CNN's John Roberts: If we showed the full extent of what we see in Iraq, no one would watch...

[DeepModem Mom]

Broadcasting&Cable: Roberts Cites Limits To Iraq Coverage
By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/14/2007

John Roberts, former CBS newsman and new co-host of CNN’s American Morning, has covered Iraq and the Hezbollah/Israel conflict long enough to recognize that the media should have been more vigilant in the run-up to the war, including more diligently fact-checking administration claims. But Roberts believes the problem stems from a lack of journalistic boots on the ground early on.

“CNN had a presence there, and I really can’t speak to that because I don’t know, but I know at CBS we had zero presence on the ground, or very little, in Iraq in the months before the war,” Roberts recalls.

“We had some people in there before the war, (but everything) was difficult to verify. Even if the Iraqis took you to a place that was suspected of having weapons of mass destruction, they had deceived and dodged so many times in the past; why would you think they were telling the truth?”

Roberts believes journalist hands are tied when it comes to offering the whole truth in Iraq. “We’re not fully covering the war because we don’t have the access to do it,” he says. But it is also about what the American people can stomach, he adds.

“If we showed people the full extent of what we see every day in Iraq, we would either have no one watching us because they couldn’t stand to see the pictures, or we would get so many letters of complaint that some organization would come down on us to stop.”

Roberts sees no middle ground on the issue. Even late-night airings present difficulties. “Somewhere, it’s not going to be 10 o’clock,” he says. “If it’s 10 in New York, it’s 7 in Los Angeles.”...

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6441605.html

[Sapere aude]

1. They need to show what is happening in Iraq then we would put an end to it.

Stop saying we are only showing the negative side and not the good things that are happening. There is nothing good about war.

[bdamomma]

8. after cheney's visit this is interesting, they want to black out

the war from Americans, sickening, now don't you smell fascism???

[ShortnFiery]

2. John Roberts is "a tool" for the ruling political elites.

He's pond scum. :thumbsdown:

Show the reality of war! The people in Iraq and Afghanistan see it up close and personal each day, the American People should deal with mere VIDEO. :shrug:

[Dhalgren]

3. Absolutely! That is an obscene concept. The pictures of the lives

of Afghans and Iraqis are too horrible for the US public to stomach?! Are you freaking kidding me? We are the cause of the suffering of these people, but we're too delicate and sensitive to merely view the damage we are doing? My gods, we deserve the contempt in which we as a people are held in the world...

:cry: :mad: :banghead: :cry:

[bdamomma]

10. no, if they showed more carnage we would even be more pissed

about the invasion, they want to keep us and the Iraqi people to be sanitized from the news. This move may get even more people angry, watch bushie's numbers fall.

[xultar]

14. I can't stand his ass. He's a true fucker in every sense of the term.

[havocmom]

4. He's correct. After a week of seeing what actually goes on, Americans would fill streets

with day after day, week after week of protests to force the junta to stop the war.

That is EXACTLY why the networks and MSM do NOT show what is really happening. The corporate bosses profiting from war learned a thing or two during the Vietnam War Era. No draft and no real war coverage means a big chunk of the population just doesn't care. That's enough for the profiteers to keep truning blood into gold.

[bdamomma]

12. let's stay on this another violation of our rights is being raped

no free press.

[Red Zelda]

16. Sorry...

Americans wouldn't fill the streets for anything.

[havocmom]

22. Draft & accurate reporting? Oh, yeah they would.

If it wasn't somebody else's kids in harm's way but a serious probability that THEIR kids would be drafted and they were exposed to truth on a nightly basis, they would be in the streets en masse.

[tanyev]

5. So Roberts admits they are not showing the full truth in order to help ratings.

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. Pretty much! n/t

[Javaman]

7. Or perhaps the fucking war would be over!!!

If people saw even half of what is going on over there, they would be completely appalled and would want us out in a second.

that's what this is all about folks. The repukes learned a lesson from viet nam. Don't put the war in the living room if you want to try and "win" it.

We were always at war with eurasia.

[Broadslidin]

9. But, But, my TV sez, there are all sorts of Government Sanctioned Psycho-Drugs..

for those who succumb to War Related Depression...!

[ljm2002]

11. “If it’s 10 in New York, it’s 7 in Los Angeles.”...

...pardon me, but what horseshit!

The networks have long since mastered the requirements of showing things at different times in different time zones.

In other words, it looks a lot like Roberts is simply in the business of telling us why the media CANNOT report the truth. It's the old saw, reframed: "You can't handle the truth!" (which is one part of the excuse he gave), and "We can't tell you the truth!".

Pffft.

[DeepModem Mom]

19. I'm not defending Roberts otherwise, but actually I think cable news...

does not time delay. "Countdown" on MSNBC, for example, airs at 8 ET and at 5 PT (then MSNBC repeats "Countdown," "Hardball," etc., later for the West coast).

[ljm2002]

23. Ah, okay...

...thanks for the information, I did not realize that.

[Blackhatjack]

13. If we are going to approve and conduct war, Every citizen should have to see it uncut....

It is the same argument about Capital Punishment. Why do you think executions are carried out in the dead of night with no cameras?

IF people were required to watch executions, they would end almost immediately.

When our government is acting in out name in carrying out policies like this, that is no time for the press to shirk its responsibility by failing to show it uncut.

If seeing thousands of dead bodies is going to make people sick, how do you think people would react to continuing this war?

[spanone]

15. ...and then mr. roberts wouldn't be a qouted 'news star'.

[Marr]

17. "They had deceived and dodged so much in the past". Apparently not.

There were no weapons to find, so there was no dodging or deceiving on that point. Unless I'm missing something here, that statement is absurd.

[EFerrari]

20. The UN weapons inspectors agree with you.

What an ass this man is.

[frogcycle]

18. what a cop-out

"we can't show the real, honest news because ratings would fall"

That, my friends, sums up the state of the "fourth estate." Just as outsourcing, dereguulation, and privatizing have demolished our manufacturing base, our healthcare system, our military, and on and on, the big-corporate takeover of the many competing news agencies into a few monsters competing for $ just as the congresscritters compete for $ has demolished any residual shred of "the people's watchdog" providing any oversight.

We are screwn, folks. Screwn, I say! The Rise and Fall of the Great Experiment is history. Our democratic republic is no more. We are just fish flopping on the banks thinking we still have a chance of living while the river of greed passes us by.

[kenny blankenship]

21. American news more censored than Pravda under Stalin

If the corporatocracy don't want you to know about it, down the memory hole it goes.