Padding:

How do you turn 518 words into a 2,699 word essay? Simple, if you're Howard Kurtz. Just quote like mad. This was brought home to us forcefully while analyzing a recent Media Notes column. In fact, take out the 125 quote-intro words (e.g. "The Philadelphia Inquirer explores the question of bad advice:") and you're down to 393 words of original material, or 14.5% of the total. For those interested, here's that 14%:

[quote from 1991]

Says another Times report: [quote from 1991]

Both stories appeared in 1991. The president was George H.W.; Cheney was running the Pentagon.

Journalists have been second-guessing the conduct of war for a long time. Even Lincoln got some bad press during the first three years of the Civil War. But how, in the space of 10 days, did the media's portrayal of the combat in Iraq become a front-burner issue - to the point that Don Rumsfeld was complaining yesterday about "hyperventilating" critics?

Do Pentagon officials think that journalists are just genetically hard-wired to be negative? That they're so addicted to instant gratification that they would turn thumbs-down on any war that wasn't wrapped up within a week?

There are three reasons for the generally sour tone of the coverage.

One is that a wide range of experts consulted by reporters - former military officials, Pentagon aides speaking on background, field commanders - say things aren't going all that well. Not that there are debilitating setbacks - it would be ridiculously early to make such pronouncements - but that unexpected problems have cropped up and resistance is fiercer than expected.

The second problem is that the opening act of the war is being measured against expectations that were inflated to unrealistic levels, both by the media and some administration officials. The latter may have been trying to scare Saddam into caving, but in the process sent the message that the Iraqis would quickly fold.

Imagine how different the situation would seem if the pre-game commentary had said the war would probably last about six months. Being 50 miles outside Baghdad in a week would suddenly seem like lightning progress. Instead, there's all this finger-pointing about the long and vulnerable supply lines that are having trouble getting enough food to some units.

The third reason - which we explore in greater depth in our Monday Washington Post column - is that embedded journalists are bringing every mistake and suicide attack into our living rooms in real-time color.

[quotes from 7 sources]

Whew. This is starting to sound like the gang that couldn't shoot straight.

[quotes from 3 sources, the last about military commentators]

What exactly would we expect from folks who spent their entire career saluting?

[quote about Clear Channel backing the war]

The company laughs off the charges.

[quote from National Review about antiwar journalists]

That's certainly not the impression we get from watching John Roberts and Ted Koppel and David Bloom, or reading the newspapers' special war sections.

It had to happen: Embedded reporters turning on other embedded reporters.

So, has the reporting been fair? Are the newspapers accurately reporting the situation? Is Clear Channel acting ethically? Kurtz doesn't say.

And the answer to Howard's "how, in the space of 10 days, did the media's portrayal of the combat in Iraq become a front-burner issue?" question is obvious: Because conservatives like Limbaugh, Kristol, Hume, O'Reilly, Hannity, et al, have raised a fuss. But you'd never know it from reading Kurtz' column.

posted by Quiddity at 4/01/2003 11:24:00 AM