a press conference carried by several networks, Specter was beside himself at the thought that the NFL would dare destroy the evidence and he vowed to investigate.
Americans are tired of the war and most of us want to end it. The Congress has tried to pin the blame for this fiasco on the Bush Administration. Congressional investigators have been thwarted at every turn by the most corrupt and secretive Administration in our history. Like trying to fill a leaky bucket, their efforts have failed.
Is the news media tired too? Are television news editors just looking for something different? I wish the answers to those questions were easy.
Any of us who have studied the news media may rightly conclude that, with the voice, comes responsibilities. Yes, we have a wide spectrum of news sources today and few of us have an excuse for not keeping up with current events. Some issues deserve coverage that goes beyond a mere 90 second news report. The war, and the tragic consequences it has wrought, is still the number one issue we must all confront.
The scope of these consequences is wider than life and death. The moral and economic future of the country depends on news coverage that reminds us - everyday single day - that the story is the war.
