Market Forces

 
 
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I understand Media Matters' point that Katie was helpful.  That's because, before she got there, traditional media had mostly fallen sleep on Iraq this summer.

Still, I've gone through Couric's last few reports "on the ground" at CBSnews.com Video, and her reinforcement of Administration framing -- down to the indiscriminate repetition of the propaganda term "surge," and the incessant designation of  all unidentifiable antagonists as "al-Qaeda" -- more than cancelled out any good that might have come, given her follow-up free token inquiries in the face of the Administration's "good news" walking-and-talking point offensive.

In contrast, WAPO's piece on Tuesday (Weighing the 'Surge" - link) outlines how much the military is waging a perceptual war, specifically throwing cash at residents and merchants to open stalls in the markets, such as the one in Dora.  Listening to the military folks talk, the census of how exactly how many stores are open (whether cash registers are ringing or not) sounds to be one of the major narrowcast criteria for determining if the "surge" is working -- and apparently, the local brass keeps count down to the last flat bread stand.

Although Gen. Ray Odierno and his staff bent over backwards to give Katie Couric a thoroughly rosy market tour in East Baghdad, the pictures have trouble passing muster.  For example, Katie's entourage was crowded and armed to the teeth; the market (unless it was cleared for security, or it was just the time of day) seemed very much on the empty side; and the scene just outside (note the soldier, poised with rifle, walking backwards) felt especially precarious.

(The other point that was telling regarded the supposedly dramatically-improved security situation involved the fact that the Couric team captured so little video, the same snippets had to be used and reused over multiple reports.)

The oddest scene, however, involved Odierno making a completely big deal over a guy sweeping up garbage.  This to him was a major sign that the tide was turning in the battle to restore civilization.  It's a good omen, I'm sure.  But, in a the larger scheme of things, a trifling one in relation to the problems at hand, and, more immediately, the dimensions of the sale.

Selected Katie/Iraq video:  Revitalizing Baghdad (link); Eye To Eye: Gen Odierno (link); Petraeus: Surge Is Working (link); Opinions On Iraq: Civilians (link); Voices Of Hope In Iraq (link).

(screenshots: cbsnews video.  Revitalizing Baghdad.  September 2007)

Comments

[Aunt Deb]

I'm pretty sure there were markets in Saigon right up to the fall.

[Blake Incarnate]

That little quantity of fruit including the flying banana's looks like it was delivered as one of the show producers props,... to make sure they have something to film on Katie's Big Adventure. Maybe she can get another colonoscopsy, live from Bagdad. No, I am not a fan of the Today Show Gurl with the pretty legs and the 9 inch toothy smile doing The News for 25 million dollars a year.

Ps - As you know, the food that is available is delivered not by vendors in markets but by militia's to sectarian neighbors, if you are shiite, in a shitte neighborhood, you get supplies, if you are not, you are starved out. Leave or die.

[donna]

Do they use the same market and vendors for all these photo ops? It seems like it...

Reading Riverbend's account of getting out of Iraq, it doesn't seem like things there are really any better at all. Mostly worse, in fact. Taking in a few American tourists to play at these guided tours doesn't convince me of anything except that the only real concern anyone in the U.S. has for Iraq is that it's a good TV show.

I think most Americans have lost touch with any reality whatsoever. I called a friend last night to talk to her and she and her son were in the middle of watching their favorite celebrity chef cook off so she couldn't really be bothered to pay attention to a phone conversation with an actual friend.

Sigh.

[lytom]

Looks like props to me.
The last photo, "guy sweeping garbage", next to an enormous receptacle...I suppose that is where the garbage goes. How is this then emptied seems very impractical and used on the spur of the moment.

[MonsieurGonzo]

fwiw, i can't imagine Ms. Couric walking around in a Safeway Supermarket in The States, much less reporting, "This market is Safe," in Baghdad :)

"Look at all this food!" she squealed, "Are you getting this? Look... there's an orange! it's just like the one i had for breakfast at the hotel!"

