AB3A's Journal: The Fog of Journalism

The availability of real time reports from the battlefield to the news broadcasters doesn't mean that the information we get out of Iraq is any better than it was for previous conflicts. If anything, it's worse.

This 'blog is something I call the "Fog of Journalism." It explains how three different reporters can see the same damned thing and report it three different ways.

Journalism is not what Journalists would like us to think it is. It's not impartial; it's more ignorant than most realize; and it is often distorted by hostility, empathy, or simplification.

First, if nothing else, there is a bias toward sensationalism. Reports get reframed in an attractive manner so that people will watch, read, and pay attention. Politically important but otherwise humdrum details often get lost in the noise. For example, it's far easier to report yet another study concluding there is global warming than it is to report that most environmental scientists have only a half baked opinion of what is going on.

Second, too many reporters are confusing independent views with total ignornance. Most stories are filtered through the incomplete knowledge or background of the reporter. Although journalists are usually advised to curb their own biases, this doesn't mean they should park their brains or ignore personal experience. Yet many do just that. They report obvious nonsense because they don't wish to appear "biased."

Further, they often empathize with the people they're interviewing, even when these people are quite ignorant or mistaken. Combine empathy or hostility with ignorance and before you know it reality becomes a casualty.

Third, expertise in the use of the medium doesn't guarantee accuracy. The fact that a reporter can glibly string words together in a manner that appears to make sense does not mean they understand what they're reporting. Conciseness is good for making headlines and explaining things, but it also can over-simplify an issue. The more complex the issue, the more likely it will be distorted.

And finally, with deadlines being forced to nearly zero (real time reporting), nobody pauses to think about what they're doing, writing, or saying.

So, think about those bleary eyed people on TV croaking through satellite telephones and ask yourself, how much do they really understand about what they're seeing? Do they know the battle plans of both sides? Do they know what kind of firefight they're in? Do they understand the geography, weather, local politics, or other such detail about the terrain?

No. They don't. I don't think we'll see a suitably accurate and considered picture of what really is happening in Iraq for at least a year. So take all those reports of chemical weapons plants, local population reactions, deadly firefights, and so forth, and file them for later. Some is hype, some is incomplete, some is empathy with one side or another, and some of it is just plain wrong.

Journalists mean well, but they're human. We are all blind people feeling different parts of the proverbial elephant. Only when we put it all together after the fact can we hope to understand what we were looking at.

Strategy

[intermodal]

the biggest problem with all these maps is that it gives a lot of good information to the enemy...pisses me off. I can only hope that the newscasters are making most of it up or are misinformed, for our troops' sake

Re:Strategy

[AB3A]

I was wondering about that too. However, the presence of ground troops moving across the desert is very hard to hide from casual satellite photos. I wouldn't be surprised to see it show up on weather images. Even if embedded reporters didn't say anything, I'm sure that reports could come from Russian and French sources with access to satellite data.

I guess that the US military commanders figured the goodwill from reporters would be more than worth the danger from possibly getting crude position data.