Expectation of the media during these times of armed conflict

Just curious as to what everyone thinks about the role of network media in the times of armed conflict/crisis. I am sure if you watched any television last night between any different sources you found that the information coming through was widely different. Some networks were reporting numerous American casualties while others had none. Most all had on tons of speculation and conjecture about what the President was going to do and how it was going to affect the country. Come to find out this morning much of the speculation and what was being reported was not even close to what was going on and much of the talk I witnessed just seemed to create more worry and generate fear.

I was watching Lou Dobbs for a few minutes and it seemed he was almost in tears because no one had come forward with a status update yet. My thought was do we need an update come to these clowns when there are people still in danger and unsure the status of attacks.

Is it the role of the White House to drop everything they are doing to provide an update regarding these issues when people are still in danger and possibly fighting for their life that the White House could assist or provide leadership for? Isn't that part of the job more important that sending out possible updates that are most likely not complete due to information still being gathered.

Do we as a society need to know this information right away or does it put our assets and troops in more danger by providing information when all the facts are not out yet.

Where as a people do we draw the line for all this crap that creates misinformation and fear that turns out to be very little fact based and most speculation or flat out lies to push an agenda. This type of poor reporting isn't doing anyone any good regardless of party affiliation or belief. I rarely watch the network news shows anymore and last night reinforced why it just gives me an icky feeling.

Most media sucks right now.. I want a neutral non bias view to know what is happening out in the world.
But it sounds like every media is twisting every news into a political bashing campaign.
Right about now.. Fox News is the best source to know what is happening out there there.
Fox news is NOT pro Trump and not ANTI Trump.. they are neutral, just as every media should be, by law.

when the MSM attacks the leader of the nation they reside in, it's a problem. We know they are douche bag idiots, but when something like this is happening, they could save themselves and everyone else a whole lot of embarrassment and anger if they just reported the news, and left the armchair quarterbacking out of it.

You can't trust anything anymore.

Cept God I guess, but most ppl don't even believe it's real.

The media's role is to promote propaganda, advertising products and brands, spreading hate and fear, mislead the pop, etc.

A good IQ test is this: Do you believe in it?
If you answer yes I'll know you failed the gear-check. Lol

originally posted by: network dude
when the MSM attacks the leader of the nation they reside in, it's a problem. We know they are douche bag idiots, but when something like this is happening, they could save themselves and everyone else a whole lot of embarrassment and anger if they just reported the news, and left the armchair quarterbacking out of it.

I disagree.
The media is supposed to challenge the politicians to do better.

Obama is an example of someone the MSM didn't hardly criticize - we all remember how horrible that was. It was dam near a despotism cuz any criticism was automatically "racist".

The media really dropped the ball by praising him constantly like this was North Korea.

I much rather have a media that is super critical of govt than one that always defends and apologizes for it.

originally posted by: Spacespider
Most media sucks right now.. I want a neutral non bias view to know what is happening out in the world.
But it sounds like every media is twisting every news into a political bashing campaign.
Right about now.. Fox News is the best source to know what is happening out there there.
Fox news is NOT pro Trump and not ANTI Trump.. they are neutral, just as every media should be, by law.

Fox is establishment propaganda just like CNN, they are clearly bias pandering towards Republicans like CNN is for Liberals.

The best source for news is ATS by far.
Just read the whole thread and reserve judgement as the info develops.

At least here everything will be dissected and inspected closely, and any possibility of a disagreement will manifest itself pretty quickly.

I always come to ATS to get a balanced view of any major issue. Especially breaking news.

I expect the media to lie to me. Truth is the first causality of war. Lots of ideas, theories, opinions and stories with few verifiable and trustworthy facts. It is unfortunate we live in such times where trust is a rare resource and the truth can get you killed.

At least you can use this time to see how the various news organizations and personalities are aligned. The ones that are pushing for war and the ones working for peace.

If you do want to find the facts, ATS has been good in the past as a collection of lots of sources. Try and find local sources also helps, people in the area generally have a bit more reliability. Patience also helps, as an example it has been 5 or 6 years since MH-17 got shot down over Ukraine. Geopolitically the issue is still unresolved. Both sides have had time to make their case.

a reply to: kwakakev

I agree that ATS is the best source for unbiased news. We have a diverse group and even though we may not always agree with each other we get multiple opinions.

Great thread. I've not heard of Lou Dobbs before but that's pure media theatre as the specifics of where troops, contractors or civillians are being moved to are all correctly embargoed as obviously making such info public is putting people at risk. The info is out there but self-censored as no news organistation in it's right mind wants to be responsible for deaths if such info leaks.

The media always wants war and makes things appear far worse and dramatic then they are in reality as it guarantees several times the usual reader or viewership for at least three years. In the first Gulf War CNN had a 24 hour news channel called 'best of the bombs' which showed 'smart' missile strikes ad infinitum. They failed to mention the cruise missiles were less than 50% accurate and the majority of the footage they were showing was the mass slaughter of innocent civilians.

In the 24 hour news age accuracy comes a distant second to being the first to report on some breaking news. During the second Gulf War the US CENTCOM spent $500m per year vetting and censoring what the press reported and had an advanced embedded journalism program, much wider than the one used in Vietnam, to try and subliminally influence what the journalists wrote about - people are far more forgiving and far more susceptible to bias when being protected 24/7 by one of the sides.

The massacre in Fallujah where the US intentionally wiped out a whole village and targetted women and children with cluster bombs and white phosphorus was never reported by the press until a few isolated investigations months later. The same happened when the US fabricated the story of Private Jessica Lynch (In reality she was driving too fast and crashed the armoured vehicle killing the rest of the troops in it but was painted a a hero and victim).

It was all unnecessary expenditure though as the vast majority of journalists had little interest in facts or reporting that the war was based on a load of lies. Prior to the war there were hundreds of intel agents desperately pleading with the press that the whole WMD claim and pictures Colin Powell held up were a bunch of lies and in the UK they were falling over themselves to say the 45 minute claim was made up but there were only two journalists in the world who reported these facts.

The rest got carried away writing articles about how tours of various UK and US warships and planes and completely failed in their duty to question whether or not the case for war was true or not.

More recently things have got even worse. The Sun nearly comprimised the killing of ISIS leader Baghdadi a few months before it took place as they wrote a detailed article about the RAF picking up his voice on the radio and which squadrons from the SAS were being deployed to the area on a top secret mission to kill him and his courier with US and Kurdish Special Forces. The details were of no use to the average reader and added nothing to the story; it only revealed highly sensitive classified info and the inner workings of how the UK and US manage to locate terrorists to fill page space. That kind of info and detail shouldn't be available to the public.

If it bleeds, it leads is the mantra of every news org.