The 2003 war in Iraq was one of the most significant wars in American history. The United States had just been a victim of terrorism and was seeking revenge by any means necessary. Saddam Hussein and his military were a threat to the U.S. and the world, claiming that their country possessed weapons of mass destruction. The United States wasn’t having any of it and declared war on Iraq. The media went crazy! Television news stations such as FOX, CNN, CBS, MSNBC, PBS, and ABC covered the war from every angle and gave insight on what our military was doing in Iraq, but were they showing an accurate representation of what was really going on in Iraq, or was it a biased Americanized version of what these media wants you to see? Amy Goodman sure …show more content…
Instead of being given the truth about our attacks and the real consequences of them, we are given these Hollywood inspired stories glorifying the military for the damage being done in Iraq. I remember as a child sitting and watching the news shows covering the events in Iraq, and all I ever heard was would how solders would infiltrate and bomb cities like Baghdad and how we are fighting for freedom. Not once did I ever hear about how innocent children were being killed, and how the bombs being dropped were obliterating neighborhoods filled with innocent families. I don’t remember hearing about the fourteen journalists being killed covering the stories in Iraq. Nor do I remember hearing about how the U.S. knowingly shelled a Palestinian hotel that was filled with hundreds of journalists from all over the world. Yet these are the kinds of events that television stations like CNN and FOX forget to show or just barely seem to cover. How do we as American citizens living in a “Democracy” expect to get real unbiased media coverage about the war when we have individuals like U.S. General Wesley Clark covering and reporting the events in Iraq? Like Amy Goodman stated if they can have U.S. army generals on their payroll reporting the news why not also hire peace activists, and peace leaders to share their input as well. Why not bring in some credible doctors to show the people how the terrible effects of the bombs being dropped in Baghdad really are. That’s what a true democracy would do; but instead we are feed this extremely biased garbage of news brainwashing our citizens into thinking that what we are doing in Iraq is perfectly fine when it obviously isn’t. It’s a shame knowing that American citizens have to watch the news from other countries to get an accurate report about what’s going on in
The media takes a biased approach on the news that they cover, giving their audience an incomplete view of what had actually happened in a story. Most people believe that they are not “being propagandized or being in some way manipulated” into thinking a certain way or hearing certain “truths” told by their favorite media outlets (Greenwald 827). In reality, everyone is susceptible to suggestion as emphasized in the article “Limiting Democracy: The American Media’s World View, and Ours.” The
Tim O’Brien states in his novel The Things They Carried, “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat” (77). This profound statement captures not only his perspective of war from his experience in Vietnam but a collective truth about war across the ages. It is not called the art of combat without reason: this truth transcends time and can be found in the art produced and poetry written during the years of World War I. George Trakl creates beautiful images of the war in his poem “Grodek” but juxtaposes them with the harsh realities of war. Paul Nash, a World War I artist, invokes similar images in his paintings We are Making a New World and The Ypres Salient at Night. Guilaume Apollinaire’s writes about the beautiful atrocity that is war in his poem “Gala.”
World War I was a very deadly war with over 100 million human casualties(deaths plus injured). Therefore war is a very transformative event for humanity, because it always affects individuals, societies, and even the world in a pessimistic way.
“Murrow, McCarthy and the media frontier analyzed” also discusses how “we as a country walked into the war in Iraq without the media doing its job…It may be official blacklisting or maybe not, but deception is just as possible today in different forms (Sasanow, 3).”
A good part of Outfoxed focuses on the company's blurring of news and commentary, how anchormen and reporters are encouraged to repeatedly use catch-phrases like "some people say..." as a means of editorializing within a supposedly objective news story; how graphics, speculation and false information are repeated over-and-over throughout the broadcast day until it appears to become fact, and in doing so spreads like a virus and copied on other networks. A PIPA/Knowledge Networks Poll points to glaring, fundamental misconceptions about the news perpetuated upon Fox viewers, versus information received from widely respected news-gathering organizations like NPR and PBS. Asked, for instance, "Has the U.S. found links between Iraq & al-Qaeda?" only 16% of PBS and NPR viewers answered "yes," but a frightening 67% of Fox viewers believed there had.
In this paper, I intend to analyze Iraq war of 2003 from Realist and Marxist/ Critical perspectives. I intend to draw a conclusion as to which theoretical framework, in my opinion, is more suitable and provides for a rational understanding of the Iraq War. While drawing comparative analysis of two competing approaches, I do not intend to dismiss one theory in entirety in favour of another. However, I do intend to weigh on a golden balance, lacunas of both theories in order to conclude as to which theory in the end provides or intends to provide a watertight analysis of the Iraq war.
