Martial Media Madness™

Thursday, 27 March 2003, 11:01

From the Guardian Media section:

• New York correspondent Gary Younge on wartime McCarthyism in America
• A guide to the warblogs and a guide to anti-war web sites
• The awkward squad liven things up in Qatar
• Al-Jazeera is at the centre of a new controversy about what it airs, and wins an anti-censorship award.

From the New York Times:

• Journalists from some surprising media outlets, including Rolling Stone, People magazine and MTV, are among the embeeded hacks in Iraq. “It is a recognition that not everyone gets their news from The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal,” Bryan G. Whitman, deputy assistant secretary for media operations for the Pentagon, told the Times. The article also quotes Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, who said “I know that this is part of a big propaganda machine and they recognize our demographics.”

From the Washington Post

• Media columnist Howard Kurtz, true to form, criticises the BBC for — get this — being objective. The column reads like Kurtz’ Roladex is the culled from the News Corp payroll: he unleashes veteran Beeb-bashers Andrew Sullivan and William Rees-Mogg to spout their usual refrains. Yawn.

From the blogs:

• iWire on the Jo Moore quality of much of the war news.
• Two more blogs have been blogrolled: Cursor.org and The Memory Hole.
• The Iraq Body Count web site is seeking to ensure that the unpleasant truths about warfare are not forgotten.

Another good general source lately has been The Poyner Institute

Update: Some people are suggesting that Iraq Body Count may be a coalition propaganda excercise. No evidence for this yet, but a pinch of salt may be advisable.

Entry Filed under: Miscellanea

Martial Media Madness™

“War porn” is one way the giddy media coverage of the war has been described. This story sums it up nicely:

“As a scholar of porn, I look at this and say ‘these are boys with phallic toys‘,” sighs Linda Williams, professor of film studies and rhetoric at UC Berkley. It’s not a new observation, but what is new, is the extent to which it is amplified by technology. “CNN have this special thing they do whenever they introduce a new weapon. It reminds me of the way athletes are introduced in coverage of the Olympics: a little inset comes out with their bio and stats.

[...]

For the most part, the representations of war don’t put too much store in reality. “I’ve never had a great deal of sympathy for Baudrillard,” says Linda Williams, “but there is something to be said for the hyper-reality of this situation: it is intensified reality, verging on the unreal.”

Yes indeed.

Leave it to the Sun to forget that “war porn” wasn’t meant literally (adult content warning: jingoistic soft porn). Of course, things could be worse.

Entry Filed under: Miscellanea