Today, I remembered one article that completely changed my views about the media. And trust me, I have always wanted to work in the media industry and to be honest for a long time I tried to turn a blind eye to its deficiencies. While studying Mass Media at university, I realized that my approach was wrong. David Barstow’s article was one of my biggest breakthroughs in understanding.
Barstow investigative piece sufficiently describes how easily the public opinion is swayed by people that should represent objective sources, mainly military officials, who were appointed as impartial analysts. However this rather innocent fairy-tale turned out to be a farce for deceiving the audience. The supposed impartial officers were taken on paid trips to Iraq where they were given lectures by Pentagon officials, who dictated them what should be reported and how. Or they were shown only representative sites and places or ‘detention camps’ which is another euphemism for prisons. What is alarming in this case is, that the news networks had no idea who are they dealing with. Moreover they did not care.
It fascinates me how easily it was for the Pentagon officials to get colored and honored military officials to echo implemented reports from their Iraq trips. Pentagon in my opinion serves as a corporate engine for fabricating news, experts and even the news anchors. And this article shows, how Pentagon applied very ingenious and elaborate actions, to diminish the possibility of diverse opinion among their own people.
Almost a compulsory reading for everyone, amazing work has been done by David Barstow – Pulitzer Prize winner of 2008.
Source:
Barstow, David. "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon's Hidden Hand." The New York Times. 20 Apr. 2008. Web. 12 Sep. 2009
Picture:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/04/19/washington/20generals_span.jpg
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