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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Friday, September 04, 2009

The Strange Parallel Universe Of The Associated Press 

...so the A.P., which generally failed miserably to do actual journalism in the run-up to the Iraq war and which failed miserably to do actual journalism while the Bush administration ran roughshod over the Constitution of the United States and which has failed miserably to do any actual journalism in covering the ginned-up August "outrage" over health care reform and which failed miserably to cover the "cost of war" in that war of choice in Iraq that it failed miserably to do actual journalism about in the first place...yes, that A.P. has decided that NOW is the time to - in its eyes - do some actual journalism and ignite a firestorm by running photo's of a young Marine in his last moments of life after being severely wounded by an RPG in southern Afghanistan...

Despite the fact that the young Marine's father objected - twice - to the use of the photo in question, the A.P. felt that it was absolutely imperative that it send the photo out 'on the wire':
The Associated Press reported in a story about deliberations about that photo that “after a period of reflection,” the news service decided “to make public an image that conveys the grimness of war and the sacrifice of young men and women fighting it.

Maybe I'm missing something here. Maybe I hang out in the wrong places with slightly older gentlemen who personally witnessed the grimness of combat in Southeast Asia, or maybe I don't understand because I grew up in the 1960's watching "the grimness of war" every night at dinnertime as as American soldiers, sailors, Marines, and Vietnamese civilians were shot, blown up, napalmed, strafed, and bombed in living color on TV. Whatever the reason, I already got it, without even needing to be there. As the baby boomer son of a WWII combat vet, I sat through more than enough adult conversations about all those acceptable memories that my dad and his friends shared, sprinkled with occasional oblique references to bad times that they clearly didn't want to revisit (especially in the presence of young prying ears) that I really think I probably got it at a fairly young age...

War is Hell. I understand that. Most people understand that. If you don't understand that War is Hell, I have a list of movies, documentaries, and premium cable TV series that you should watch, sitting a couple of feet away from the closest 50-inch 1080P 120 Hz HiDef flat panel you can find. It will all be pretend in the moment, but it will do. It's hard to imagine, however, that there is anybody who is so isolated from the world and so divorced from the obvious examples of pain and sacrifice that have characterized our Iraqi experience that such a person needs this particular invasive photo to be somehow reconnected to the idea that War Is Hell...

Whatever rational the A.P. has relied on to decide just now to publish an incredibly painful photograph to let us all know that War is Hell, despite the repeated objections of a grieving parent, absolutely escapes me, especially given the ample opportunities that it was afforded during the previous Republican administration to make that same point concerning our occupation of Iraq. The angry objections of the family, the leader of the American Legion, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates speak volumes to the "wisdom" of this decision and what it actually says about the abjectly failed depths to which this once-valuable 'fourth estate' has sunk...

The decision by the A.P. to put Julie Jacobson's photo's on the wire and its subsequent explanation for why it did so are nothing less than an insult to our collective intelligence. The corporate statements are simply bizarre:
"We understand Mr. Bernard's anguish. We believe this image is part of the history of this war. The story and photos are in themselves a respectful treatment and recognition of sacrifice." AP senior managing editor John Daniszewski

Think about that for a moment. "The history of this war" is Daniszewski's rationale for the opportunity to provide family and friends of a particular Marine with an entire lifetime of being able to seeing some of his last moments far from their loving, comforting reach on the far side of the planet. Never mind all of the complicity that this particular news outlet has for the diversion of attention and resources to a wasteful and wasted effort in Iraq, where tens of thousands of Iraqis and over four thousand Americans suffered the ultimate brutality of the grim reality of war. The publication of this one particular photo (over the repeated objection of the family) was not a "respectful treatment" of sacrifice; it was simply a cheap bit of war voyeurism by an organization that felt like it hit some war-porn jackpot and wanted to exploit that jackpot now that pro-war Republicans were in decline, and the Hell with those who might be forever hurt by this big 'scoop'...

The A.P. has had any number of opportunities to 'recognize sacrifice' in this same grim way for the last six years of the Iraq war, and it didn't do much of that so as long as Bushco was in charge. That all by itself raises interesting questions about motivations, but at the very least we can see this as a manifestation of the strange other universe in which the so-called journalists of the A.P. live...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:22 PM 0 comments

Monday, August 31, 2009

Other Heroes 

...as I begin to write this, I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what the actual title of this post will be. All I know is that two brave men tried to do the best they could to protect the people in their charge, and it all went horribly, terribly wrong...

Someday there will come a writer who is both sufficiently experienced in the up-front madness that is the wild maelstrom of front-line wildland firefighting and sufficiently skilled in the writing art to truly express the raw emotions of a singular desperate moment that forces people to pick from a decision matrix that no random person on the street would agree to if you walked up to her or him and offered the sort of "go/no go" options that these people faced. I'm not that writer; I fail on both accounts, having been one of those people who get dragged into the wildland firefighting world at "cooks and bottle-washers" time (which, over the years, has actually come around pretty often) and not having sufficient writing skills to truly capture what The Fog Of War looks like in this particular setting...

Still, I must pay my tribute.

Two men, concerned beyond all else with the safety of the people for whom they were responsible, set out to find a route away from their burned-over fire camp in the middle of a fire that has been exhibited extreme behavior. They did the best they could...and that is all we can ever ask of the people that we expect to go in harm's way every day without ever acknowledging their risk and potential sacrifice with the sorts of honors and ceremony that we accord to those who journey across oceans to Afghanistan and Iraq. They did what they did because that, when it comes down to "bottom line" time, is what they were supposed to do. They offered themselves up to be the people who needed to be in a place that most people wouldn't take all the money in the world to be, all because somebody had to be in that place at that moment. Some people - only a very few, admittedly, but enough - understand just exactly what all that means and, to those few, they will always be remembered...

They were heroes, too...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:56 PM 0 comments

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