I've been watching BBC World News. They have the best camera angles from Baghdad. They also have correspondents in Baghdad who can speak the language and give live translation of Baghdad radio. Great stuff.
i miss the countdown on MSNBC. i hope the pres. gives another ultimatum so we can get another deadline clock. that's news at its finest.
Do Fox News have a counter of the number of Iraqi casualties/prisoners yet? As for our coverage, we "only" have three 24-hour news channels. Boy, they must be loving this. SKY News (Murdoch's mob, ie Fox News' British cousin) is kind of info-tainment. They showed a chemical attack false alarm earlier, for goodness' sake. If I had a relative in the forces I would have been cacking myself watching that. News 24 is the BBC's output. A bit more factual, less gung-ho, but it has less funding and is a bit cack. ITV News is absolutely awful. I don't think anyone watches it!
ABC News has a reporter in Baghdad as well, and American too. He speaks fluent arabic as well, he was reading an Iraqi newspaper headline and he sounded like a damn native. I was very impressed with him.
The coverage of this war will be much different than Gulf War I, what with the embedded reporters, and we can thank one entity in particular for that change: al-Jazeera. I'm convinced that the entire idea to embed reporters (including al-Jazeera reporters) with units came from the realization that the US military needed some way of offsetting images of "collateral damage" that are sure to appear on al-Jazeera.
That's Richard Engel. I was very impressed with him too. He's done a very good job of conveying the general feeling in Baghdad.
Another difference already apparent is the speed with which the images are making it to the media. Footage of the missile launch was emailed by "embedded' reporters from the ship to the US and on the air within a couple of hours. This might just be the inevitable march of technology, but it might also be a concession to greater openness than we saw in GW I. I guess it depends on how tightly controlled shipboard access to internet is (common sense would suggest this was very tight, given the security issues attached).
I've been flipping between all of our news channels. It's interesting to notice the contrast in the pace of the news between the US news channels and CBC & BBC. The US channels almost seem out of breath as they race for one developing story to another and constantly trip over each other's transitions. CBC & BBC seem so much more relaxed. The interviews move at the pace of a leisurely living room conversation. You'd think they are reporting on the Olympics or something much more benign. One style isn't neccesarily better than the other but the difference is interesting. Murf PS Dan Rather is a bizarre guy to listen to when he doesn't have a teleprompter feeding him his lines.
Speaking of breathless reporters, CNN's Nic Roberston is in Baghdad and was on the air when the recent bombardment started. While he did a decent job and stuck to the facts, he sounded pretty shaken at times: breathless and warning a colleague to get away from the window immediately following the explosion. Also, he reported that Iraqi officials had required him, apparently while he was broadcasting, to stop making specific references to places. It sounds like he is a little closer to the action than some of the reporters on other channels.
Why 40% of the American public are stupid when it comes to Iraq situation: FOX NEWS TOOK THE CROWN WEDS NIGHT IN VIEWERSHIP, MAXING WITH AN 8.0 RATING... MORE... CNN MAX 6.9; MSNBC 4.3 DURING 10 PM ET HOUR, SOURCES TELL DRUDGE... /// FROM 8 TO 11 PM ET: FOX AVG 6.3 [5.1 MILLION VIEWERS] TO CNN'S 5.3 [4.5 MILLION] TO MSNBC'S 3.3 [2.6 MILLION]...
I have to say that I think that Fox News is providing the most Pro-US patriotic coverage. That being said, I don't want to see it. The best things that I have seen is that ABC has a guy who is with the ground forces. So they were talking to him while they were rolling out and he is like we are sitting here driving around Iraq and we have sporadic artillery fire, but nothing serious (as they just went driving through Iraq). He was also one of the guys who broke the extreme artillery shelling earlier. I also should applaud NBC whom I think have been doing a good job generally. Mikleacweski (SP?) at the Pentagon just seems to scoop everyone by about 10 minutes. He is just magic for them. These two are showing things the other statitions just can't compete with. That is why i watch them. Until I get home and then I will flip on BBC or some other international station.
yep, i am a big fan of nbc and msnbc's coverage. i appreciate the different people they have cover the war and the angles they have... jim miklaszewski. he is the man at the pentagon.
BBC News on BBC America started early and even bumped "Changing Rooms" and "House Invaders." Imagine that.
I think the Saga of Nic Robertson could be aired on Fox after this is over. What a tard, i mean why would he say "i know, i'll stay in Baghdad for this." I don't understand the logic. But hey, he has a English accent so he must be smart!
I've watched little of ABC, NBC, and CBS, basically depending on what channel I turned to first. From what I read, I should put it on NBC a bit more, though CBS had good early information last night. Had it on WGN for a while, but they were getting most stuff from CNN so I can't really comment.
Just got home, turned on my TV, and CNN is running footage of some guy apparently going berserk because he didn't like being held up by a protest, complete with Aaron Brown waffling on about "We're not sure what this is about" while rerunning the footage. Turned to the BBC and they went to a feature on the USA's plans for rebuilding Iraq. Scoreboard.
CNN has a split screen - one showing the 7th Cav moving north, the other near Mosul showing some Iraqi troops just wandering around not doing much of anything. Not only is the contrast amazing - videophone in a barren, brown desert compared to a clear picture in a green valley - but the fact that we can even watch this is just mind-blowing.
I'm getting sick of how meta the coverage has been. It seems all CNN will talk about is how historic their coverage of the war is. It's far to masturbatory in my opinion.