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CNN report scorns CBC war coverage
CBS News accepts U.S. army ads
By JOHN McKAY

TORONTO (CP) -- The single, circular drop of cherry-red blood appeared first in the upper left corner of the frame.

Then it began to trickle downwards, as though competing for the viewer's attention with the rest of the screen where, in blurry shots, men could be seen running, jumping and falling. Then the BBC camera operator, apparently with a head cut from shrapnel, tried to wipe away the trickle, but succeeding only in smearing the lens, creating an accidental but gut-wrenching war metaphor as the action became filtered through a haze of human blood.

It was the latest and most deadly "friendly fire" incident of the Iraq war as an errant U.S. missile smashed into a convoy of American and Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq last weekend, killing at least 18, including the BBC crew's Kurd translator.

The dramatic report by correspondent John Simpson was introduced with the usual dispassionate calm by the BBC and later rebroadcast on ABC World News Tonight.

But as one media editor commented, coverage of the incident was almost non-existent on CNN where, it seems, friendly fire events and stats are always greeted with skepticism when they air at all.

Gillian Steward, a visiting professor at the University of Regina school of journalism, says the fact that the U.S. is at war is no excuse for the country's news media adopting a pro-war bias.

"You look at BBC -- their country is also at war -- and it's like you're looking at two different wars. It's so obvious actually when you watch CNN for a long time that they basically see themselves as the voice of the government."

Steward says it's a problem with competing all-news networks that they repeat whatever they're told by the Pentagon without caring whether it's true or not, just to get it on the air first.

The situation is typical of a growing disparity between most of the U.S. networks and their counterparts in Canada and elsewhere in the world. In particular, CNN, CBS and Fox News appear to have jumped gleefully aboard the American war wagon, emphasizing the positive and minimizing the negative.

And apparently they expect others to do likewise.

A report Monday night on CNN was especially scornful of CBC-TV. While clips of Peter Mansbridge were shown, it was noted that CBC accepted at face value Saddam Hussein's latest public appearance on the streets of Baghdad.

"Saddam is alive and well and very much in charge," Washington correspondent David Halton was seen reporting, prompting an irked CNN to question why, unlike on U.S. networks, there was no expression of doubt as to when the footage was shot or whether it really was Saddam or one of his body doubles.

In fact, CBC says, later on in the same newscast its correspondent Neil Macdonald did a "reality check" that did question the validity of the Saddam tape.

CBC spokeswoman Ruth-Ellen Soles says it should be remembered that Canada is not at war.

"And so of course our coverage is going to be different, less emotional, less involved than the American media. And that shouldn't come as any surprise to viewers."

Meanwhile over at CBS, the network has begun adding U.S. army commercials to Dan Rather's Evening News report.

The "Go Army" spots are part morale booster, part recruitment, and even include slow motion images of Gen. George S. Patton. It seems the jolting optics of the military sponsoring a war newscast have eluded executives at CBS.

"For the most part, U.S. media have signed on to the Bush administration's plan," says Tim Blackmore, a professor in media studies at the University of Western Ontario. "If it weren't for the Internet, CBC and National Public Radio, we would be completely at the mercy of networks who see an American narrative of strength, righteousness, patriotism and Christianity in the war."

Blackmore says NBC's sacking of correspondent Peter Arnett is a blatant example of a corporate information machine that sees one of its players as a traitor, and he believes many similar examples will come to light but only long after the war ends when memoirs are written.

CNN, CBS and Fox News seem obsessed with new war technology and old armchair generals while minimalizing such negativity as friendly-fire statistics, to say nothing of blood. One of CNN's retired generals Monday night even dismissed friendly fire as a fact of war and nothing the troops should concern themselves with.

"You hear about one horrendous thing -- like all those women and children getting shot at the checkpoint -- well, that's news one day and then it's gone," notes Steward.

But if CNN is perceived to be offering a skewed perspective of the war, the liberal-minded might lament that the network is losing the ratings race south of the border to an even more right-wing competitor, Fox News, which wears its patriotism proudly on its sleeve and its screen. The network's war correspondents have included such super-conservatives as Geraldo Rivera and Oliver North.

"There is nothing wrong with taking sides here," Fox anchor Neil Cavuto said on the air to one of his critics, a journalism professor. "You see no difference between a government that oppresses people and one that does not, but I do."

According to the Web site of the Poynter Institute, a U.S. journalism school that emphasizes ethics, independence and integrity, Cavuto then proceeded to label the professor an "obnoxious pontificating jerk," a "self-absorbed, condescending imbecile" and an "Ivy League intellectual Lilliputian."

David Folkenflik, a Poynter columnist, says that in its war coverage Fox News is clearly patriotic and pugilistic and it takes things personally.

"As the invasion of Iraq unfolds," he says, "Fox has switched into even higher gear, encouraging a resolutely pro-American, sometimes explicitly pro-war stance."

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Originally posted by Vogon Poet:
Supposedly there was a sniper in this building - two miles away! Two miles! This man must be a Sniper God. . .

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Originally posted by Vogon Poet:
Wraithy: don't YOU start. It's hard enough the Yanks not knowing sarcasm when they see it, without Brits failing to spot it either. Of course there was no bloody sniper, unless he was actually a lot closer and (more likely) in the opposite direction.

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Originally posted by Styrofoaman:
Ok, so there is a sniper in a hotel full of reporters... Solution: Fire into said hotel full of civilians WITH A FUCKING TANK?!

Hmmmm... This could be the start of somthing intresting:

PROBLEM: Robbers hold up 7-11 on corner...
SOLUTION: Fire into 7-11 with a tank.

PROBLEM: Snot-nosed punk beans me with slushball in parking lot.
SOLUTION: Airstrike dropping cluster bombs all over neighborhood.

I hope that whoever ordered the tank to fire into the hotel and the commander & crew of that tank are tried and convicted.

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Maybe we should help good old Tony over throw his people, since they are all terrorist.... Oh, wait, that's only a couple of factions from an occupied part of another country.....

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