The Press and the War

Emmet Tyrell discusses media coverage of the GWOT. It seems like they aren't on our side:

Read the liberal press. Increasingly it reads like the press of what during the Cold War was called a "nonaligned nation." Increasingly it appears that the American press "is not taking sides" in this war, this Republican war. Over the weekend it was reported that the Bush administration has been laying plans to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. On Monday the Washington Post reported that "The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq." The Post knows this because its reporters laid hands on "internal military documents." So now those documents and the controversy within the military surrounding them are known to the public, the world public. Both news stories are out there for our enemies to make use of.

He also compares it to better days in another war:

In 1942, when all Americans recognized that we were at war, the press was more disciplined. Of course, President Franklin Roosevelt encouraged this discipline with such instruments as the Office of Censorship authorized under the War Powers Act. Codes of reportage were established, and news organizations submitted thousands of stories to the censors.

I think the Old Media will have to change or be changed if Civilisation is to defeat the terrorists in the Long War.