Thursday - June 15, 2006

Shame

There is something terribly wrong with the mainstream media. I would almost be willing to forgive them their liberal bias in most matters if it weren’t for the absolutely despicable way they cover the brave men and women fighting the war on terror How can there be any honesty in devoting less than an hour to coverage of America’s heros and winners of our highest awards for bravery? That’s less than an hour of coverage IN FIVE YEARS.

Yet in the last three weeks alone, the major broadcast news outlets have given 3 ½ hours of coverage to an alleged “massacre” supposedly perpetrated by American troops in Haditha. Throw in the coverage of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and you literally have HUNDREDS OF HOURS of media coverage of so-called “misconduct” by American troops since 9/11.

At any other time in our nation’s history that would have been called treason, among other things. Pardon my “fwench” but the arrogant bastards reporting the news aren’t fit to kiss the boots of someone like Army Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith. Who was he? He was just a soldier ....

“Valor Blind” -by- Cox & Forkum

In the past three weeks, the networks have emphasized charges that, after Marine Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas was killed in Haditha last year, members of his unit murdered 24 innocent Iraqi civilians and filed a false report to hide their crime. In March of this year, all three networks aired stories documenting the charges and the fact that the Pentagon was investigating.

The investigation isn’t over, but on May 17 NBC Nightly News opted to put the story back in the headlines after comments from anti-war Congressman John Murtha. From that date through June 7, the networks have aired 99 stories or segments suggesting U.S. military misconduct — three and a half hours of coverage in three weeks. ABC has hit the story the hardest, with 85½ minutes of coverage on Good Morning America, World News Tonight, This Week and Nightline. NBC aired 67 minutes on Today, Nightly News and Meet the Press, while CBS broadcast 58 minutes on The Early Show, CBS Evening News and Face the Nation.

Much of the coverage has been repetitive, reviewing the allegations and the still unfinished investigation. At the same time, the networks have presumed a guilty verdict and a blow to the overall American military’s reputation. “Will Haditha be the My Lai of the Middle East?” asked Nightline co-host Terry Moran on May 25, referring to the killing of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians back in 1968. Filling in as anchor of the May 31 CBS Evening News, Russ Mitchell pronounced that “if the allegations prove true, they’d be a huge new blow to the American military’s standing with Iraq’s government and it’s people.”

Since the war on terror began, the military has awarded top medals to 20 individuals, four of whom died on the battlefield in either Afghanistan or Iraq. The highest award, the Medal of Honor, was given to the family of Army Sergeant First Class Paul Ray Smith, who lost his life while protecting more than 100 fellow soldiers during the battle for Baghdad’s airport in April 2003. Nineteen servicemen received the second highest honors, all for “extraordinary heroism” in combat. The list includes two fallen members of the Air Force who were awarded the Air Force Cross; three soldiers who merited the Distinguished Service Cross; and three sailors and 11 Marines who received the Navy Cross, one posthumously.

Most of these men have never been recognized by ABC, CBS or NBC. None have been given more than a fraction of the attention that the latest allegations against the military have received. And while the networks have told of acts of heroism by others in the military — with Sergeant Leigh Ann Hester of the Kentucky National Guard getting the most coverage among those honored with a Silver Star — none of those other positive stories have interested the networks as much as news of possible military misconduct.

CBS presented more than twice as much coverage (28½ minutes) of these 20 heroes as either ABC or NBC (each at about 11 minutes, 45 seconds). The CBS Evening News has since 2004 regularly spotlighted short biographical features of “Fallen Heroes” and, later, “American Heroes.” And only the CBS Evening News noted when Vice President Cheney gave the Distinguished Service Cross to Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Donald Hollenbaugh on June 10, 2005, although they did not recount the story of how Hollenbaugh saved the group of Marines he was with when they were overrun in Fallujah in April 2004.

The most heavily-covered hero was Medal of Honor winner Paul Smith, who received 41 minutes of coverage during a 24-month period, 79 percent of the heroes’ total. CBS’s Jim Axelrod had Smith’s story on April 9, 2003, just five days after he was killed in action. ABC’s Bill Blakemore featured Smith on World News Tonight two weeks later. Blakemore ran a soundbite from First Sergeant Tim Campbell: “He’s the epitome of what I look for in a soldier. He was, a good man. When you think in terms of how many soldiers he saved, and he died doing it, it’s just phenomenal to me.” All three networks offered full reports on their morning and evening news shows when President Bush presented the Medal of Honor to Smith’s widow and two children on April 4, 2005, the second anniversary of his death.

ABC, CBS and NBC have yet to mention the heroism of Marine Captain Brian Chontosh, who led his men out of an ambush during the drive to Baghdad in March 2003. “I never wanted a medal. I just wanted to save my Marines,” Chontosh told the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle in 2004. Nor have they reported on Marine Sergeant Scott Montoya, who ran into a hail of gunfire to save five wounded Marines. Later, Montoya told the Orange County Register that all he could think of was the Bible verse: “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

- Media Research Center - June 12, 2006: “Touting Military Misdeeds, Hiding Heroes”

Posted by The Skipper     on 06/15/2006 at 04:56 AM   
Filed Under: • Media-Bias • Military •  
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Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

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It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

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