March 30, 2003

REPORTING ON THE REPORTERS

        As I sipped coffee and tried not to choke on my bagel while listening to General Tommy Franks's press briefing this morning, I wondered how Darwinian theory could possibly account for the survival of the current breed of war reporter. The questions revealed a combination of ignorance and arrogance that must have tested the patience of the General. The tone was whiny, aggrieved, dismissive, smug, condescending--all at once. As I listened, I began to form a picture in my mind of what shaped these people. I imagined they were the teachers' pets who gained surplus praise for their verbal skills and were very good at standardized tests. They were disdainful of athletics which struck them as violent and mindless. They were more 'sensitive' and less physical. As they attended Ivy League colleges their notion of productive work became staying up late cramming for the exam on Post-Modernism. They avoided science courses in school because those demanded more than glibness and facile flattering of the wordsmith intellectuals who were their teachers. They learned from those professors the art of condescenscion and disdain for America; they absorbed the cant phrases of Post-Modernism. They emerged from college and journalism school full of attitude and politically correct assumptions, only to notice that, just as in grade school, the rest of the world didn't share their view of their own importance. (see The New Treason Of The Intellectuals.)
        Of course, this is all just my idle speculation--take it for what it's worth. However my speculations seem to match Karl Zinsmeister's (3-30-03)up close and personal observations of our war scribblers--no Ernie Pyles among them. In Different Worlds he writes: "...A significant number are whiny and appallingly soft. Most club together, passing far too much of their desert sojourn gossiping with fellow reporters, mocking military mores in snide jokes and wise-guy observations, chafing at the little disciplines required by the military’s life-and-death work, banding off as a group to watch DVD's on their computers in the evening, ganging separately in the mess hall during meals, rolling their eyes at each other when ideas like honor, sacrifice, or duty enter the conversation, and otherwise failing to take advantage of this unparalleled opportunity to enter deeply and perhaps sympathetically into the lives and minds of superlative fighting men..." As Zinsmeister's article makes clear, the reporters, when faced with such brave men, feel uncomfortable and seek to hide their cowardice under a cloak of intellectual and moral superiority.

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