The Laughing Wolf

A Letter To Naviguesser

First off, let me say that I loved your letter and the spirit behind it. You said a lot of what needs to be said, and did so in a good and forthright way. If you will consider Jack Black instead of Jim Beam, I have a bottle here that will await your return home.

The only area where we disagree at all is on the embedded reporters. The experience was not smooth in many cases, and there were some idiots in the group. The kick is, however, that what you saw was just one part of a different battle, one that has been raging since the late 50s. It was also a masterstroke on the part of top command authority, in that it was a beautiful bit of hearts and mind via the balls/crotch.

Much of the problem with the media that you so well describe comes from the fact that most who are attracted to the media have a particular mindset. That mindset is to make the world a better place, but it is also a mindset that loves direct intervention. The idea that people should do things for themselves is very foreign to this mindset. Instead, it is always the government who should do things, as people make mistakes, people are dishonest, people that do bad things.

What this particular mindset sees is a monolithic entity that does things to people, on behalf of groups of people, said groups being entities instead of individuals. They fail to realize, or accept, that in America the government is supposed to be the people, the individuals. They see it as the thing that keeps individuals from doing what they think are bad things.

This particular viewpoint tends to be very far to the left, to put it mildly. For worse, The Media have been selecting for this mindset for some time, and those who go to it are not only drawn in, but promoted and rewarded. This, in turn, tends to cause an even greater concentration in not merely the newsroom, but the leadership boards as well. It is rare to see anyone who truly doesn’t share this mindset make it far in the newsroom.

One of the other facets of this form of groupthink is that it has a distrust of portions of the government, in particular the military. The military is seen as old fashioned, reactionary, resistant to “progress” as they define it, and – horrors of horrors – the military actually does things instead of talking about them. The military is prepared to and does kill enemies, rather than simply talking to them and trying to change their minds. This results in the members of the military being viewed as, at best, dangerous Neanderthals. The mindset these people have, therefore, is the worst of the Victorian mindset so eloquently described by Kipling. For whatever comfort it may be worth, police, fire, and rescue also share in this taint and are treated accordingly.

Now a peculiar thing about this group, however, is that they are also drawn to the ideals of journalism. Those ideals hold that truth matters, that there is such a thing as objective truth and it needs to get out. This does cause quite a contradiction within the mindset, one that often requires large doses of justification and rationalization, but it is there and this is important.

I have written earlier about an undeclared war between members of The Media and the military. It is a bitter, hard fought, and nasty war and while I think that The Media has not covered itself in glory on this, there is indeed fault on both sides. What truly matters, though, is the additional bulwark that has been established within the mindset of The Media as a result.

It holds that not only is the military bad, but anyone who has anything to do with them or understands them in any way, is bad as well. Bad as in evil, nasty, and beyond redemption. A Neanderthal troglodyte of the worst order, only slightly less so than the average soldier is in this viewpoint. My own career in mainstream journalism came to a crashing halt because of this, because you see I not only took ROTC, I had wanted to join the military. Worse yet, I left the path prescribed by the Journalism Purity League, also known as the white, er, Jouralism Citizens Council, to go to the evil realm of public relations and business development. Not only did I desert THE WAY for mere money (about three times the salary of a reporter at the time) but I did so for the U.S. Air Force. You see, I went to work as a contract employee at an Air Force testing and research center.

For that, I was cast out and given the “you’ll never work in this town again” speech from several in the journalism field, including some I thought friends. At least reasonable acquaintances. Bad enough I was infected by greed, but I was also tainted irredeemably by the military.

This was a few years ago, to be polite, but during that time I have seen some changes. More than that, I have seen the very window of opportunity that was seized at the start of this war. That is, the inbred desire for “the truth” and to go after the truth that has become part and parcel of modern journalism. That, you see, is what is being used against The Media right now. The embeds are, in all practical terms, a fifth column.

