The US propaganda machines love the power of television to manipulate ‘public opinion’. The Pentagon has worked closely with major television networks to roll out an avalanche of programming to exhort the public to patriotic fervor. CBS recently premiered “AFP: American Fighter Pilot“, ABC is planning a reality-type show, “Profiles From the Front Line“, and VH1, not to be outdone, is producing a documentary called “Military Diaries,” in which 60 soldiers were given digital video cameras to record their daily activities. All of these projects are checked and approved by the Pentagon.
I find this troubling:
In a striking demonstration of how the Pentagon’s image builders take Hollywood just as seriously as they take the news media, if not more so, the show’s script writer said he learned details of the intensely debated rules on conducting the controversial tribunals two weeks before Mr. Rumsfeld released them at a news conference on March 21.
The Pentagon was eager to oblige, because, in the wake of Sept. 11, the military sees what television analysts call “militainment” as one of the most effective ways to get its message across, free of the filters of a critical press corps. In addition to “JAG,” the Pentagon is cooperating with three other television shows with military themes, including one on VH1, a cable music channel.
“News used to be the first rough draft of history,” said Robert Lichter, president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, a nonpartisan research group in Washington. “Now it’s the first draft of a Hollywood screenplay. News and entertainment have merged already. The question now is whose version gets to the public first.“ (No such thing as objective reality?) …
An official at the Pentagon, who did not want his name used, said: “We offer our assistance when we think it is in the best interest of the Department of Defense and our people, and it’s up to the production company to accept it. If they go on and say, `Thanks but no thanks, we won’t make our character be what you stand for,’ we are less inclined to support them.”
Mr. Lichter, the media expert, said he was troubled that people’s knowledge of something as important as military tribunals could be established by television entertainment. “Since the Greeks, we know that drama produces emotional catharsis, but that isn’t the best instrument for producing justice,” he said.
Which is why they use entertainment media, for the emotional effect. Patriotism is the worst sort of nationalistic emotionalism.
The writer of the episode and consulting producer, Mr. Holland, a former Army captain, said he knew that television dramas might be perceived as reality, and so he felt obliged to inject heroism into the story to raise the morale of viewers and troops.
“War is terrible, conflicts are terrible, but somebody has to do it and so it’s necessary — maybe not completely honest, but necessary — to imbue those things with glory,” he said. “I don’t shrink from it.”