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Don't expect to get the straight poop from any embeds.
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By Mike Cuenca | March 21, 2003
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Don't be deluded about the Pentagon's change of tactics in handling the
media. This new policy of "embedding" journalists serves the Pentagon's
public relations/propaganda needs perfectly. By taking journalists
along with specific units, they produce a perception that they're
allowing free and open coverage of the conflict. But the journalists,
whose attitudes and points-of-view the Pentagon has weighed carefully,
have been placed very carefully with specific units and they are being
carefully marshaled. You can bet we'll hear that it will be for their
"safety" and/or to protect the families of our troops. After the crash
of the first helicopter, a free-lance TV crew made it to the site and
was run off by U.S. troops. We can be sure that bad news from front
lines won't be as easy to come by as warm-and-fuzzy rear area antics.
Also, as you watch the news, remember who owns it. For example, NBC and
MSNBC are owned by the world's largest weapons manufacturer. If you
want to know what's really going on in this world, you have to seek out
media sources separate from the mainstream U.S. media, such as C-SPAN,
BBC, and CBC on TV, and scores of alternative news sources on the
Internet.
The scariest thing I've heard so far hasn't been any of the actual news
about the war. On Friday evening (the 21st), Walter Rodgers of CNN said
that he and the men of the unit in which he's traveling have been
having "great fun." That's unbelievably sick.
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