Suppose the following: Mike Wallace (disregard that he is too old for this) and Peter Jennings (yes I know he’s dead, pretend otherwise for the moment), are embedded with the so-called insurgents, who have managed to secretly infiltrate a large force in and around an American Forward Operating Base (FOB) recently established in a valley in a mountainous part of Faroffistan. The enemy force has vastly superior numbers, as well as numerous heavy weapons, and is quite likely to overrun the FOB when they launch their attack. Previous insurgent practice in such attacks has included beheading all prisoners.

With the wonders of modern technology, Wallace and Jennings realize they could secretly text a message on their cell phones back to their studios, at some small risk to themselves. The studio could in turn alert CENTCOM in Florida, and conceivably alert the FOB and get air support and quick reaction troops on the way in time to reinforce the FOB and prevent the attack.

Would they do it? Of course not. They have a “higher duty.”

But lets add this wrinkle. Unbeknownst to the insurgents, Wallace, and Couric, US surveillance assets have been tracking the insurgent force, and in fact, the FOB was established as bait to draw them to this particular valley, where every possible nook and cranny has been surveyed and turned into coordinates for precision guided weapons. Likely escape routes have also been plotted, and special forces are being quietly move into place behind the insurgent force astride these routes. Once the last insurgents are in place, massive airstrikes will be launched to annihilate the insurgent force in its pre-ambush positions, and any survivors who attempt to escape will be destroyed by the special forces either by the SFs calling in airstrikes, or using direct small arms fire.

SIGINT (signals intelligence, i.e. electronic eavesdropping) has detected Wallace’s and Jennings’ occasional text and voice messages while tracking the insurgent force. It is likely, in fact highly probable, that they would both be killed in the airstrikes.

Do Wallace and Jennings think that CENTCOM should try to secretly notify them via text message that they should leave, at the risk of tipping off the insurgents?

Do they think the airstrike should be called off in order to prevent their deaths? If the airstrikes are called off, though, the FOB will be overrun. Do Wallace and Jennings think this just?

If Wallace and Jennings could secretly communicate their position, do they think the US should avoid bombing that location, even though it would result in large numbers of insurgents escaping — possibly so many that the special forces could not deal with them?

Let’s assume Wallace and Jennings do survive the strike and find themselves making their way out of the valley with surviving insurgents. Also assume the special forces waiting in ambush have been informed of Wallace’s and Jennings’ presence and have directly observed apparently western journalists in the company of a large force of fleeing insurgents. There are too many insurgents for the small special forces team to engage directly with small arms — their choice is either to use a Fuel/Air Explosive (makes a REALLY BIG bang) that will destroy the entire force, thus killing Wallace and Jennings, or let the force escape for now, knowing that they will not get a good chance to interdict them again.

What do Wallace and Jennings think the special forces should do? Doesn’t the military have a “higher duty” to win? The Laws of Armed Conflict do not absolutely forbid killing civilians, only that the military try to avoid it, and that the value of the military objective outweigh the cost of the civilian loss. Doesn’t killing a large force of insurgents outweigh the loss of two journalists? Especially when the journalists can hardly be said to be innocent bystanders — they aren’t villagers who happened to be in the way, they chose to be with insurgent forces.

Wonder how Wallace Jennings would parse this?

elb

I take your point, although reporting the terrorist act of criminals should never be ignored or marginalized but because that Abu Ghraib was done by an American solders who sent to free the Iraqis and help them not to tortured them and was done according to orders of commanders (its not my attentions to ramble on about who was responsible) that gave the priority and the importance for reporting that’s may be the case.

As for bringing “anyone with a room temperature IQ or above,” in regards of media biased in this case or another which I am not dropping this fact here, it’s same argument with “anyone with a room temperature IQ or above,” there are more doubt that the media have not done perfect job in any way prior to 2003 war with reporting and making people believe that Iraq can hit Europe in 45min with WMD!! all sorts of those talks by reporting they prepared the ground to lunch the war and after this the case with MSM or NYT or other media outlet like FOX and others, , in fact the media clearly biased with Arab / Palestine Israeli conflict there is very clear biased views by most reporting and media outlets.

The point is that the MSM could have reported the incidents in scholarly, detached, objective fashion giving the public the who, what, where, when, and how. Then they could let the readers or viewers, as the case may be, make up their minds about whether it was right and why it was done. Instead, the way the stories were written they were calculated to elicit outrage at the Bush administration and, not just the soldiers involved, but the entire military.

In contrast they reported a barbarous action by our enemies, the terrorists, in classic neutral, objective fashion. Just the objective facts and let the reader decide why it was done and whether it was a good or bad thing. Why the difference in reporting the two stories?

For anyone with a room temperature IQ or above, it seems painfully obvious that the MSM is NOT, as they try to tell us, without biases and agendas. I would have more respect for them if they would openly admit that yes, they are biased and yes, they are trying to mold public opinion in a certain direction.

You can ramble on about who was responsible for what happened at Abu Ghraib. That’s your right, but it has nothing to do with my point.

I think the military as a whole as well as individual outfits have the right to check out a reporter and decide whether they want him or her along on a mission. From their point of view, freedom of the press does not trump survival. If a reporter wants to die for his craft, fine – but the reporter should not expect anyone else to die for it.

Of course, not allowing a press person on a mission will probably result in bad press for the military. At best, the story will become “what’s the military hiding?” and at worst the reporter will try to fill in the blanks without firsthand knowledge.

As far as Abu Ghraib and other scandals – It’s often remarked that the military discovered the problem and conducted its own investigation. I’m wondering if the investigation would have been as prompt and thorough if the powers that be didn’t have to worry about the consequences if the press found out first. I’m not saying the military would have ignored mistreatment or atrocities – just that prospect of a media circus might make them a little more meticulous about keeping their house clean.

