State Media is the enemy of the People - Part 2

A national security reporter, William Arkin, left NBC and wrote a letter to his colleges explaining why. https://williamaarkin.wordpress.com/2019/01/04/my-departure-letter-from-nbc/

Some excerpts:

Somewhere in all of that, and particularly as the social media wave began, it was clear that NBC (like the rest of the news media) could no longer keep up with the world. Added to that was the intellectual challenge of how to report our new kind of wars when there were no real fronts and no actual measures of success.

And though there might be the beloved perfumed princes in the form of the Petraeus’ and Wes Clarks’, or the so-called warrior monks like Mattis and McMaster, we’ve had more than a generation of national security leaders who sadly and fraudulently done little of consequence. And yet [NBC] (and others) embrace them, even the highly partisan formers who masquerade as “analysts”. We do so ignoring the empirical truth of what they have wrought: There is not one country in the Middle East that is safer today than it was 18 years ago. Indeed the world becomes ever more polarized and dangerous.

I find it shocking that we essentially condone continued American bumbling in the Middle East and now Africa through our ho-hum reporting.

I feel like I’ve failed to convey this larger truth about the hopelessness of our way of doing things, especially disheartened to watch NBC and much of the rest of the news media somehow become a defender of Washington and the system.

And I would assert that in many ways NBC just began emulating the national security state itself – busy and profitable. No wars won but the ball is kept in play.

I’d argue that under Trump, the national security establishment not only hasn’t missed a beat but indeed has gained dangerous strength. Now it is ever more autonomous and practically impervious to criticism. I’d also argue, ever so gingerly, that NBC has become somewhat lost in its own verve, proxies of boring moderation and conventional wisdom, defender of the government against Trump, cheerleader for open and subtle threat mongering, in love with procedure and protocol over all else (including results).

People who don’t understand the medium, or the pressures, loudly opine that it’s corporate control or even worse, that it’s partisan. Sometimes I quip in response to friends on the outside (and to government sources) that if they mean by the word partisan that it is New Yorkers and Washingtonians against the rest of the country then they are right.

For me I realized how out of step I was when I looked at Trump’s various bumbling intuitions: his desire to improve relations with Russia, to denuclearize North Korea, to get out of the Middle East, to question why we are fighting in Africa, even in his attacks on the intelligence community and the FBI. Of course he is an ignorant and incompetent impostor. And yet I’m alarmed at how quick NBC is to mechanically argue the contrary, to be in favor of policies that just spell more conflict and more war.

 

If you like your news in video form, here is an interview with Arkin.

 

Colleagues, obviously a typo. Too late to edit.

 

Unbiased reporting used to be a goal of the news media. Now we are bombarded with talking heads giving opinions. When it comes to politics and security issues, actual news is rarely ever reported. How often do they mention the bombings, troops deployments and bases built in Africa. If the nightly news covered troop deployments and military bases as well as the weather report we would all be better informed.

The lack of critical thinking is a whole other can of worms. The right is against critical thinking. They need the next generation of drones listening to Fox news. https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2012-06-27/gop-opposes-critical-thinking/. The left has their own useful idiots led by MSNBC and the like.

 

I haven't read anything by him, but his books look interesting. I stumbled across this article while going down a rabbit hole. It reminded me of a couple discussions I have had in this sub recently, so I thought it was a worthwhile post.