And In Other News

[Scott18]

After just watching the Lunchtime news, I have decided to stop sitting here getting angry at this country’s media priorities and type out this little rant.
Sadly another British soldier died today in Basra as a result of a roadside bomb, and just out of interest I timed just how long the report was. The answer was 20seconds.
I can understand that the media have to squeeze in the main storeys of the day in order of “public interest” but the “in other news” attitude to our troops dying is become far to common place I think.
Take last week for instance and the sheer volume of media attention Big Brother received, over something that in retrospect turned out to be people just looking for an excuse to brand people as racist. But a soldier dies and the News do not want to know.
The storey of the RM's strapping themselves to the side of an Apache and recovering the body of a fallen oppo was overshadowed by Jade Goodie being voted out of the big brother house!
Has any one else got any thoughts on this “In Other News” attitude?
Apologies for this not being Mfat related

[Stinky]

I think it's just what people want to hear. If they talked about soldiers dieing which most people know happens alot, instead of bigbrother which all the low-lifes like, people will swich to another news channel to listen about big brother. Where as when we first started going to war it was on the TV all the time. But even thought I think it is more important, deaths should at least come before bigbrother or get the same amount of time talked about rather then a few seconds. But in the end everything revolves around money and if the news don't get their veiwers, they don't make money so they give people what they want no matter how important it is. I bet bigbrother would have over-ruled the war in Iraq ending if it ever happened because I don't think alot of people care, of course alot of people do with relitives in Iraq etc. but it dosn't apply to other people because they think it has nothing to do with them. Just my veiw.

[E5_Man]

It's disheartening though when young men and women give their lives for their Country and the news companies can't even give them the time of day.

[Scott18]

Nicely said and thanks for the replies, Hearing about death and fighting everyday would of course be depressing but surely that is the result of being in an area of conflict, supporting our troops is something I wish more people have in their morals.

[Wholley]

Apologies for this not being Mfat related

I think it's entirely MF&T related.
The prob as I see it now is that people not directly connected or involved have a very short attention span and have lost interest in whats going on in their world.
Seems to me that Coronation Street and Emmerdale are far more"Realistic"To these people than their own sorry lives.
I include people in the US here too.
Good post Scott.

Wholley.

[DANTAE]

not only that but it really bugs me when they dont talk of the good our soldiers are doing there must be something postive happening in iraq and afganstan do i have to go to military.com all the time to find out what is happening

[Mr_Kiwi]

I cant speak for UK news but down here we dont even get a gimplse of whats going on over in iraq/afghanistan. Okay if a bomb goes off and kills 20 people in iraq we'll get 20seconds on it. But we dont get ANY coverage of afghanistan.
Some rugby player who hurt his leg and might not play gets a good 2-3 minutes, but men and women fighting for peoples freedom and the safety of the commonwealth gets 20 seconds if that.

The only way I can find out what is happening out there is to come to go to the militaryforums news/media forum, go to news sites like bbc, mod, etc... and peice together a whole story or pay a ridiculous amount for satalite tv just to get those 20seconds you guys get from bbc and so on.

As stinky said, people want to here about puppys getting rescued and who won survivor or whatever. People like to cocoon themselves in a false reality when the real news isnt what they want so they dont like to hear about people dying.

Another thing you need to keep in mind is (well I dont know if this is how it works in the UK) that sometimes the broadcasting station has very close ties with the government, and so they have some presure to show the government is a good light. So showing the deaths of young men and women doesnt paint a nice picture of what the government is doing. Obviously I dont mean the media is 'controlled' by the government but usually they try and support each other, at least here.

Well thats my rant

[AJtothemax]

Another thing you need to keep in mind is (well I dont know if this is how it works in the UK) that sometimes the broadcasting station has very close ties with the government, and so they have some presure to show the government is a good light. So showing the deaths of young men and women doesnt paint a nice picture of what the government is doing. Obviously I dont mean the media is 'controlled' by the government but usually they try and support each other, at least here.

Exactly.

Don't believe everything you hear and see people.

[DANTAE]

you can get quite a bit of miltary news from http://www.military.com/ its an american site but dose have loads of news and video clips of things its what i used before discovering mfat

[LostandFound]

There is never any mention of the guys who get injured out in the Middle East either, or their road to recovery. When a newsreader says "1 dead and 2 injured", most people think "injured" means a few cuts or broken bones. Not unusually, it means lost limbs, brain damage etc.
Of course we don't want to damage morale by only reporting bad news, which I know pisses a lot of our boys (and girls) off because of all the good we are doing out in Iraq and Afghan which also goes unreported, but I think our media has a duty to support those who have given all for others.

[Artist]

The Yanks had the same problem during Vietnam, over 56.000 Yanks died from 1963 though to 1976. It became so commonplace to both the Yanks and the rest of the world to hear about untimely deaths that it became the norm so did not warrent the newspapers making it front page news, or the TV channnels making a big fuss over it.

The same could be said for our Troops in Northern Ireland during the 70's and the 80's. Blokes were dying or being injured on a daily basis protecting the general population of NI against the IRA scum and the various Loyalist scum that it stopped being a novelty so became the norm which resulted in it being shoved into the background.

It's a sad but true fact that the commercial media in all it's various blends of Shite tends to want to sell their Papers/TV News to make money. Hence stuff like like the Jade (DURRR I"M THICK!) Goody story ref her second time locked up in a house full of abject dickheads where she abused the Indian Bint!

However I feel most strongly that the Government be they Labour, Tory or God Forbid Liberals tend to HINT to the BBC that best they keep stumm when it comes to what our armed forces do.

To be honest before the cheap Video camera and the mobile phone with a camera came into our lifes the stuff the British Armed Forces did was not known to many save for those who needed to know. Indeed our various Armed Forces used to make a very small profit for the Government. Not these days though.

Artist