• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

You cannot shame the shameless.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

We still have time to mess this up!

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

After roe, women are no longer free.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

A dilettante blog from the great progressive state of West Virginia.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Everybody saw this coming.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Mobile Menu

  • Winnable House Races
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • Balloon Juice 2023 Pet Calendar (coming soon)
  • COVID-19 Coronavirus
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • War in Ukraine
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • 2021-22 Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Politics / Media / A Discussion on the Media

A Discussion on the Media

by John Cole|  June 12, 20051:29 pm| 3 Comments

This post is in: Media

FacebookTweetEmail

Via BlackFive (and I can’t figure out for the life of me why he was not on my blogroll, something that has been fixed- I need a utility that synchronizes my browser bookmarks with my blogroll), I see this story which presents a dilemma, and goes a long way to explain why many are overtly hostile to the media:

The second story has no meaning but for the first. (This story originally appeared at Debate Space, my joint blog with The Liberal Avenger, who just happened to ask a question about internet censorship on military bases just as the blackout was lifted at our FOB.

As is the practice here in Iraq, the Command shuts down phone and internet connections for 24-48 hours, long enough for the Military to contact affected families. [When soldiers are killed from the unit- ed.]

Let me tell you why that is so important.

One of the idiots here who doesn’t understand the very good reasons for the blackout, placed an anonymous call just before the blackout was imposed, saying 4 soldiers of our Division were killed, maybe more injured.

An equally idiotic (no, make that even more idiotic) news editor or reporter called Mrs. Dadmanly at home, told her about the anonymous tip, and asked her if she had heard any news? The reporters involved apparently contacted several family members.

Needless to say, with the rest of us on blackout, my wife was a basket case, as were many other family members and friends. Since the news (based on this anonymous tip) was immediately reported on local news and amplified by CNN, the military authorities in our Rear Detachment were forced to send out an email confirming that soldiers were injured, but that no further information could be made available until families had been notified. Which just scared and upset more families and friends of Soldiers in our Division, because (thanks to HIPAA restrictions), the Army can’t reveal any medical information without patient consent.

My wife had to wait until the blackout was lifted to find out if I had been injured. Or if others in my unit had been hurt or killed.

During the blackout Soldiers in our unit had no idea the attack had been reported back home. When the blackout was lifted, I quickly emailed my wife at work, sending a bland “How are you today? I’m fine,” just in case she hadn;t heard anything, but letting her know I was okay if she had.

Her first response was, “Do You Know How Crazy Things Were Here?!”

Friends and family were frantic. Reports were all over the place, and there were all these calls from the press. Neighborhood new press. Neighbors from in town. Emails and calls. No solid information, no “Your Soldier is safe and sound,” but more like “You will be contacted if your Soldier has been injured.”

Discuss. Personally, I think it is a legitimate criticism to bash the media for this sort of thing, but I also wonder the wisdom of the unit cutting off all communication. Reminds me of all those awful scenes with Madeleine Stowe in “We Were Soldiers” (FYI- I thought the movie sucked, but the book was fantastic. The prologue makes me cry every time I read it.)

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Frank Rich
Next Post: An Example For You »

Reader Interactions

3Comments

  1. 1.

    ed in texas

    June 12, 2005 at 6:32 pm

    Have a son in Afghanistan, and the same issues. CFC-A pretty much posts casualty reports daily, and the general rule is ‘no news is good news’. If my son’s battalion is listed in a report, I don’t EVEN mention it to my wife. Oddly, the only member of the family who gets less info is my younger son, who’s A-schooling at Ft Sam Houston to be a medic. He hears about a shoot out with casualties from his instructors, and has to call me to see if it’s likely his older bro might be involved.

  2. 2.

    Mike Jones

    June 12, 2005 at 8:05 pm

    First of all, the person who made the pre-blackout call is an idiot, and the reporters who acted on it are both idiots and scum.

    That said, it’s a hard call for the military. If they didn’t impose a blackout, would this sort of thing happen regularly to families? I’m generally on the side of “more information is better”, but when you’re talking about life and death information and families half a world away, things aren’t very black and white.

  3. 3.

    Aaron

    June 13, 2005 at 3:18 am

    But the public has a right to know!

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

2023 Pet Calendars

Pet Calendar Preview: A
Pet Calendar Preview: B

*Calendars can not be ordered until Cafe Press gets their calendar paper in.

Recent Comments

  • prostratedragon on Proud To Be A Democrat (Feb 9, 2023 @ 4:59am)
  • opiejeanne on Proud To Be A Democrat (Feb 9, 2023 @ 4:10am)
  • TriassicSands on Proud To Be A Democrat (Feb 9, 2023 @ 3:37am)
  • Kathleen on Proud To Be A Democrat (Feb 9, 2023 @ 3:21am)
  • NotMax on Proud To Be A Democrat (Feb 9, 2023 @ 3:16am)

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
We All Need A Little Kindness
Favorite Dogs & Cats
Classified Documents: A Primer

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Mailing List Signup
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)

Front-pager Twitter

John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
TaMara
David Anderson
ActualCitizensUnited

Shop Amazon via this link to support Balloon Juice   

Join the Fight!

Join the Fight Signup Form
All Join the Fight Posts

Balloon Juice Events

5/14  The Apocalypse
5/20  Home Away from Home
5/29  We’re Back, Baby
7/21  Merging!

Balloon Juice for Ukraine

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!