Baseless Conflict for Temporary Gain

-

 


As we've seen with every U.S. president dating back to when the country started fighting "the war on terrorism," most of them are unnecessary and lead to bigger conflicts that we can handle. The U.S. wraps itself in these conflicts because of problems that don't exist leading to full-scale wars. Exhibit A is the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq due to their claims of the presence of weapons of mass destruction in the country. The involvement of the press played a huge role, especially on cable news, where propaganda was more popular than just reporting facts. Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch who was a strong war supporter, in a way rebranded the network shortly after the invasion garnering support for the invasion among the channel's average of 2 million viewers in prime time. The more liberal channels followed suit with shows like Countdown: Iraq depicting similar pro-war symbolism. They even fired anti-war commentator Michael Savage for his opposition to the invasion. This goes to show that even in the midst of cable news bias wars, the two sides were able to  cohesively amplify the voices of the government to promote support for the invasion. As we saw in Collateral Murder, the Wikileaks documentary about the of innocent civilians killed in Iraq in 2007, including famed war photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, the consequences are catastrophic.





Based on what was seen in the documentary the actions of the press in some way or another led to the killing of the innocent members of their fellow memebers and Afghani citizens who were unarmed. I find it ironic that a member of the press, the person who is supposed to be aiding the government in their propaganda, was killed by their own proprietors. This proves that the government clearly doesn't care for the people that are helping them in their effort, but neither does the press. I believe that everything leads back to money, racism, or power and in this case it leads back to all three. For the press there is an incentive because the more views they receive the higher their profit is and its also about being #1. For future wars, I hope to see that the press never again propogates such a baseless conflict for temporary gain and it is up to our generation as journalists to make that happen.


Namir Noor-Eldeen









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Journalism as a Lifestyle

-
Image
       I have always been a person that could talk someone's head off for hours, about any and everything. I have always been one to know, what I like to call "dumb facts," small stuff that an average person wouldn't know or doesn't care about. Although oftentimes, I feel as if they should care about them. One of the main reasons I choose High Point University was because my freshman year was the premiere year of the Webb School of Engineering. Yes, I came to HPU intending to be a Computer Engineering major, isn't that something! From the end of high school up until the start of my time at HPU, the idea of becoming an engineer was waning, and I knew that a career in the field of communication was my true calling. I cracked four weeks into the school year and declared Media Production and Entrepunership as my first major, and now I am a Journalism major on the Broadcast track. Why Journalism?     I didn't realize it until my late teens, but I have never rea
Read more

Frederick Douglas

-
Image
  During the second EOTO presentations, Frederick Douglas stood out to me the most because I saw a lot of myself in him. He was self-determined, stood for causes that disenfranchised identities that weren't his, and he made an impression on the world by being innovative. His hard work earned him the noblest positions in the country having worked with five presidents in six different roles during his life. The first being Abraham Lincoln who Douglas convinced should let black men serve in the Union army. This was unheard of for any other black person during that time, and even for decades after. This made me wonder how much of a rhetorical communicator was he to convince multiple presidents of the United States to work for them. Frederick Douglas was a trailblazer of his time and certainly someone I would like to embody. Some life experiences that earned Douglas the distinction of one of the greatest civil rights leaders ever began with him escaping slavery from near my hometown in
Read more

EOTO - Innovations in Global Journalism

-
Image
       As an aspiring journalist and frequent consumer of the news, across many platforms, I see AP and Reuters content EVERYWHERE. These wire services have been a prominent source for many mainstream news outlets in their information sourcing, especially when it comes to photos. In my consumption of news, AP comes up a lot more than Reuters as a source for stories and has seemed like the more popular option for outlets to use.      It was interesting to hear the innovation and trends that these wire services set when it came to technology. When Reuters first started in 1851 they used the telegraph to transmit stock market quotes from London to Paris, which was revolutionary at the time. Before the telegraph, and other devices like the wirephoto , a story that would take days to reach the other side of the world, could now be sent in a few minutes. The telegraph would send morse code messages from one device to another through a line. In a sense, it was a form of email before the inte
Read more