A live tankcam shows U.S. soldiers invading southern Iraq. Click.
Word comes the Saddam Hussein video may be real. Click.
Ted Koppel does a stand-up via video phone. Click. An
Apache chopper's down, details to come.
Twelve years after the Persian Gulf War's greenish video game
footage, Iraqi war news is giving us more live images
using better gadgets. There's a lot to see: CBC's Attack
on Iraq, CNN's Strike on Iraq, CTV's Target Iraq, CBS'
America at War.
But, some say, little to learn.
"What we're seeing are slices of the war," U.S. Secretary
of Defence Donald Rumsfeld said as the war began. "What
you see is taking place, to be sure, but it
is one slice, and it is the totality (that) this
war is about."
On the heels of several reality TV finales, the 529
reporters "embedded" with U.S. and British troops are ironically relaying
similarly voyeuristic close-ups: F-14 jets screaming off aircraft carriers, Marines
zipping past Bedouin tribes, Navy Seals battling Iraqi soldiers.
"When you're at CNN, running 24/7, you've got to get
new information out. The scramble is on, and you don't
want to be talking about the same thing over and
over again," said Ken Wallis, coordinator of the Mohawk College
television program.
To fill time, we get retired army pundits and gee-whiz
battlefield reports. Already, some call the video phone this war's
high-tech star -- its green lens, after all, let us
see CNN's Walt Rodgers dodge an incoming Scud missile. Over
and over and over. Source.
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