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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Baldur Fjvlnisson who wrote (1473)	1/15/2003 4:44:52 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25898

WAR? IT'S ALL ABOUT RATINGS, SHRUB'S and the MEDIA'S -- Baldur, Part of the sickness of America is a media the sees profits in the coverage of the Iraq war. They're pushing the war in order to have a way to goose their ratings. Here's some commentary on this: mediawhoresonline.com Aaron Brown Offended by "CNN Wants War" Letters Claims News Media Aren't That Cynical Remember Those "Wag the Dog" Allegations? CNN's Aaron Brown (1/14/03): If I get one more note from one more viewer saying we here, all of us, are hoping for a war because it will be good for ratings, I'm going to blow. Think about how dumb that is, that any of us in any of these networks, ours or the other ones, really sit around hoping for war, because it will be good for business... No one wants war. No one who does this work wants to cover one, wants to see their fellow citizens shot, anyone shot for that matter. So if we're going to argue about the war, let's do it on the merits, and not something so truly stupid as whether it will be good for business, because honestly, that's sick. Countless journalists and news executives have been quoted admitting that war will be good for cable news ratings, particularly CNN's. Most are not so foolish as to go a step further and admit they "hope war happens," but it's not much of a stretch to imagine that corporate execs in charge of news networks who believe a war is needed to put their network back on top, and careerist journalists who believe their careers will benefit in the event of a war, would hope for one. <End quote> MEDIA WHORES ONLINE: Not a stretch at all - considering that no one who has paid attention over the last two years to both corporate behavior and journalism can seriously claim individual journalists and executives in today's mainstream media are not willing to see their fellow Americans' best interests sacrificed for the sake of their own career advancement or the advancement of their news organizations. Do members of the media "want to see people shot"? Probably not. But that's not the honest question. Does anyone in the news media who stands to benefit hope a war takes place, despite knowing that loss of life is a possibility and/or recognizing a war is unnecessary? Almost certainly. (As for "sick," if Mr. Brown hopes to dispel the idea that CNN and other news organizations enjoy the hype and ratings of war - shouldn't he start by complaining not about his viewers' impressions, but to his own network's execs about CNN's slick and sick graphics that currently accompany Iraq coverage, as well as Time Warner's "timely" HBO broadcast of the movie Live From Baghdad, glorifying CNN's coverage of the first Gulf War?) A five minute Google search turned up a few interesting articles containing some crass commentary and calculations from members of the media discussing war and ratings: CNN news-gathering chief Eason Jordan is pointing to a recent satellite image of downtown Baghdad and the faint outline of the Al Rashid Hotel, where his reporters may again be broadcasting news of war. It's been 11 years since CNN's "Baghdad Boys" huddled in the hotel by candlelight, holding a microphone out a window to pick up the sounds of U.S. bombs and Iraqi anti-aircraft guns. The trio of Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett and John Holliman made the Atlanta-based network the media star of the Gulf War and an icon of the rising promise of cable TV. "No news story has done more to put CNN on the map," Jordan says... "[After the first Gulf War] the Chicken Noodle Network was taken seriously by everyone," says Tom Rosenstiel, the director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which is affiliated with Columbia University's graduate school of journalism. "Thereafter, cable and CNN were on in every newsroom around the country." Sound like a movie? On Dec. 7, HBO is due to air "Live From Baghdad" starring Michael Keaton -- the story of CNN's coverage of the Gulf War. Story accessatlanta.com Now behind Fox News Channel for an entire year in the domestic ratings, CNN is hoping to reclaim its past glory by becoming the leading source of information about the war on TV, and, its executives hope, the highest-rated one on cable. Doing so would solidify CNN's strategy of marketing itself as a more serious news alternative to Fox and MSNBC... CNN also cannot count out a challenge from third-place MSNBC, whose executives are hopeful that the war will pull it out of the cable news ratings doldrums, and are counting on more frequent reports from NBC News's better-known broadcast correspondents, who will be positioned throughout the Mideast. It has added a new program dedicated to the possible confrontation, called ''Countdown Iraq.'' accessatlanta.com