WikiLeaks Kicks American Media’s Butt
Those of us who are in the software industry have been in situations where we release a product to the customer only to find that the customer has found some issues that requires another full release or a patch release. In such situations one of the first questions that management wants answered is why we did not catch the defect in the first place.
After some initial finger pointing between the test and development teams we normally come up with excuses that are aimed at minimizing the damage like stating that we already knew about this issue or that the issue is minor and can be fixed easily. If all these excuses do not satisfy our managers then we can always blame the current process and state that the new process that we are implementing will prevent such incidents from happening in the future.
I was reminded of this scenario as I was watching the reaction of the so-called terrorism, foreign affairs and national security experts to the news that an organization called WikiLeaks has leaked over 90,000 classified American documents regarding military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of these experts particularly those on television (CNN, MSNBC and Fox) towed the government line.
The general consensus among these experts and talking heads was that this was a violation of Federal law, that the leaks might put American and allied assets in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq in danger and most importantly that there is nothing new in these revelations. If the information is old and well known how can any leak increase the level of threat?
The decision of the government to downplay the impact of these leaks is expected and to some extent understandable. But why is the media dancing to the same tune? Have we not learnt anything from the Iraq war coverage? Downplaying the information contained in these leaked documents is rather interesting considering that the American media routinely breaks away from regularly scheduled programming to show “breaking news” such as the local fire department trying to rescue a cat that is stuck in a tree.
I think that the American media is trying to downplay the contents of this issue primarily because they were caught with their pants down once again by foreign media outlets and watchdog groups. America is at war in Afghanistan and Iraq and according to the leaked reports a proxy war with Pakistan. But an average American has forgotten about these wars and the American media barely covers them anymore.
The foreign media has taken over the responsibility of covering the war much more frequently and accurately. The foreign media outlets have also shown that they are staying true to some of the basic principles of journalism which is gather information report the truth and most importantly inform the public. When was the last time CNN, MSNBC or Fox News broke any story on Iraq or Afghanistan.
Most of the hosts (almost all of whom have multimillion dollar contracts) and experts (almost all of whom have close ties to the armed forces and intelligence establishment) were sitting in air-conditioned studios in Washington DC, New York or London and discussing the leaks. None of them were in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan. Most of them were of the opinion that what our soldiers are reporting from the front lines is old news. What is wrong with this picture?
“The bigger the information media, the less courage and freedom they allow. Bigness means weakness.” – Eric Sevareid
Related posts:
- Is the American Dream Dead?
- The Decline of the American News Media
- American Missions Not Accomplished
- India Should Stop Complaining About American Aid To Pakistan
- India Proposes High-Level Talks with Pakistan
Category: News & Government
I’ve noticed that American news channels don’t usually give importance to the ground realities regarding the Afghan situation. They only focus on how many US soldiers are dying.
This time however, I’m actually surprised to the the New York Times analyze this info and draw deductions – they don’t normally do that.
The American public and media are more focussed on Iran and N. Korea – not Afghanistan. It’s a bit silly actually since it’ll be nothing but suicide for either of those countries to even load a nuke, let alone detonate one…
You are correct. American media (and the most part Americans themselves) do not want to see the ground realities of the wars. They just want to see the end result. This is what happens to rich countries that can conduct two wars at the same time and still go on without any impact on their day to day lives.
By the way dude, it’ll be really nice if you remove the “captcha”! It makes it tough to comment. I use a spam filter that cuts out 99% of the spam – perhaps a similar solution will work for you?
Thank you for the suggestion. I will first try to set the CAPTCHA severity to “low” and see how it works. If not I will use a filter.
Goog blog; echoes my sentiment about US media. I wish you had discussed the dynamics of 3-way relationship between US, Pakistan and India after the leaks, as most of your blogs are about India today. By the way, how did the Indian media fare on this matter compared to their US counterparts?
Thank you. On this particularly issue I do not think that the media in India fared any better (because India is not directly involved). There was the usual finger pointing at Pakistan and the “we told you so” at the United States. But I think that the Indian media is much more vibrant and dynamic compared to the United States.