The film explores how mass media justified the war in Iraq. Discover how the media failed in covering the war, becoming coverage rather then analysis.

Nut job makes an appearance at 13:11.

I wish i could upvote 5 times for that one.
Long watch but well worth it.

Am hoping more people see it. It raises alot of important questions, some that don't really deal with politics but with the degredation of the fourth estate.

It's curious how Wumpus, QuantumMushroom and the rest of that crowd never comment and or vote on topics such as this.

And where are the usual suspects upvoting this? Daphne? Swampgirl? How dare you all fail me...

At least LadyBug makes an appearance, strange that Ant is nowhere to be seen.

*promote

Re-promoting this video to the front page as a VideoSift Classic. Originally published on Sunday 1st October 2006 (promotion called by gold star member ren)

Don't have time to watch all of it but looked relatively interesting, if not particularly original. The convergence of the world's economic, political, military and communication systems has certainly had a huge effect on the nature of news, especially in the United States. It's for that reason that I try to get most of my news from the News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, as it has remained disentangled from the politics and money, and the politics of money, that has destroyed the creditability of network and particularly cable news. When CNN devotes it's 5:00-8:00PM timeslots to Nancy Grace and Entertainment news, it's pretty clear where their priorities are.

The real reason I decided not to watch all of this video however is that it did not appear that it was going to investigate the most important question associated with it's subject matter. The guy already seems to have decided what ethical war reporting is, and is devoting his movie to showing how war reporting of the Iraq War is unethical. I am already aware that reporting of the Iraq War, especially in it's run up, was hardly critical; I don't need an hour and a half long video to tell me that. What I would like to see examined is to what extent media manipulation during wartime is permissible in a democracy. I raise this question because the United States' most glaring military weakness is it's dependence upon popular support for any war it chooses to undertake. The Media war therefore becomes nearly as important as the ground war, yet two entirely different sets of rules and outlooks apply to the two wars.

An ethical war is the most desperate action a state can take, it is the least worst of bad options undertaken to acheive a greater good that exists in the long term. For a population accustomed to instant gratification, sacrifice and struggle for an uncertain positive outcome in the distant future is anathema. That's why leaders of states exist: to have the broader perspective of what is in a state's, and hopefully the international community at large as well, best interest. In democracies however, those leader's power is dependent upon the support of a general populace that is incapable of looking at the long term. To what extent then, is a leader ethical in taking undemocratic action to serve the best interests of the people? During wartime this becomes a question of what price victory. It's easy to dismiss this as an absurd question, that of course we shouldn't allow undemocratic action by our leaders because that would be undemocratic, but to do so would be to say that if the majority has decided it wants to march off a cliff then those in a position to redirect them should stand aside and let them march to their doom. Not all wars, and not all policies are such life and death issues, but even in less desperate situations I think it's an appropriate question to ask.

I bring all of this up because it seems fairly clear that the American public has decided that the sooner American involvement in Iraq ends, the better. The problem with that line of thinking is that Iraq is located in the Middle East, not South East Asia. Even if tomorrow the entire nation rallied behind a plan to end dependence on foreign oil and to cut all ties with our allies in the region, it would still take us several decades to completely disentangle ourselves from the middle east. My point here is that even if we wanted to, we cannot immediately end involvement with the most strategic region in the world. The outcome in Iraq is one that we are going to have to live with for a long time to come, we cannot simply wash our hands of what happens there. So the idea that rapid withdrawal is in America's best interest is in my opinion pure fantasy. It may be nice in the short term to stop having to read reports of American casualties, but in the long term we will have to deal with the consequences of a failed state smack dab in the Middle East. Victory is critical in my opinion, but the American people no longer have the will to win. The politically expedient move is to withdraw but such a move would be to the long run detriment of the nation. The rational decision for our leaders is irrational. This is perhaps the greatest danger of democracy, to what extent should we try to correct it?

farhad, i don't know why you disparage the media for wishing to go on the fun, fun, fun war embed ride. the most artful tactic of the Rumsfeld regime was the beautiful concept of embedding.

the media sounds so much different now that the approval ratings are swirling around the toilet. is the message tailored only to what the paying audience wants to hear?



*promote

Re-promoting this video to the front page as a VideoSift Classic. Originally published on Wednesday 13th December 2006 (promotion called by gold star member rickegee)

Obviously am drive by media leftist socialist pinko hippy violent teenager grown up on violent video games that make me crave a return to proper journalistic coverage of warfare like seen during the Vietnam war.

*long

This video has been marked Long (called by gold star member bizinichi)

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by critical_d.

*dead

This video has been declared non-functional; embed code must be fixed within 2 days or it will be sent to the dead pool - declared dead by bareboards2.