Letters to the Editor
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Shocking!
So I'm not convinced what changing ownership rules accomplishes.
Electro Robot
Yup, you sure aren't, my little auto-voltaic friend, you sure aren't.
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@Democritus
Here's a link to a page where you can download the complete text of the 2002 World Development Report, which includes the chapter on the media:
http://tinyurl.com/5nh2o9
(I've never used Tinyurl before so let me know if this works!)
That page also has links to the consultations and background papers, which are also very useful. There's also a lot of media-related stuff on the WB site, incl things about media law and regulation, media role in development, etc. The top level page for the search I did on media ownership is:
http://extsearch.worldbank.org/servlet/SiteSearchServlet?qUrl=&ed=&q=media+ownership
If you're in a position to put your research in front of anybody, be warned that in DC they will roll their eyes when you mention the world bank ... but once you know what you're looking for, you can find corroborating reports on USAID's site (in addition to media, you might want to search on Internews and IREX, two groups that do a lot of USAID-funded media work ... and whose program reports are available there).
Hope that helps!
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stories you won't see
this just in: we in the media are dickweeds! film at 11.
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@mrrichardfeder
BOB ZELNICK: As I said, I think it should be disclosed right at the outset. But what do we expect these guys to do after 30 or 40 years in the service, during which time they've risen to the ranks of the most senior officers?
We would expect them to wind up as consultants or, as I said, we call them Beltway bandits. I just don't get upset over something that's completely natural, completely to be expected, and widely known throughout the industry.
If that doesn't epitomize the IBM (Inside the Beltway Mentality) then nothing does...
Amen to your comment above. If I had had an opportunity to respond to Mr. Zelnick, I would have said it would be much LESS of a problem if high-ranking ex-military officers would stay away from offering their "analysis" as clearly political rather than as military tactical and/or strategic commentary. If saying the "right" thing at the "right" time and at the "right" place positions them even more cosily with a Defense Department more than willing to dole out multi-billions to defense industry corporate entities, then I at least want to know up front who they work for or who they represent. And for God's sake, the MSM has a responsibility to challenge their statements and proclamations, at LEAST by airing (preferably during the same segment) the opinions of those who do not agree with their positions.
On another note, I must state that the work by Glenn lately has risen several orders of magnitude above his normally brilliant work, and the commentors here likewise. I continue to be educated many times over by this thoughtful exchange.
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Kurtz begs a larger question
Few media outlets other than Salon will even cover the story.
What Kurtz has done is to make me ask the question...."does the MSM truly have an agenda to deliberately ignore the problems of Iraq ?"....and why ?
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@Glenn
Just a heads up.
You get a mention and link at Matt Armstrong's blog:
Hidden Hand follow up
By MountainRunner on April 23, 2008 4:31 PM
The fallout from David Barstow's Hidden Hand article in the Sunday New York Times is yet to be fully felt, but it should spark discussion in several realms. The first and foremost is the role and responsibility of the media. Second is the debate that public affairs informs and does not influence. Third is the responsibility of America's military officers, even in retirement. And fourth, the question of whether the "Hidden Hand" was legal. What follows is a follow up to my previous post on Barstow's article.
Since 9/11, the media has been debating its own role in portraying events. It has simultaneously criticized and defended its actions. Stephen Hess and Marvin Kalb explored this in their 2003 book The Media and the War on Terrorism that captured twenty forums on the subject held between October 2001 and September 2002. The co-option of the media was frequent, if not obvious. Often the media explained its seeming pro-war position through commercial and constituent pressures, as Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman found in their interviews with Aaron Brown. As Robert Siegel noted in the book,
...in this case journalism is not providing the first draft of history. The Pentagon is providing the first draft. We get to do a second draft after the reporters come through the places that we have already heard accounts about, and they then get to see what happened. ... Reports have been reduced to rewriting what was originally reported out of various Pentagon briefings.
Greenwald touched on, but didn't emphasize, that the media uses more than retired military officers to explain the case and will be selective in who they bring on as an "expert." Let's not forget that the flag-on-the-lapel litmus test used today on presidential candidates was also used on reporters.
Further, the media enthusiastically adopted the embedded format barely questioning the soda-straw view of the war that resulted. The sympathetic tone the reporters took with the units they naturally bonded with was looked upon, and rightly so, with great pleasure by the Pentagon. What had been a suspect plan turned out to be genius. RAND's Chris Paul and James J. Kim wrote what is probably the only deep analysis of the embedded system and found examples of patriotic bias and lost objectivity.
The second point on the role of public affairs is one I've raised previously and don't want to belabor here (if you're a new reader, read this and this). Andrew Exum and I share what public affairs' role in this incident signifies: a greater attention to manage domestic perceptions than global perceptions in a war of ideas and information...
http://mountainrunner.us/2008/04/hidden_hand_follow_up.html
Armstrong also had a post last year at SWJ on the Smiith-Mundt Act:
http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2007/11/what-the-secdef-didnt-call-for/
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The Selling of the Pentagon
While I agree with Glenn's point that the major media hasn't done any kind of comprehensive analysis on itself regarding its failures with respect to the Iraq War, there have been other documents in recent American history that have hit near the mark - in documenting the Pentagon's various attempts at domestic propaganda.
One is the landmark CBS documentary "The Selling of the Pentagon" (1971).
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/sellingofth/sellingofth.htm
Another is the recent documentary exploring America's culture of militarism, "Why We Fight".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight_(2005_film)
The first example is particularly relevant because it serves to show just how far we've fallen since the Vietnam era in terms of the quality of major media reporting.