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Sunday, Jul 12, 2009
You can't say TV news didn't do its part for the war effort. A highlight reel, starring Matt, Joe, Sean and Paula.
Apr 18, 2003 | As the war in Iraq raged overseas, a battle also broke out between the rival cable news networks that might best be described as: Who can make White House press secretary Ari Fleischer happiest?
CNN, MSNBC and Fox News duked it out for the attention of a concerned public that, by and large, could get the same press conferences, attack footage and falling statues from every outlet. The competitive credo all three networks seem to have followed from the very beginning -- when in doubt, wave a flag -- was largely a reaction to Fox, which vaulted past CNN in the past year by embracing a conservative coloring of all news. CNN rallied with some shameless patriotism of its own, as did the major networks. But before long it was the struggling MSNBC that may have wrested from Fox the mantle of most blatant, schmaltzily jingoistic network in the land. MSNBC is still a distant third in the ratings race, but it tightened the slack between it and second-place CNN.
Ah, but why give MSNBC all the glory? All the networks have had their moments in the past month. It's time for the highlight reel. So pin that flag on your lapel, and let's survey the top 10 moments in jingoistic war coverage.
10. The "surgical strike"
A favored military term picked up by the most credulous media is the use of "precision" or "surgical" bombings. While bombs in the Iraq war are undoubtedly much more accurate than those used in the past, there were still reports of inevitable missed targets and civilian casualties in the current conflict, a number that might not be determined for some time. But the Pentagon fed that terminology to a willing media, and the more clueless reporters eagerly gobbled it up.
As the liberal media watchdog group FAIR reported, the term popped up frequently on NBC. Reporter Bob Faw described "a community which very much endorses that surgical strike against Saddam Hussein," and "Today" co-host Matt Lauer, in reference to Baghdad, said, "The people in that city have endured two nights of surgical airstrikes." The terms were also casually used on other networks, including CNN, Fox News and CBS.
9. Public Enemy No. 2: The French!
"What do you think of the French in general?" Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto asked Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., while interviewing him about how the U.S. should now deal with nations that opposed the war. "They're not a power that I know of ... Why do we even bother with them?
Joe Scarborough, former Republican congressman and host of the nightly "MSNBC Reports" (now called "Scarborough Country"), took a similarly gratuitous swipe at our erstwhile allies who opposed our war with Iraq. Introducing a news segment about U.S. victories over Iraqi troops, Scarborough intoned, "But first, Saddam's French advisors taught him how to do one thing right: surrender."
8. Public Enemy No. 3: Entertainers!
The worst in this department was most certainly Scarborough, who devoted regular segments on his show to mocking celebrities after it became clear the war was nearly over. He showed a clip of Jessica Lange saying, "The path this administration is on is wrong, and we object. We object in our hearts, in our minds. It is an immoral war." Similarly, he showed Ed Asner saying, "I would never give this administration any sign of approval, because I think that they've ripped up this war to satisfy their own needs, not the nation's needs."
Neither of these actors, of course, predicted the U.S. would lose the war. The fact that the U.S. won doesn't make their arguments that the war was immoral or that President Bush is not to be trusted more or less arguable. But Scarborough was undeterred. "I've always found it so remarkable that these leftist stooges, for anti-American causes, are always given a free pass," he said April 10.