Lara Logan winced. Michael Ware, leaning against a graffiti covered / blood splattered wall, walked over to her. "C'mon Lara. I've got the last bottle of rye in Baghdad, and you look like you could use a drink."

Lara turned and looked up at him. Her eyes were wet. She held out her hand, a clenched fist, and opened it for Michael to see: a bloody lens cap.

"It's Ari," she said, her voice shaking, "it's all that's left of him."

"My god, Lara! When..."

"Last night. He was shooting that big one around 4:20 on Haifa Street. Then the second one went off... this..."

"He was a good man, Lara."

"The best. Get me the hell out of here, Michael, before I scream some obscenity at this fucking infant, squeezing fruit in the market. Yeah; I need a drink."

[Lettuce]

What continually blows my mind is how this media "groupthink" is perpetuated. Who's doing it? Surely, if we notice this propoganda campaign as ridiculous and cynical, clearly designed to provide willing congressmembers opportunity to spout talking-point praise, why don't at least a notable percentage of the media see the same thing? A notable percentage of Republicans are against the war, so surely there must be some group of skeptical minds in positions of journalistic authority. So why the willingness to get suckered in?

Logic is defied. It makes no sense.

It doesn't make economic sense, since a sizable majority of Americans see through these ploys. Why else would the polls continue to show distrust for the war's motives and purpose? That would suggest viewership or readership would be INTERESTED in stories that defy talking points. And even if an editor had some kind of personal stake, their jobs are judged in terms of audience gained or lost. (As are their bosses, and their bosses' bosses.) So if they didn't agree with the audiences' pre-concieved notions, they would at least acknowledge them with some degree of skepticism.

It doesn't make journalistic sense, defying the main motive of all reporters -- getting the story. Because everyone's reporting the same story, the same praise from the same market, surrounded by the same soldiers wasting their same time, where's the attempt at originality. Debunking it scandously would make a career. Finding a different story would at least help a career. But no real takers -- certainly none that have made any real dents. Even if, like Couric, this is your first time there, surely you've seen the various Senators and Congressmen who've have the exact same kind of guided tour.

It defies the main motive of pundits and bureau chiefs too -- getting access. Because at this point, what do you need access to the Bush administration? Tremendously unpopular, with little political clout, the stories in DC are going on in Iowa and NH now. If you're trying to ingratiate current campaigns, there is little reason to prop up the President who they are actively running away from. There's no percentage in carrying the administration's water.

It defies basic corporate self-preservation too. The networks and newspapers have carried administration water for YEARS. CBS and AP included -- and with Couric, continuing. And yet, they all saw how the WH turns its pretty hate machine on CBS, AP and the NYT when they were crossed. Previous good works be damned -- "that photo was more smokey! All of AP's photos are suspect! Every report on CBS is biased because one document was in the wrong font!" This damages the brand, costs the networks ratings, advertising dollars -- hurting reputations that go back decades. This is disasterous.

It's not "easier," if that was a reporter's motivation. Sure, you can just "go along for the ride" in Iraq, but with all the congressional investigations and other anti-war organizations with press releases, surely an equal number of decision-makes would find using that material as easy. And again, knowing what their own polls say about what Americans already believe and are absorbing from the news, wouldn't it be easy to give the people what they want?

Lastly it defies just basic human behavior. Beyond bias, both yours and the reporters, isn't there some primal sense of anger -- or at least mistrust -- of someone who has lied to you. Even in the best case scenario, you can't look at the Administration's media 9nteractions over the years as anything approaching "reliable." Katrina was only 2 years ago! But there is no outrage -- or even nominal grain-of-saltisms. Katie still skips through Potempkin's Green Grocery without the slightest furrow on her bouncy brow.

I don't know what's left other than elaberate conspiracy theory -- or extra-terrestrial involvement. I can't think of any terrestrial reason why this continues.

[jtfromBC]

Lettuce says "I can't think of any terrestrial reason why this continues."

