There were two wars going on in Iraq - one fought by armies with soldiers, bombs and fearsome military force. The other was fought alongside it with cameras, satellites, armies of journalists and propaganda techniques. One war was rationalized as an effort to find and disarm WMDs - Weapons of Mass Destruction; the other was carried out by even more powerful WMD’s, Weapons of Mass Deception.
The TV networks in America called their non-stop coverage their finest hour but critics like veteran journalist Danny Schechter, a former ABC and CNN producer, charge media complicity in promoting and cheerleading for a war in which some reporting was sanitized, staged and suppressed. Schechter, author of Media Wars: News at a Time of Terror, The More You Watch The Less You Know and News Dissector, fuses an insider’s knowledge with an outsider’s perspective, Throughout the war, he was “self-embedded” at Mediachannel.org, the world’s largest on-line media issues network, writing a 3000 word daily news “dissection.”
"It is important for readers to assess these arguments before our memories fade and the Bush Administration changes the subject,”says Schechter. “We rushed this book into print online so it can contribute to the continuing debate about the war and its impact. Until now, only the government is being scrutinized. It’s urgent that we also confront media coverage.”
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