Give the people what they want:

In a sfgate story by Tim Goodman about NBC's plan to go ahead with a "Saving Jessica Lynch" television movie, we read:

If [NBC] airs the movie it no doubt thought it was getting -- young female soldier's harrowing journey from naive soldier to POW, battered and bloody but eventually saved in a daring, morale-boosting nighttime raid -- it may find out that that movie was fiction.

Not a crime, of course. But what if these allegations are true -- even partly true? Wouldn't NBC have an even better story? Talk about your "Wag the Dog" scenario. A stage-managed rescue? Brilliant.

Well, no. The American public has shown little interest in those stories. It wants a feel-good tearjerker, not a feel-used ethics inquiry. And they are unlikely to believe the combination of Iraqis telling journalists as opposed to the U.S. military's version.

posted by Quiddity at 6/06/2003 09:14:00 AM