WTF Is It Now?!?

Media filtered realities of war
'War's sobering realities never reached American TV screens during the recent U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, according to NBC News correspondent Ashleigh Banfield. U.S. television viewers were treated to a non-stop flow of images presented by "cable news operators who wrap themselves in the American flag and go after a certain target demographic."

'In her lecture appearance at Kansas State University, Banfield noted inconsistences in the Bush administration's announced war aims in Iraq, beginning with the original U.S. pre-war contention that Iraqi tyrant Saddam Hussein's alleged stockpile of chemical and biological weapons posed a serious international threat.'

And in a related story...

The director general of the BBC attacked American television and radio networks for their "shocking" and "gung-ho" coverage of the Iraq conflict.

Greg Dyke said America had "no news operation strong enough or brave enough to stand up against" the White House and Pentagon. He said: "Personally, I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war."

Mr Dyke said that since the 11 September terrorist attacks, many American networks had "wrapped themselves in the American flag and swapped impartiality for patriotism".

Mr Dyke said that on a recent visit to America he was "amazed by how many people just came up to me and said they were following the war on the BBC because they no longer trusted the American electronic news media".