Shock and Awe, not Aw Shucks…

Reuters is reporting that the first "shock and awe" campaign is under way:

"Baghdad is burning," said a correspondent for the Al-Jazeera television network. "What more can we say."

Comments

[TV Viewer]

I was watching CNN all morning, and Paula Zahn sounded downright disappointed that there had been no "shock and awe" -- kind of like the people who complained that Cher canceled her concert because someone stole her wig. Meanwhile, Wolf Blitzer did everything except whoop and raise the roof when the bombing started. With all the cheerleading, the split-screens reminiscent of CBS' NCAA coverage, and the giant maps and telestrators that just beg for John Madden, I can't tell whether these TV networks think they're covering a war or a sporting event.

[Jon H]

I can just imagine the outrage if an Al Jazeera newscaster behaved the same way watching the 9/11 footage.

[Bill G]

If the Iraqi military was as good on the battlefield as they are with snappy one liners, we might have more trouble...

From an AP report:
Asked Friday night about an Iraqi counterattack, al-Sahhaf replied, "Our leadership and our armed forces will decide this, in what guarantees the defeat of those mercenaries, God willing." Speaking of Rumsfeld and President Bush (news - web sites), he declared, "Those only deserve to be hit with shoes."

[Mrs. L. Ron Hubbard]

America needs to give the UN more time to deliberate.

[Billie W.]

Someone else said it better:

"We live in the U.S.E. (United States of Entertainment.)
Everything is a show, including a war with Iraq ...
People are going to die, so they may cover it very seriously.
But the promotion is where the show business comes in.
It's the same as the promotion for a stupid reality show."
-- Media critic and correspondent BERNARD GOLDBERG.

[RJ Boucher]

Al Jazeera has an agenda of its own, and it is not the truth. It is the same as CNN and Fox. Let me give you a hint what it is ...$$$$$$... They just pander to a different audience.

News media's take a tone that will fire up their viewing audience. Fox has been kicking CNN's butt by moving the tone of their show more distinctly to the right of the American politics. Likewise, Al Jazeera presents the news with a nationalist, pan-Arabic bias because it feeds into their core audiences expectations.

[Dan]

I can just imagine the outrage if an Al Jazeera newscaster behaved the same way watching the 9/11 footage

"If?"

[Mr. Smith]

"America needs to give the UN more time to deliberate."

And deliberate . . . and deliberate . . . and deliberate . . . (ad nauseam.)

[Anonymous]

RE: "[The news media] take a tone that will fire up their viewing audience."

For Al Jaz, that tone is graphic carnage -- candid, no holds barred, in-your-face reportage.

For CNN that tone is ("Oh, they shouldn't show that!") -- unctuous, hypocritical, in-your-face reportage -- as they show the very same, while wagging fingers at Al Jaz.

Fires 'em up all right. Hmmm?