FOX News, the news broadcaster of record for Israel, circumventer of facts and world record holder for over use of the term alert has been giving much coverage to the decision of Katie Couric, the lead anchor for CBS evening news, to travel to Iraq to cover the ongoing conflict. The thrust of the argument of its commentators has beent that a single mother should not put herself in such danger, ignoring the interests of her children who have already lost their father. They are slinging the mud of ratings grabbing and undermining jounalistic integrity at her. How many reporters, many of them parents, all of them children of somebody are covering the events in Iraq? Why must Kouric, a significant name in news broadcasting in the US, be subject to this sort of scrutiny, other than of course a chance to lampoon the opposition. I am not naiive enough to think that there are entirely unselfish motives at play for both Kourics profile and CBS viewership but I am still impressed by the decision to commit a high profile reporter to covering events at this stage, when the repetitive nature of major statements and military advances mean such stories fade from headlines.
To go after FOX for this type of lazy coverage, lampooning the hypocrisy of them striving to protect jounalistic integrity is just too easy, a lack of credibility is tied up with their very brand. News has become pointless live uplinks, where reporters add little to what the reader has just told us, needing to be by a camera every 15 or 30 minutes to repeat the news of an hour earlier, neither though do I expect them to venture into a war zone. To go all Michael Moore, except without the sensation, to put thought into the agendas at play in both print and broadcast media, it is difficult to have faith in much of the information. Read here a bit of a tirade from Robert Fisk (though he disses blogging the point of his article is effective), and find links of other coverage of the FOX story here.
No comments:
Post a Comment