The media is often considered to be biased. The reason for this is because they do not act neutral on the things that they report on. They usually give their point of view and tend to warp the information so it’s easily digestible by the average person. This type of “nugget feeding,” can influence the judgment of some one who has no idea what is going on. The media tends to sensationalize the news by making it seem dramatic, and compelling. This hooks the viewer, and keeps them tuned in. The purpose of this is for ratings, and most importantly money. The media has become less professional, and their morality has gone down hill. The editors/gatekeepers decide what information is sent out for the public to see, and hear. This is another way that the news is shaped for our viewing pleasure.
Minimizing harm done by journalism in times of war is a difficult task. Naturally, there are bits of information that the government needs to keep secret for one reason or another. There is also the danger of victims' stories being exploited and sensationalized. The SPJ's Code of Ethics recommends that journalists should "treat sources, subjects and colleagues as human beings worthy of respect" (Society). During the extreme...
The press is essential in gaining the support of the people. During the world wars, “journalists considered themselves a part of the war effort”(Press Freedom vs. Military Censorship). However, the military fears that if the public is informed of the true war conditions, then they would be less willing to encourage the suffering of their loved ones. “Starting with the Korean War and then Vietnam, the press took an increasingly independent and critical view of the military...When the war in Southeast Asia finally ended, many in the military blamed the press for ‘losing Vietnam’”(Press Freedom vs. Military Censorship). On the contrary, lying to gain the misplaced trust of the people has an equally crippling effect. “Such phony optimism will encourage public support in the short run, just as false low assessments of the enemy’s size did early in the war in Vietnam, but it undermines support in the long run along with the precious trust in government”(Etzioni). Citizens cannot have faith in a government that would deceitfully manipulate them. Censorship doesn’t preserve the support of the people--it destroys
Argument Rather than being explained through political theories, as has been done up until now, the question of why did media scrutiny of the Vietnam War contribute to the end of that conflict by eroding domestic support for the war, yet greater media scrutiny during the War on Terror has not led to a similar outcome can be answered through historical fact. The role of media in outbreak news played a vital role in dramatic shifts of opinion during the Vietnam War. In the beginning of the war, the U.S. media was not interested in covering stories out of Vietnam with only the most breaking news covered. Elite opinions were in support of war efforts, and little attention was paid to the situations occurring in Vietnam beside the outbreak and containment
Walter Lippmann once said, “We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy’s side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.” Every battle has two sides to the story. One story comes from the media, and one comes from the field of battle, the people who were there. The media insists on using hyperbole to attract people into believing the complete wrong story. ("War, Propaganda and the Media." - Global Issues. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.) The goal behind media is to get people excited into knowing the wrong things. Maybe not necessarily wrong, but maybe they just don’t tell you the whole story. They only use selective stories and they also narrow down the range of discourse. For example, Vietnam was named the first television war. PBS was the station that reported things. Also, the people that wanted to know things about the war and follow it, were very disappointed in what they heard. Americans finally realized this was a war we should have fought to win and wondered why we didn’t. People believe it was because of how the media reported the war. It was said that “during the Vietnam war, journalism and news media unintentionally caused a massive shift of American citizens viewpoint of the war.” The reason for this was because it was the first time people could write and report to the American citiz...
Media played a vital role in changing the views of pro-war Americans to anti-war views by giving death counts, setting the stage for the anti-war movement to perform on, and publicizing leaked government information. The Vietnam War was known as the first televised war (“Vietnam Television”). Americans could watch as United States Troops fought, and the nightly news updated Americans on the death count and progress of US Troops in Vietnam (“Vietnam Television”).
Was the Iraq war worth the fight and the lost of over thousands of american lives, or was it a waste of time, people, and resources.Well the only people that can fully understand the conflict are the veterans and politicians In order to fully understand the Iraq war individuals will have to learn about the Iraq and United states relations before the war including the cause,and the effect of the war.
Lake explains how the bargaining theory model can help us understand the causes of wars and how they can be prevented, but the model lacks in some important areas. According to the author, the war in Iraq shows this failure because the theory does not explain why the war happened even though there were many less costly options for both sides to take. In my opinion, I believe incomplete information + incentives to misrepresent best explains the outbreak of the Iraq war. This reason explains that there is an assumption on complete information such as each country's costs and their chance of victory. The misrepresentation explanation on wars suggests that countries don't always declare the truth and they state whatever is in their best interest.
Both groups further believed that th... ... middle of paper ... ... 004). This shows the role played by the media in the Iraqi War and how the media was used to change the general public perception about the invasion. Bibliography Knightly, P. The First Casualty: From the Crimea to Vietnam: the War Correspondent .