Ignorance in reporting/commenting on conflict and the military.

Foo Fighter

Foo Fighter

Cum adolescunt hominem verum esse volo.
Senior Member
Joined
19 July 2016
Messages
3,982
Reaction score
3,031
G'day,

I constantly attempt to understand the mentality of people involved in commenting on conflict and the military who clearly have zero understanding of the topics.

On the news this AM was a muppet talking about VE day and she came out with some of the most pathetic rubbish I have come across like "Even as late as February 1945 we could have lost the war (Allies) and If the war had gone on in europe Germany could have used the (Atomic) bomb".

Perhaps this comes across as over the top but on the supposedly professional news channel which itself calls anything that carries a gun a "Tank" perhaps there really is no hope.
 
Last edited:
News media is largely ignorant on just about every topic (outside of perhaps industry/topic-specific sources... sometimes). Yet as Michael Crichton put it, we see them plainly demonstrate that ignorance on topics we personally know and understand, then go right ahead to the next topic and believe what they say on that.

I'm not sure accuracy and neutrality have ever really been a thing in news media; just now they don't even pretend. Everyone has a bias and a story to push--even the topic-specific media.
 
gtg947h said:
News media is largely ignorant on just about every topic (outside of perhaps industry/topic-specific sources... sometimes). Yet as Michael Crichton put it, we see them plainly demonstrate that ignorance on topics we personally know and understand, then go right ahead to the next topic and believe what they say on that.

I'm not sure accuracy and neutrality have ever really been a thing in news media; just now they don't even pretend. Everyone has a bias and a story to push--even the topic-specific media.
Click to expand...

Your last paragraph might be true of all media in the US. It is partially true of the commercial media downunder. The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) is a public broadcaster. Approximately 85% of Australians believe what it has to say, as against far lower for the Lovecraftian Horror's media which dominates the commercial outlets downunder.
 
Over here the beeb like to pretend they have higher standards but they have been dumbing down content and sensationalising news for a long time. One unit that lost more than a few was asked by a beeb reporter, "What's it like losing your mates"? Does anyone really need to ask that question or others of similar ilk?
 
Last edited:
Ahem...
Typhoon.PNG

In fairness a) they did change it and b) you don't read the Grauniad for the military coverage.

...and that is a Typhoon tip pod at bottom right.

Chris
 
cnn_shuttle.jpg
 
I do not see this dumbing down as a plan of the so-called liberal media. I see it as a result of the owner's push for ever greater levels of profit. Cuts are made in the newsroom, but the tasks those cut still need to be done so they are passed on to others who find themselves reporting on things they know very little about. On top of that, the task of finding photos to illustrate the article may fall to interns who are finding the images for everyone there - and they are under the deadline. The effects of this are even worse in the news networks that are always on and always pushing for updates. An intern may be told "we need a photo of an F-8" meaning a Chinese F-8, so the intern searches then pulls the first thing they find with F-8 in the caption or heading then moves to the next things on the list, which might be a search for "a painting by Bacon" (as in by Francis Bacon), and "a photo of Laura Ingalls" ( meaning the aviator but the intern only knows of the Little House writer) and so on. In fairness, who can know everything?

Is reporting getting more and more sloppy, yes, but I'm not sure it is a planned conspiracy.
 
Did someone mention a schmiracy? Who? I need to know so I can torture them into giving up their secrets, I mean ask nicely of course.......
 
To be fair to the Guardian, I have just searched for 'Typhoon' in the MoD image library and the first 6 pages of hits were everything other than Typhoon, including the F-35, Atlas and Voyager! The 'Flanker' pic comes up on page 7.

I think its symptomatic of the decline of reporting in general, if they are poorly briefed and not checking details for defence stories then you can bet everything else is just as distorted and poorly researched. I suppose its different in other countries, but here in the UK local newspapers and local radio stations have been brought up by major companies and many papers and radio stations have closed. This means more reliance on national sources but the quality is evidently lacking and the tabloid versus broadsheet choice leaves much to be desired.
 
France very own "Dewey defeats Truman"... At least in this case justice happened... that newspaper sunk soon thereafter.

If you want to know, the 4 headlines read as follow (top to bottom)

- "french aviation most glorious moment"

- "Nungesser and Coli succeded !"

- "Read the detailed, moving story of the great raid"

and then

- "at 5 o'clock they landed in New York"

Most outrageous of course is the third one. Details of the raid. Yeah. sure, dude.

Geez.

index.jpg
 
Last edited:
As someone who studies the media in the US, there was a deliberate trend. In the first half of the 20th Century, there were many privately owned papers. As the second half of the century began, this held true but changes would occur in the 1990s. There were rules regarding how many newspapers, magazines and radio and TV stations any large corporation could own. Those rules were relaxed, so by the year 2000, corporate owners could publish all the news they saw fit to print and slanted however they wished. In the 1970s, war reporter Walter Cronkite was called "the most trusted man in America." He consistently informed viewers. In the early 2000s, he was on the Larry King Show decrying "the tabloidization of the media." His was a strong, sober voice. As the 2000s wore on, corporate interests continued to buy even local newspapers, leaving a handful of companies controlling the majority of the news.

I submit that specialists are the future. Those who use multiple credible sources will remain informed. But keeping the population ignorant or misinformed is good for business. It is false to believe that the news publishes or promotes what people want, with the exception of sports.
 
The Artist said:
I do not see this dumbing down as a plan of the so-called liberal media. I see it as a result of the owner's push for ever greater levels of profit. Cuts are made in the newsroom, but the tasks those cut still need to be done so they are passed on to others who find themselves reporting on things they know very little about. On top of that, the task of finding photos to illustrate the article may fall to interns who are finding the images for everyone there - and they are under the deadline. The effects of this are even worse in the news networks that are always on and always pushing for updates. An intern may be told "we need a photo of an F-8" meaning a Chinese F-8, so the intern searches then pulls the first thing they find with F-8 in the caption or heading then moves to the next things on the list, which might be a search for "a painting by Bacon" (as in by Francis Bacon), and "a photo of Laura Ingalls" ( meaning the aviator but the intern only knows of the Little House writer) and so on. In fairness, who can know everything?

Is reporting getting more and more sloppy, yes, but I'm not sure it is a planned conspiracy.
Click to expand...

There was a funny case like this, many moons ago, where a French magazine put a picture of Carlos, a fat popular French singer, in place of Carlos the Jackal, a far less sympathetic man.
 
Years ago newspapers and tv news had dedicated Aviation correspondents. Now the coverage is done by people with little to no specific knowledge. It’s not really surprising that coverage is poorer quality.
 
Even the dedicated aviation correspondents can have axes to grind. I've seen stories in the broadsheets by aviation/defence correspondents with only tangential relation to reality (and I could say that because I was actually working on the projects in question).
 

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom