Comparing Wars

or

'Slash and Run' Journalism

I understand how the mainstream newspapers operate: short, pithy headlines to get your attention, sensational stories, heart-wrenching photos, etc. It's all about money. Grab someone's attention, hope they read part of an article and, by the way, have you seen the new 2007 Lincoln Navigator?

Our country's newspapers are big business, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Your Humble Patriot certainly would not advocate government intervention into the news, a la the Pravda of old. However, the newspaper business has tried to keep up in our age of lightning-fast digital communications, and this attempt to keep the print media relevant has hurt the quality.

Go back 60 years, to a time when television was in its infancy. A guy came home from work, picked up the newspaper from the front steps, kissed his wife as she was preparing dinner, and leisurely read the day's news as his kids listened to The Lone Ranger on the radio. A simpler time where our Nation's print media had little competition.

How about contrasting that 1946 image with today's digital age? Newspapers and terrestrial radio are still somewhat common, plus 100+ channels of cable or satellite television, and XM and Sirius satellite radio. These media, along with the Internet and it's recently-spawned digital syndicated feeds such as pod casting, mobilecasting, RSS, Atom, etc., created an environment where a person can be bombarded with news and entertainment 24 hours a day. After a full day of work outside the home, a busy mom transports her kids to all manner of extra-curricular activities while talking on a cellular phone to order a pizza for dinner. Pacified kids watch videos in the back seat to stave off boredom. Even in the middle of third world Afghanistan, each morning the Humble Patriot opens a laptop and clicks a bookmark on his Mozilla Firefox web browser, instantly opening a half-dozen tabs of favorite news and web log sites. Sure, this is progress. But I feel a tinge of pity for today's kids who, instead of getting dirty and sweaty playing baseball, hopscotch or 'cowboys and Indians', sit in an air conditioned home as their vital signs go south during their daily four hours of watching a big screen TV.

What does this revolution in communications mean? I see modern newspapers, desperate for survival, trying anything and everything to reach more readers. They have entire sections related to "entertainment," with a gossip columnist giving us the latest of which Hollywood star is dating which gangsta rapper, and other pseudo-news. The effect on each paper's news desk is shameful, cutting staffs and eliminating the careful legwork and research that go into each news story. Relying on the Associated (with terrorists) Press and al-Reuters for news coverage on the War on Terror worsens their image, in my Humble opinion.

Okay, that was my long-winded preamble to today's topic. Why does the press continue to compare the wars, scandals, and other topics of today to those of yesterday? Every scandal gets the suffix "-gate" applied to it, so we endure names like Contragate, Whitewatergate, and Trousergate. In its war coverage the press is constantly comparing our current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan to previous wars. "US involved for longer time in Iraq than in World War II," is a headline from last week. Of course the mainstream media's favorite comparison is with Vietnam. Two years ago the USA Today asked readers, "Is Iraq becoming another Vietnam?" Well, of course it's not; the wars have more differences than similarities. Apparently the one similarity that trumps everything else, including common sense, is the fact that the anti-war, moonbat left doesn't like the War in Iraq. Read a recent column from Lt Col Oliver North where he decries the "Vietnam deja vu howl," and demonstrates that the parallels between Vietnam and Iraq are virtually nonexistent, except in the press and the political arena.

The future of journalism is rapidly evolving. Today's technology lends itself to small-time journalists and blogs such as the Humble Patriot. We've seen the power of blogs, how a legion of little people can "raise the BS flag" on major media stories and possibly affect elections and change public opinion. The major newspapers seem slow to react. One question: if newspapers go away, what will people use to line the bottom of hamster cages and help get their fireplaces lit?