Reporting from war zones in earlier times was done by journalists, free lance or employed ones sent out by their news corporations and by doing so risking their life's. Reporting was done virtually without side-taking and could be done from either side of a conflict thus delivering news more or less free of bias. War zone reporters could die from exposing themselves to the dangers of the front lines but were for most times respected by the combatants as they knew that their cause could benefit from the reporting shedding objective light over the situation. Some times it went all wrong when reporters were present while atrocities were committed like in the village of Song My, Vietnam. Politicians and military's of aggressor nations have since far back understood how devastating news could be to operations when "shit happens" and have been thinking about how to turn war zone reporting into favoring the own side.
It all came square when the US invaded Iraq in 2003, with the invention of "embedded reporters". Before this, war correspondents were held short of access to war zones like in the 2001 Gulf War or the 2001 Afghanistan invasion. This was how the US managed bad publicity in those days and with a learning lesson from Vietnam, Nicaragua and other places. Now the pressure was from news corporations was building again and to once again manage having war zone reporting still with the news favoring the own side, the "embedded" reporter was invented, the second generation of war zone reporting had become reality. An embedded reporter has to be approved by the State department, was assigned to a particular military unit, under command by it's commander and anything reported had to be scrutinized by a military press spokesperson before being released through the reporters home channels. The obvious consequence here is that news would primarily be fed to a global world through US embedded reporters and anything not approved by military censorship wouldn't ever slip through.
The most severe consequence and a lethal blow to war zone reporting was that war correspondents from the day of this invention and on now is seen by the "other side" as enemy combatants to be kidnapped, killed even publicly decapitated. Since the birth of the "embedded reporter" we have seen a brutal decrease in war zone reporting and we have correspondents being assassinated in increasing numbers, reporters even from my tiny Sweden have been shot down on streets in war torn countries. With Syria war zone reporting ceased to exist as all war correspondents of the world knows that they are seen as enemy combatants, to be kidnapped or killed.
Now comes the interesting part, third generation of war zone reporting. How would that be done when reporters of the world refuse to enter from the very real fear of loosing their life's? The world apart from war zones is hungering to know about what is going on in and around the zones of conflicts and in particular anything related to the blood thirsty radical Muslim movement of ISIS. Reporting from Palestine is boring, sad and depressing but useless as the whole situation around Gaza, the West-bank and Jerusalem is controlled by Israel's iron-grip. Who wants to see, to know about something that has been going on for decades with no hope for improvement. Regarding Syria, it is different as anything there is up for grabs, from the USA, from Russia, from Iran, from Hezbollah, from ISIS and that incoherent multitude of insurgent groups, more or less but even more interesting than the Iraq and Afghanistan that already are over the top.
I come to believe that the third generation of war zone reporting and just because of the void regarding war news is turning into reality soaps like Homeland. It is perfect for everybody, a story told once a week that won't bother us on daily basis, it is perfect for the nation of origin as censorship could be applied grooming the whole situation reported in favor of the "Homeland", perfect for screen-writers as they are being fed with scrumptious details from "situation rooms", from the CIA press people, from State department appointed politicians.
As the war in Syria seem to be a "proxy war", that is someone fighting for some else, i.e. ISIS for Saudi Arabia and it's "Whhabistic" cause, Hezbollah for Iran, Iran for getting closer to Israel, some insurgent groups for al Qaeda, others for the USA, I would suggest calling the "Homeland" style reporting for Proxy War Zone Reporting.
War zone reporting today has become nothing but a Hollywood reality soap. Created by a genius from the domains of media, film or writing or ... one of those "Tinkering Tanks", the NGO's.
Very intriguing, don't you think or perhaps just another manifestation of the authors vivid imagination for conspiracy? At the end of the day I must say that I love Homeland, perhaps the #1 television series running at present. It is as exciting as the Syrian conflict itself.
#Homeland #Afghanistan #Iraq #Syria #Libya #Egypt #Yemen #Obama #CIA #NSA #Germangate
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