By offering it exclusively to both NBC and MSNBC, the Pentagon ensured that this narrative would be given the Seriousness imprimatur from NBC, and would produce base-pleasing, Obama-favorable praise from MSNBC personalities. Having Engel embedded in a Stryker vehicles as it "rolled out" of Iraq, and Maddow stationed in the Green Zone, added to the historic tone of the evening. As The New York Times' Brian Stelter reported: "David Verdi, an NBC News vice president, added, 'The military had said, 'You are the ones who are going to broadcast it first'." About that, Mediaite's Steve Kraukauer wrote: "That’s a stunning admission, and shows a degree of coziness between both sides here." With this cooperative venture, the White House got exactly the coverage it wanted: the repeatedly hyped claim that under Barack Obama, "American combat forces are leaving Iraq," as Olbermann intoned at the start.
The ability of the Pentagon to shape coverage through controlling access, offering embedding, and doling out exclusives is too well-known and well-documented by now to require much discussion. The problem, however, is that it remains irresistibly enticing for many media outlets to submit to it. The fact that NBC/MSNBC was the only television news outlet with video of the "last combat brigade rolling out of Iraq" was a major coup. The only way that coup matters -- the only way the journalists covering this event "exclusively" can feel as though they're doing something important -- is if they vest the event with historic significance, accomplished by touting it as "the end of America‘s Iraq combat mission," exactly the message the administration wanted disseminated.
The fact that this phrase -- "the end of America‘s Iraq combat mission" -- is more propagandistic than anything gave no pause. The withdrawal of 100,000 troops from that country since Obama's inauguration is not insignificant, and it's a good thing that he's adhered to the withdrawal schedule. But, as Landay explained, 50,000 troops is a huge number -- it's what Rumsfeld originally envisioned as the occupying force to be used three months after the invasion -- and it's inevitable that they will be in combat. And that's to say nothing of the large number of private-militias which remain -- paid for by American citizens -- as well as the so-called "private army" which the State Department is currently assembling, to be deployed in that country. That's why AP refuses to use these misleading terms "even if they come from senior officials." That, and because they weren't the ones gifted with the "worldwide exclusive" coverage by the Obama administration and its Pentagon.
Read more at www.salon.com
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