Enemy Image

Brilliant television on SBS tonight. A documentary called "ENEMY IMAGE". If you didn't see it, try to get a copy somehow and watch it. It's a brilliant exposition of the way the US government and the US media have lied to the American people since Vietnam about their military activities by manipulating the way their wars are seen on TV. No Chomsky in sight on this documentary. Just journalists talking about how they were denied access and fired by their superiors for trying to show the American people what's really going on.

Cutting Edge
Enemy Image

Modern television has the technical means to bring us the physical experience of war, with all its horrors, like no other medium. And yet the image of American war on television is increasingly disembodied, bloodless and unreal. This film traces the development of the image of war on American television from Vietnam to the present day to understand what we see when we look at war on television. It tells how the perception of war has become as important as war itself and asks how democracy can be served if citizens are denied a true understanding of the daily consequences of the wars their nations fight.

Comments

[Tony]

Unfortunately after a late night/early morning watching the cricket I had an early night last night and missed it. It sounds similar to the documentary on Fox News in the US where they had ex-journos on their basically telling their stories on how they were told HOW to report the news and what to report so that the government looked good in the peoples eyes. I know it was on SBS several onths back and is also on DVD.

It is shows like these that just goes to reflect how manipulative money and power are. With the increase in "citizen-journalism" and other means like bloggers and such the true stories will come out in the long run.

[Cameron Reilly]

I think the doco you're referring to is OUTFOXED. It's also a must-see. ENEMY IMAGE though goes back to WW2 and Vietnam then through Granada and Gulf War 1 to Gulf War 2 and shows HOW and WHY the Pentagon took control of how war is presented to the American people. Essentially, there was so much footage on TV during Vietnam of American soldiers wounded, dying and committing atrocities, combined with images of Vietnamese peasants dead and homeless, that it forced a change of government in the US and the removal of their troops. They said "NEVER AGAIN WILL WE LOSE CONTROL OVER HOW A WAR IS PRESENTED BY THE MEDIA". And over the last 30 years they have perfected the process. The presentation of the war is sanitized, and full of "official" Pentagon imagery, produced by the Pentagon and given to the US TV networks.

[Tony]

Cam,

You should do a Movie Show podcast with "Wag the Dog" as the feature show :)

[John]

This film was exelent, it reminded me of Nazi propoganda in WW2 when they were reporting on the Russian front. You know a dictator when you see them lying to their people, George Bush even said that a dictatorship would be easier.
I think if this war and the one that will inevitably follow is to be stoped the reporting must also show the human side of the conflict because unless we see how peolple suffer how can we care?
At the end of the day though war is just bussiness and human lives are too great a cost.

[John]

Does anyone know where i can get a copy of this film?

[elendil]

John, I first tried the SBS shop with no luck, but I've found one person on eMule who has it.

[John]

thanx elendil :)

[elendil]

Hrm, I just realised that info was probably not so useful. Try the following ed2k link:
ed2k://|file|Cutting%20Edge%20-%20Enemy%20Image.avi|716629062|1D0B0903A0B8F7EF2BE346F67530CF88|h=6I2ESYFSXIJR72W7EWCUNTSJRNWFGDI7|/