I have two 24/7 news channels on my cable, BBC World and EuroNews, and none of them are much good. Lileks is right on target with this remark:

NPR is running . . . the BBC. It's interesting, listening to these guys - I'm unsure how it's possible to sneer the entire time you're speaking. I fear the announcer's face will stay that way. Perhaps you can recognize an old Beeb hand by the permanently curled lip.

This isn't a figure of speech. The BBC's favourite studio analysist at the moment is one Alan George, a gleefully pessimistic pundit with what literally can only be described as a smug, permanent sneer. The actual reporting of the BBC is somewhat better than its commentary, (thanks to its large number of well-placed journalists), and the only other major quarrel I have with them is their tendency to run long sequences of war footage with their hideous "we are important and we know it" theme music playing in the background.

EuroNews doesn't have much content, they just repeat what they have over and over again, but they do have one excellent feature. It's called No Comment, and consists of various edited footage from around the world, shown without any comments. You have no idea how refreshing it is to watch TV news without TV news commentators butting in all the time to tell you what you're seeing, what it means for the overall war effort, and how much they really, really want a journalism prize.

The Norwegian TV channels have less original reporting, (though a lot more than in 91), but on the comment and analysis side they're actually quite good, which is to say that they're critical, without buying into too much pro-war hype or anti-war hysteria.

But of course - as Gulf War I was CNN's war, Gulf War II belongs to the web. TV is still unbeatable at providing a sense of now, and there's no web replacement for war zone footage, but when it comes to the details of what is happening, and to analysis, the web is on a wholly different level. This is partly thanks to weblogs. I remember writing some time after September 11, when this whole warblog thing was still new, that one thing that made me optimistic about the future was that any war taking place in the future, and which involved an online country, would be covered by houndreds, thousands of bloggers. That has certainly been proven true. And who could have guessed then that by 2003, even the big media would run warblogs?

You know, I'm really getting to like the future.

[Money quote after the ***.]

Getting all the coverage in the U.S. I can report that the central actions and operations are not being covered at all (because the military is not allowing the embedded journalists to go on air, I presume). Last night we got a three-hour, static, coninuous live coverage of a 'battle' between a Marine platoon and anywhere between 12 or 120 Iraqi troops (conflicting reports), and it was at the time the FIRST BIG BATTLE (skirmish) BROADCAST IN REAL TIME, yet it turns out it was a little event happening far in the rear of the already advanced main body of coalition troops. The city had already been taken and it was just a mop up event. Meanwhile we hear of larger, real battles taking place and there are no pictures and no sound from them.

The way it is turning out the coverage is now a feeding frenzy for journalists and news organisations that want to see the United States look bad, and that want to help the U. S. look bad.

***In other words with all the possibilities for accessing and broadcasting images that show the U.S. in a bad light, even though they are dishonest images when used for those purposes, the America-haters in the U.S. and world media are in 'deniable' anti-America propaganda bliss.

Fortunately, though, there does seem to be a degree of media savvy among the commentators and (I get the feel) viewers in that it is realized that what is seen on the television screen is not what is happening.

Ok, so my 'money quote' is rather conventional. It's difficult to not be conventional on the internet (due to the numbers of active geniuses like oneself).

I've just been listening to ABC News (American Broadcasting Company) on the radio, and it is beyond charicature. Aside from their repetitive, insistent litanies of every negative development they can cull from all sources (not to mention the negative spin they put on positive developments) they refuse to even call George W. Bush President Bush. Only 'Mr. Bush' will they allow to come out of their disdainful mouths...

I've been seeing alot of propaganda on the web, such as www.whatreallyhappened.com, which is as about as biased as you can get. I've also been checking out Pravda, which is as stridently anti-american as they were during the cold war, their articles are so laughably biased only a moron wouldn't be able to see how they are slanting the news. The American coverage that I've seen has been mostly 'just the facts' and hasn't really challenged anything stated by our military. Watching NBC, it seems that their reporters are acting like the war is no big deal, sorta 'been there done that... yawn'. The local anchors were reporting just the facts, but when the credits ran you could see that they were rather disgusted with their job.

I drove through Philadelphia and South Jersey yesterday, there were a surprising amount of people out and about, I went to a pinball machine auction, turnout was the same as usual, I also went to the Cherry Hill mall and it was packed.. lots of people. I didn't see a single protestor, if I didn't have access to news outlets, I wouldn't even know that we were at war by observing our citizens.

My brother's being shipped out next week, he said he'll probably be driving a truck to support the troops, or he may be airdropped into Northern Iraq.

Surreal, pathetic moment on CNN. They were interviewing a photographer that was driving the car in which British journalist Terry Lloyd was killed. The photographer narrated the incident and described how Iraqi soldiers had overtaken them and then open up automatic fire into their car. - Meanwhile... - CNN was running a graphic underneath the interview saying ITN (the network that Lloyd worked for) was saying Lloyd was killed by 'coalition fire'.

Here was the PHOTOGRAPHER who was driving the car stating it was IRAQI SOLDIERS and the news service had put out word to the world that their guy was killed by 'coalition fire', and CNN had it up on the screen DURING the interview.

The fact that ITN - a 'news' service - put out a bald faced lie (to make the coalition look bad obviously) I won't even go into. That's expected of these types of 'news' organisations.

Next time,

Instead of merely enjoying our Norwegian Cheerleaders, we will invade foreign countries using the world famous Norwegian army and air force

I am ashamed to be an american

Mark Konrad
VNN
http://www.vanguardnewsnetwork.com/readerMail/default.asp

[*DELETED* Mark: You have no business posting here until you've read and replied to this: http://www.bearstrong.net/warblog/000098.html#000219 It's a very simple rule, really, _no personal attacks_ and threats, no "FUCK YOU REPUBLICANS", no "mental dorks", no "you're going to pay for this". I would also remind you to stay on topic (ie. when people come to read comments to a post called "War Coverage" they expect to read comments more or less related to that subject, not any random anti-war rant), and also (again) not to quote entire articles. Quote the interesting part, and provide an URL for the rest. These are very simple rules, (I'll repost them shortly), and without them this place will turn into one of the inner circles of Usenet. - bs 25/3/2003]

Mark, have you considered we might be fighting al qaeda?

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