2009.11.26 - FCC club lunch with Patrick HENNESSY - 3/3

[Zootallors]

Imagine you're doing your job, which goes well 90% of the time. Some periods are orderly, even dull, others a chaotic flurry. Imagine the 10% when something goes wrong are the ONLY bits that get reported to the boss (the press love drama). These soldiers are doing an amazing job, yet all that's reported back to the public boss holding the purse strings is that they're not doing a good job at all. The media are OF the public, with no war grounding. War IS chaos, with blood, death, destruction.

[Zootallors]

As he says, connections with the military and with war for the bulk of the public have become so rare, this unfamiliarity naturally extends into the media tasked with reporting about it to that public. They're not trained for war; it's not their job. The job of journalists is simply to witness war, to do their research, to present the facts to the public, and to give them a sense of perspective that is appropriate so the public can make proper decisions. The media aren't serving us well.