Maybe some down to earth reasons may be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_model

[MonsieurGonzo]

fwiw, another exploration in a brilliant essay by Susan Faludi in today's New York Times : America's Guardian Myths : “ ‘On the 10th of February 1675 did come the Indians...’ Rowlandson was one of the fortunate that morning: she and her three children were spared and taken captive. Her youngest, a 6-year-old daughter, died in her arms on the forced march north. After 11 harrowing weeks, Rowlandson was released and a few years later wrote “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson,” which would run through four printings in its first year and become America’s original best seller, the model of the captivity narrative, the foremost indigenous genre of American literature...

...Unfortunately, by replicating the Colonial war on terrorism, 9/11 invited us to re-enact the post-Colonial solution: to bury awareness of our vulnerability under belligerent posturing and comforting fantasy.

Like the cultural imagineers before them, our post-9/11 press, entertainers and political spin doctors set to work to prop up our sense of virile indomitability — “the return of the manly man”...”

[MonsieurGonzo]

...or this blistering analysis by Scott Ritter => Reporting From Baghdad :

“The most recent manifestation of this syndrome is CBS News anchor Katie Couric, who earlier this week traveled to Iraq because she was (in her own words), “Curious about very basic questions regarding living conditions, about how much fear there is in the street, about how the soldiers really are doing.” That the situation in Iraq has been boiled down to these three big, burning issues (living conditions, fear in the streets, and how the troops are ‘really’ doing), and that CBS/General Electric is sending their multi-million-dollar investment to investigate, speaks volumes about the degenerate state of American journalism today.

The real big three she should be addressing are “Why do Americans keep dying?” “Who is killing them?” and “Why?”

Of course, answering these questions would undermine the very fantasy world Couric is being sent to cover, one where Americans are doing good deeds in the name of peace and justice for downtrodden [ = passive tense; not occupied = active tense] Iraqis. Couric’s jaunt is fraud on a massive scale. Ironically, she herself acknowledged this when she admitted that her upbeat reports from Iraq were reflective of what the U.S. [occupiers] wanted her to see, and not honest “reporting” on her part.

If Couric and her ilk won’t answer these questions, I will...”

[jtfromBC]

Understanding Iraq for $20, or from a 25 million dollar songbird

Muhammad Idrees Ahmad reviews Dahr Jamail’s exceptional new book, Beyond the Green Zone:

Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq. What sets Dahr Jamail apart from numerous other foreign correspondents is that his work exhibits a freshness absent in much of the mainstream, possibly explained by the fact that Jamail wasn’t schooled in the American tradition of journalism. He never conflates objectivity with balance. He reports objectively the traumas suffered by survivors of a family whose home was demolished on top of their heads without feeling any obligation to ‘balance’ the report with the anodyne denials of a Pentagon spokesman. His journalism is infused with empathy for the victims: he is discerning of the injustices perpetrated against them and consequently understands their resentments.

Eduardo Galeano, the great Uruguayan writer, once characterized photographers as of a vertical or horizontal type. The horizontal type displayed empathy for his subject and respected its dignity. In contrast, vertical reporters parachuted into an area, corralled the subjects they needed, took photos, and quickly disappeared from the scene; the subject’s dignity was trampled upon. The same characterization would apply to journalism; and Jamail is a horizontal journalist.

Unlike mainstream journalists, Jamail is not constrained by the ideological parameters within which most operate. For him the war is unjust not only for abrogating international law, but because its inevitable victims are a defenceless civilian population already ravaged for over a decade by two inhuman regimes: Saddam Hussein’s and the genocidal US-UK sanctions.[2] While for the most part critical journalism at the liberal end of the spectrum has obsessed with US mistakes in Iraq, for Jamail, the US in Iraq is the mistake. It is perhaps this crucial insight that impelled the accomplished Alaskan mountaineer to seek the truth for himself bypassing the filter of mainstream media. In doing so, while most in the mainstream chose the safety of US armour as ‘embedded journalists’, Jamail opted for the comfort of strangers pitted in this involuntary struggle against US imperial aggression.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/09/occupied-iraq-a-horizontal-view/