The beauty of it is, they are not a direct threat nor are they full of lies and propaganda. Instead, they are infected with the truth, and I think that scares the hell out of a lot of the extremists in The Media. These are the people who have paid lip service to the ideals of journalism, including truth in reporting and coverage, and have concentrated instead on indoctrination and recruitment. Right now, you are seeing in the media a war within the ranks, as the extremists try desperately to kill the virus that is invading them. The problem is, for them, that it is awfully hard to kill the truth.

Complicating that is the fact that the reporters who did have the courage and integrity to go and be with troops have gained great stock with the public. The American public, as Patton pointed out, loves a fight and loves a winner. The embeds were winners in the eyes of the public, and their enemies know and detest that fact.

Because of this public perception and liking, they dare not move against the embeds too openly. They have and will continue to do so, but they have to be discrete, careful, and all the things that allow the awful truth memes to spread. While there were several embeds who did not give a fig about the truth, there were a lot more out there who believe in the ideals of journalism, who found out that their preconceptions were wrong, and who have the integrity to admit it. This is not making a direct impact at the top levels yet, but time will change that. Public opinion and public economic voting will change that. We will change that, you and me and everyone else who makes the choice.

Many of the embeds have come back and are questioning the conventional wisdom of the newsrooms and the leaders of The Media. Many of the embeds are working their experiences, their perceptions, and their new knowledge into their reporting. Why do you think the news is so shrill on quagmire and such? Why do you think that things are so out of hand? The old guard is desperate to vindicate themselves, to do what they can while they can because the just don’t think their hold is slipping, they see it slipping.

They see a new generation of reporters who are not violently anti-military. They see the public starting to call them on their biases, lies, and worse. They see power slipping from their grasp and they are desperate. Therefore, you see a hell of a lot of piss poor reporting and coverage from people who DO know better. And, you are starting to see some good reporting filter its way into the bottom of the media food change.

Hearts and mind campaigns are slow things, even when you have them by the balls/crotch. It takes time to change minds, to shape the future. It is something we have seen many times. Just take a look at the aftermath of the American Revolution, and the problems with Crown Loyalists and with assimilating them into the Great Experiment. Take a look at Reconstruction after the War Between The States, Germany and Russia after WWI, Germany after WWII with the Werewolves and Odessa, and, what the hey, pick any war.

You want to know the best things?

First, the time on reconstruction is getting shorter each time, both because the worst excesses of carpet bagging have been eliminated and we are getting better at spreading the memes. Take a look at the emergent merchant and entrepreneur classes in Iraq itself if you want a good example. They are there, even if most non-blogging public in the U.S. doesn’t know it.

Second, we have just set a few dozen to a few hundred reporters who have seen the truth and now know (and are infected by) the truth in newsrooms around the world, but particularly in the U.S. If they hold to the ideals, to what they were taught in journalism school, they will have no choice but to begin making changes, questioning authority, and doing all those wonderful hippie freak things against the mean old status quo in the field. The irony in that is positively delightful and I, for one, intend to enjoy every frelling moment of it.

Third, these new troops are not alone. They are being supported by the blogs, the electro-mobile battalions of heavy artillery who fire truth memes, reminders, and more into both the great unwashed masses of the public and into the bastions of The Media.

The fortifications of traditional gatekeeping and newsroom hierarchy are going to be about as useful in protecting the status quo as the Maginot Line was in keeping France free from Germans. They have been subverted and surrounded, and the artillery of real news and real journalism are going in against positions that have no overhead cover. The results are going to be about the same as it would be in real life.

It is not a done deal, and like real life things are going to get worse before they get better. The pockets of resistance are going to get more desperate with each passing day, and lash out accordingly. Just as what is to come in Iraq, take heart despite the loss that each attack will bring, because it shows the desperation and is the sign that better things are to come.

There are changes afoot in journalism and The Media. It is now up to each of us to encourage those changes, and to do what we can to make this a better place.

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