Remember This Guy From The Past? There Are Many Like Him Now.

David Hogan
Leeds, AL
April 9, 2019

Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, image from Wikipedia

The name Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf may escape the memories of many, even Americans born way before 9-11, but you might remember him by another name. That famous name for a time was, Baghdad Bob or as we saw him on CNN as the Minister of Information for the Iraq government in 2003, during the Iraq war.

Baghdad Bob became somewhat of a celebrity during the Iraq war mainly for disinformation, and soon was being called The Minister of Disinformation by many as he spewed outlandish things on the airwaves.  I remember possibly his biggest whopper was when the American tanks were coming into Baghdad he was saying there were no tanks in Baghdad even though they were less than a football field length from him and the noise was blaring over him speaking.

So, I bet you think I'm going to target the current state of news, don't you?  Actually, it's not my main point, even though I admit one can make an argument for a lot of disinformation being passed off as news in America today, but my concern is a troubling one in disguise, partly related to our mainstream media for sure, but a bigger concern at local levels of government.

Introducing the White House Press Corps was a good thing.  The White House Press Secretary announces the news of the White House in the presence of prominent news agency reporters, that question what is presented.

Now there is a similar scenario, but not the same in local government, known as their Public Information Office.  These offices put out news from city and county governments but, few have a meeting room or daily press conference. What they DO have is a Facebook page and website including live streaming meetings.

In part that is a good thing, in part.  What's missing is the presence of reporters to question the government while being watched in a setting of significance. There is another element to these new Public Information Offices and that is government created news releases, and their websites where they turn press releases into their own news articles.

The local government offices often selectively choose what they highlight in what makes it to their videos, articles and posts.  If you try to call them out on this, noting they are not under scrutiny, they will fall back on having meetings videotaped as a usual defense. Part of the reason people rely on news is they do not have time to attend government proceedings, or watch them on a video.

Press releases are a good thing, but they have created what I told my reporters to be "Lazy Shit Journalism".  If you don't follow up and ask questions of the news release you are letting government control news unfettered.  Many reporters put out the entire government press release as their article, with maybe a word or sentence changed at best.

Getting news from the government is a good thing. Getting news from the government without questioning it, verifying it and researching it, is not a good thing and can lead to our friend above, Baghdad Bob, spreading disinformation at will.

Unfortunately many mainstream news agencies have become versions of Baghdad Bob, often siding with a party, an administration, and embracing the news releases of whom they are siding with and ignoring the others.  Baghdad Bob would certainly embrace those agencies and woo them to be an ally.  The news cannot be an ally of any one part of government or political parties at the expense of the others.

Until news gets back to calling out everyone, the best we can hope for is to have news agencies that their bias, balances the bias of other news agencies.  That's a sad solution as mainstream news does not embrace the need of a two party system to keep each party in check. What they do now is to move forward an agenda of the side they are an ally with, and those news agencies that attempt to keep them in check are often outnumbered if even in existence.