Nation Topics - Media Coverage of the War on Terrorism | The Nation

Perhaps Americans can be excused for imagining that "regime change" in
Iraq would be a cakewalk.

Of the more than 700 journalists who have registered with the CentCom
Coalition Media Center here, two have emerged as celebrities.

You could have knocked CNN's Aaron Brown over with a feather.

How bad can things get, how fast? Are we already at the point where
literally nothing can derail the war machine?

Let's say you have a war to sell. You have the usual public relations
tools at your disposal: highly scripted press conferences, stories
leaked by White House officials to a compliant press.

A generation ago, when I worked at the Washington Post, the
right-wing fringe occasionally referred to us as "Pravda on the
Potomac." We reporters were amused but also rankled.

War may or may not be inevitable, but a one-sided discussion of US
policy toward Iraq appears to be all but guaranteed on network
television.

It's a fascinating scheme, "this very ambitious and aggressive embed
plan," as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Bryan
Whitman calls it.

Who's the hack? I nominate The New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg.
He's the new Remington, though without the artistic talent.

Roseanne Over Jennings