{"id":249318,"date":"2023-12-04T12:00:25","date_gmt":"2023-12-04T12:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=249318"},"modified":"2023-11-29T03:35:38","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T03:35:38","slug":"medias-fatal-compromises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2023\/12\/medias-fatal-compromises\/","title":{"rendered":"Media\u2019s Fatal Compromises"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Israeli soldiers around Gaza Strip on Oct. 7
(IDF Spokesperson\u2019s Unit, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0)<\/p><\/div>\n

It is no longer enough to tether correspondents to the perspective of the military from whose side they report. We appear to be on the way to having wars fought \u2014 huge, bloody, consequential wars \u2014 without any witnesses.\u00a0<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

28 Nov 2023<\/em> – The practice of \u201cembedding,\u201d which requires correspondents to report in war and conflict zones as part of a given military unit, struck me as a repellent compromise with power as soon as US media began accepting this unacceptable practice<\/a>. It is an undisguised effort to control what correspondents see and hear, and so what they write or broadcast, and so what their readers, listeners and viewers think.<\/p>\n

It is a trick, in short. The ruling or governing power\u2019s military pretends it respects the rightful freedom of an independent press, while correspondents and editors get to pretend they serve as brave correspondents and principled editors.<\/p>\n

There is no respect, bravery or principle in any of it. Embedding is a charade, an offense on the part of everyone who participates in it.<\/p>\n

It is an act of deprivation in that it gives those reading or viewing the work of embedded correspondents the illusion they are informed while they are, most of the time, kept ignorant of the war or conflict they are eager to understand.<\/p>\n

As in various other ways, Israel\u2019s real-time barbarity in Gaza has worsened the relationship between media \u2014 Western media, I mean \u2014 and the powers they are supposed to report upon. As to audiences, they \u2014 we \u2014 are left utterly confused to the extent the common language with which people can communicate begins to fail them.<\/p>\n

The result is not silence. It is a senseless cacophony that echoes through a weird no-man\u2019s land in which nothing can be said without the risk of retribution or condemnation or banishment. Civil discourse is more or less out of the question.<\/p>\n

We are now a dreadful step on from embedding, it seems. It is no longer enough to tether correspondents to the perspective of the military from whose side they report. We appear to be on the way to having wars fought \u2014 huge, bloody, consequential wars \u2014 without any witnesses.<\/p>\n

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I'm speechless.<\/p>\n

Biden folks feared that a pause in the fighting would enable more journalists to get into Gaza and cover the carnage…<\/p>\n

"And there was some concern in the administration about an unintended consequence of the pause: that it would allow journalists broader access\u2026<\/p>\n

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) November 22, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n