Words About "Images"

"George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld actually need the media now more than ever," writes the Columbia Journalism Review's Gal Beckerman. Although the "conventional wisdom ... is that this administration views the press as vampires view garlic," White House criticisms of the media "have become essential to the administration's contention that progress is being made." The effect of this argument, Beckerman writes, is to sugggest that "We're not seeing car bombs ripping entire blocks apart and blowing dozens of Iraqis to bits. We're seeing images of car bombs ripping entire blocks apart and blowing dozens of Iraqis to bits. ... Because the violence is only 'on their television screens,' it's as if it does not actually exist out there in the world; it is only the 'image' of violence. ... There's no doubt the administration would love more images of Iraqi children playing in the street. But this same derision of the media also serves a purpose in itself in the administration's campaign to win over the home front. If the media cannot be trusted, then we shouldn't trust what we think we know about Iraq. Instead, the administration is saying, just trust us."