The Long War Journal: Notes, Video & Transcripts from CNN Appearance

Written by Bill Roggio on March 20, 2006 10:11 AM to The Long War Journal

Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2006/03/notes_video_transcri.php

A transcript and video clip from this week's appearance on CNN's On the Story are available below. The video is a bandwidth hog, please download only if you haven't seen it...

Transcript of appearance on CNN's On the Story

Video clip of appearance (low resolution, 10M download)

Here are some of my brief (and I mean brief) impressions of the appearance. I found it very interesting that a large majority of the CNN audience did not "have confidence" in the news they were receiving from Iraq. It would have been interesting to have explored the reasons for this further. After watching the interview again, it was obvious Barbara Starr and I were talking about two entirely different subjects. Ms. Starr was discussing the administration and "strategic communications, information operations, spin, spin, spin," as well as the difficulties reporters encounter in Iraq. I was discussing how the media has failed to provide the proper context for the war, specifically in military operations, and how their reporting plays into the hands of al Qaeda. There was plenty I wanted to discuss about the media & war reporting, but this was TV, I knew I'd only get a few minutes and had to focus on what I perceive to be a major weakness in the war reporting. This is in itself a major problem with the media's reporting on the war - particularly in television, where time is at a premium and complex issues are reduced to sound bytes.

Many thanks to reader 'Lynne' for capturing the video, and to the AcademicElephant for providing a link to the transcript. The AcademicElephant also discusses the appearance at both his blog and at Redstate.com.

Also, many thanks to CNN producer Abbi Tatton for inviting me to appear on the program. Abbi tried to get me on the program while I was in Iraq but we encountered technical problems with getting to a webcam (there just aren't too many places capable of this in Anbar province).