I'm having CNN deja vu.

Not just for Gulf War I. Every recent 24/7 wall-to-wall News Event--9/11, Columbia--has followed the same pattern: because they have to kill time between Events, they broadcast hours and hours of rehash, "analysis", helpful animations--and, most importantly, they replay the video of the Event, over and over and over again.

Hip-hop and dance music looped media samples. Now the media samples and loops itself. Catch that funky Blitzer beat.

I'm not a particularly political person. I belong to that breed of complacent, shallowly-liberal cynics who forward funny Dubya videos, read the Economist (but just for the news, not for the nekkid pix of sexy capitalists, no really), and stew in their general bafflement at the complexity of political and social issues in order to avoid having strong opinions about most things. (Is that so wrong?)

So while I generally have pretty low expectations of the media, and realize they're generally in it for the money and the ratings, I usually assume that "serious" news stations at least have some baseline desire to actually report things reasonably.

Okay, so I'm naive.

Every bit of coverage I've heard since the bombing started has gotten on my nerves. (This includes NPR, supposedly a bastion of liberal reportage.) It's not about the pro-war slant of the coverage--while I'm against the war, I recognize that some reasonable people have somewhat reasonable (though, in my view, optimistic and possibly naive) arguments for supporting the war. It's that the reporters don't seem investigative, cautious, skeptical; they seem excited, eager, pumped. They love saying "Bunker Buster". They love taking potshots at the weakness of the Iraqi military. They love feeling like they're part of the military clubhouse and "Operation Iraqi Freedom".

Sure, war is exciting--and it's exciting to be an anchor on a big story. But don't they have any room for self-reflection and self-containment? Why do they have to so obviously be part of the propaganda machine? Can't they reserve just a little of their pandering for the side that has serious reservations about the justification for and value of the war? Have people really been so blinded by Bush's ridiculous FUD about the supposed Iraqi connection to 9/11 that they really think this is a justified retaliation?

What angers me most, though, is that the mantra "news is entertainment" isn't just for local news shows and Fox any more: ultimately, the major media outlets all feed a kind of sick voyeurism. As the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attack was approaching, channels ran ads for retrospectives with taglines like "Relive the Terror"--as if it were the sequel to a Sam Raimi movie. How can anyone not be enraged by that kind of crassness?

(Does anyone know whether the mellifluously-named "Bunker Busters" they're planning to use are the new nuclear ones they've been trying to develop? The media doesn't mention it, but who knows.)

Garry Trudeau once said something to the effect that anyone who relied on a comic strip to get their news was pretty sad. But my friend Albion pointed out that it's actually pretty interesting to go back and read older Doonesbury strips--many of the major political players from years ago are coming back now, Dick Cheney being the most egregious. And what cartoonist could have scripted a better story arc than Gulf War I + II?

Well, if getting news from a comic strip is sad, I'm even sadder: the only news show I can stand to watch these days is The Daily Show.

If we're lucky, the war will end quickly; maybe we'll even manage not to kill too many civilians. I won't shed any tears if Saddam Hussein is killed, and I'm sure many Iraqis won't, either. But that's not the only thing at stake here, and while I'm sure some on the pro-war side have thought about the other consequences, I don't think the public at large really has. Otherwise, they wouldn't be so sure that prosecuting this war will make the world safer.

Tags: iraq, media, politics
Current Music: smug CNN anchors