Embedded Journalism

Now I realise it seems a bit hypocritical of me to attack the media’s representation of a news event when I myself am a part of the hype-generating circus we call mass media. However, the voice of my wise, high-school English teacher echoes in my subconscious that we should always be critical of the texts we consume and conscious of the

Deceased philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, “War does not determine who is right- only who is left”. Those left are the soldiers of the 1-502nd, specifically Bravo Company 1st plt, and the Janabi family and to a greater extent, the ever-changing global world we all live in today. The tragic events that conspired in a small Iraqi village became a microcosm of how leadership failures at every level shaped the actions of a few soldiers who committed atrocious acts. One can also see how a high operational tempo, along with prolonged violence and death, has on a person’s psyche. It is the ugly side of war that the average American citizen may not want to hear or talk about. For a soldier, it is inevitably what they train their

The story begins with a description of America’s continuation of the war in the middle east despite Osama Bin Laden’s death. The narrator describes this seemingly endless war as “hunting down low-level pipe swingers in the name of GWOT” (78). The acronym GWOT is military jargon for the Global War On Terrorism. Interestingly, Janis writes for an intended audience of non-military citizens who likely have no knowledge of GWOT’s meaning. In this case, the usage of “GWOT” implies a greater significance essential to the author’s overall argument. Since most readers won’t understand the meaning of GWOT, the presence of the acronym evokes feelings of isolation from the combat so many soldiers must face. It indirectly tells readers they have absolutely no idea what the soldiers face in the middle east, how they cope it, and how it affects their lives, both during their deployment and long after. This is simply accomplished by adding one word the audience is not likely to understand.

Perhaps there 's no getting away from our awesome political gap, a perpetual conflict of armed forces, and any endeavors to change the guidelines of engagement are purposeless. Alternately perhaps the trivialization of governmental issues has achieved a final turning point, so that the vast majority consider it to be only one more preoccupation, a game, with legislators our paunch-bellied combatants and the individuals who try to focus just fans on the sidelines: We paint our confronts red or

Carlson, Timothy and Katovsky, Bill, _Embedded: The media at war in Iraq_, The Lyons Press, Guilford, 2003.

War reporting crashed into Megan Stack’s life almost like the war on terror crashed into America. She was vacationing in Paris on September 11, 2001. Within days, she received the call and was rushed onto an aircraft carrier to travel to Afghanistan to report about the war. “I wound up there by accident, rushed into foreign reporting by coincidence…” Stack wrote in Every Man in This Village is a Liar: An Education in War, a personal memoir of her reporting through the Middle East (2). She documents her experiences of the American-led invasion of Iraq & Afghanistan, while exploring conflicts in Lebanon, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Libya. She works her way through strings of violence and terror that have tangled with US foreign policy.

Firstly, the “war on terror” had reduced the humanitarian concerns down, and the foreign policy. Furthermore, media coverage had become more deferential and constrained: therefore, reducing the chances of media influencing policy. The “war on terror” most importantly provided journalists with a guide in which they could understand global events and policy makers with the ability to justify a more aggressive foreign policy plan. At last, the “war on terror” had constructed an ideological bond between journalist and policy makers which created stronger media management. Techniques developed to display coverage of certain issues over others to frame stories that support official

Chris Hedges video and readings are very fascinating in terms of understanding the contemporary war around the world. He explained the war and its outcomes from his own experiences that would be powerful massage for the conflict resolution and international war study. First: wars are deadly addicted, he says our history guided us to the war. We tend to forget the unfold story of the war, and just looking at the propagandas and myths. The argument is that war as myth, where the media and reporters has been used adversely in the war. The images, videos, and news are presented as succeed, and proudness, but very few media covers the real war field. Media carries the myth from hotel rooms, where certain edited war footage, and images have provided

One significant action that was coordinated with the press was that of the “pseudo-events” that occurred when the President landed in a carrier off the coast, in a full flight suit, then reciting the speech “Mission Accomplished” in 2003 (Bennett 133). This was successful coverage by the press, as it lured the public in with a Hollywood type of atmosphere, indicating that Iraq was a good thing and they got what they deserved. However, only a select few have experienced the task of stepping out into the dark and un-known for the safety and wellbeing of others; while those who set policies and orchestrate headlines, push papers. This was made possible by the initial launch of war in 2003 with the bombing of Bagdad (Hayes 1). As by now, the substantial press influence in promoting war had taken its

This tragedy redefined our perception and feelings. It created a further barrier between the citizens of the United States and the peoples of the Middle East. This led the United States into over a decade of war, much of which was fought in the same region that had been bombed a little over a decade earlier during the Kuwait War. David O Russel’s film makes the case that impersonal war fuels prejudice. Impersonal war robs soldiers of the personal experience our protagonists had, thereby being unable to see that the people of the region have similar goals and values.

The relationship between the media and the military is a complex one. There is a constant challenge of determining how important it is for the American Citizens to be aware of what the government is doing, especially as a democracy. This brings about the issue of whether or not the media press should report all of the sensitive information that they obtain about the military and its operations. With this issue, there is a struggle of determining what press policies the military should implement in order to maintain the balance between transparency and national security. The effect of media is not only to provide information but a general understanding to the American Citizens about how the military

Nowadays journalists have the responsibility to report facts as accurately, objectively, and disinterestedly as is humanly possible. ‘’The, honest, self-disciplined, well-trained reporter seeks to be a propagandist for nothing but the truth’’ (Casey, 1944b).

Gonzo journalism, also referred to as “New Journalism”, is a writing style popularized by journalists such as Hunter S. Thompson, in which “Because it adds value for the audience, the creator’s role in the story is highlighted rather than marginalized” (Hoover, 2009) What this means is that the author is not presented as a third party observing the events of the article, but is instead an active part of it, with the article being written first person. In order to recreate the circumstances of a Hunter S. Thompson type of Gonzo Journalism, in which the writer needs to be on copious amounts of drugs such as “two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers,

Is New Journalism a literary genre? Analyse with reference to the literary techniques used in two examples of New Journalism.

My proposal focuses on a particular set of cultural practices, organizations, productions, and identities, such as those mobilized by the performance of investigative journalism in Chile in a post-authoritarian moment. I am particularly acknowledging culture’s conception as a process and a set of practices and not a collection of things (Hall, cited by Rose, 2016: 2), constituted by “interworked systems of construable signs” by which culture is actually a context within which “social events, behaviors, institutions, or processes” can be intelligible, “thickly described”, and not an outcome of some measurable causes (Geertz, 2008: 36). In this vein, this proposal recognizes Martín Barbero’s perspective in which popular and