Jimmy J.
With all due respect of your view in this case may be close to the view that stated The mindless cruelty of a miscreant handful of soldiers..

But the facts are Abu Ghraib is not because of “some Bad Apples”?

But what we saw at Abu Ghraib, we now know, were exactly the techniques that McCarthy supports: stress positions, abuse short of torture, sexual humiliation, religious abuse, and all the other techniques the Pentagon approved to break down resistance to giving up information. It was cruel, but it sure wasn’t mindless. It was designed to soften inmates up before interrogation – to prevent and stymie an insurgencyThe new regime at Abu Ghraib in which such “mindless cruelty” took place was installed by General Geoffrey Miller who had been personally dispatched by Donald Rumsfeld to “Gitmoize” the place.

I didn’t refer to measuring the loyalty of reporters on the battlefield. The Uncertainty Principle has a lot more to do with human problems than just the physics of particles, just as physics has a lot more to do with human survival than just a few equations about parabolic trajectory.

If we’re referring to the observer effect – the idea that by merely observing a phenomenon we change it – again, I think this has more to do with quantum physics than macro-world phenomena.

The observer effect exists because of Heisenberg’s law. It is a matter of epistemology, not metaphysics. If it was about metaphysics, then quantum effects could and should not apply to macroscopic effects like what individuals choose to do. Since this is epistemology I am talking about and utilizing, then it is not as if the limitations on quantum mechanics applies to how human minds work.

Mike Wallace probably won’t listen if you tell him he should warn the troops because of Schroedinger’s Cat.

It has never mattered what Wallace will or will not do. That choice is out of our hands. We can only utilize the fact that reporters change what they are viewing, for our side instead of theirs.

Also editors ensure that even if a reporter wants to do something good, that it won’t get published. Thus there is no incentive or reward for doing what is right, only what the editor wants. And of course, the editor doesn’t know what will sell, the editor only knows what will serve as propaganda for his ideology.

How the agenesis like the story to be folded and published.

This issue should account as the reporter not entirely free to report what he sow put he should reporting with the guidelines his agency bound him and his works.

I’m only 33, so I dont have a longer view of the changes between generations… but it seems to me that logic and reason and clear-thinking is being decimated in those younger than me.

Is this true.. or am I just “getting old” ?

Let me add some historical perceptions. I was a teen during WWII, a college student during Korea, and a Navy pilot during Vietnam. I witnessed the morphing of journalism from it’s position of trying to report the facts and let the reader decide.

As I understand it journalists are supposed to include who, where, when, how, and what happened. They are supposed to report the unadulterated facts to inform the reader. The reader can then form an opinion about why something had happened and whether it was good or bad. Opinion was not supposed to be a part of the story. Opinion was expressed on the editorial page.

Vietnam changed all that. There have been reams of material written about the reporters that went to Vietnam and found not the glorious war they had expected, but a dirty, back-alley knife fight that didn’t seem to make any sense to them. (Most of them did not perceive Communism as a threatening force.) Most became quite disillusioned and cynical about the war. At the same time Communist propaganda was being spread through U.S. colleges that, of course, made its way into mainstream journalism. The gist of the propaganda was that the U.S. had become illegally involved in a “civil war.” The mantra was that the U.S. was wrong and our legally elected leaders were corrupt, venal, and had to be dissuaded from prosecuting the illegal war. As the war drug on and the casualties mounted the protestations became louder and louder. Covering the anti-war effort began to sell a lot of copy. And some august journalists (Walter Cronkite & others) decided that, yes, the war was unwinnable and the U.S. was, indeed, wrong. Public opinion followed.

The aftermath of our ignoble withdrawal and betrayal of the South Vietnamese is well known, but seldom thought about today because it was so shameful. (Thanks to Neo for covering this in detail on her blog)

However, journalists decided that they had played a noble role in bringing all this about. Prizes were awarded, books were published, and the mantra of journalism schools seemed to be: We must always remain alert to opportunities to thwart wrong-headed moves by the government. If what the elected leaders propose is, in our opinion, wrong we must do everything to stop them. That is how we can make a difference in the world.

Fast forward to 9/11. Even the most cynical and world weary journalists were shocked by the attack on the U.S. For a few days, at least, most of them believed an act of war had been committed. But when it became apparent that we were going to actually do something other than protest to the UN and send some FBI agents out to investigate the terrorists, many in the MSM (NYT, WA Post, LA Times, etc) began to swing into their Vietnam mode. We heard facts about Afghanistan like: The Russiands failed there. No one has ever conquered Afghanistan. Afghanistan will be another quagmire like Vietnam. Etc. Etc. Etc. The quest also began to find out why the terrorists hated us and what we must do to make amends.

Much the same was heard during the lead up to Iraq. Anmd since.

Now to an example of what we are all talking about here, which, IMO, is that journalism and journalists today try to claim that they are objective and do not have an agenda except to inform.

Let me refute that. The Abu Ghraib scandal was on the front page of the Seattle Times (and most other big city dailies)for over weeks. The stories were full of florid adjectives chosen to make people irate about our soldiers even being in Iraq, much less doing the stupid things (yes, they were STUPID!) that a handful of soldiers did. During this time the Al Qaeda terrorists in Iraq captured Nick Berg and released a blood curdling video of him being beheaded. That story appeared on the fourth or fifth page of the Seattle Times and it was quite short. It was a paragon of journalistsic virtue. What, who, where, when, etc. all done in perfectly neutral prose calculated to inform only. Yessir, they say, “We report, you decide.” Hogwash! They claim to be objective purveyors of truth, when, in fact they have an agenda that is obvious to any thinking person.

Fortunately, the marketplace is rendering a judgment on their brand of hypocrisy.