Día No. 4 - Media Syndrome: Is the Iraq War a Symptom or a Side Effect?

It all began in 1787 with the illustrious preamble: We the People of the United States. Followed by the Bill of Rights where one aspect of the first Amendment claims that Congress shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of the press. Two hundred and twenty years later, and with a controversial topic such as the war in Iraq, the media have taken this freedom to its limits and benefited from James Madison’s democratic ideals. We could infer that if Madison was alive, he would have written a clause restricting or at least defining what freedom of the press truly is, especially at times of war. Along with the war in Iraq we have witnessed how the US mass media have evolved into a cynic and manipulative machine. In other words, the press is only immortalizing a distortion of reality with the help of negative coverage; advocating false prophecies; overemphasizing violence; and portraying nationalistic narcissism, the only deaths in Iraq worth reporting by name are the deaths of Americans. Newspapers, radio, television, magazines and the Internet all share a common characteristic, which is to sell Americans news of a subject which is already sold-out in credibility. Hence, we tend to absorb a vast majority of erroneous prophecies and exposure of the war in Iraq as a result of our artificial press. Mass media is handling an eminent, devastating, and poignant issue with the same attitude as they treat Paris Hilton. Americans, war is not a realityshow, nor a fiction movie, even though the media has just advertised one side of the story, the one where our heroes expire trying bravely to annihilate innocents, a never-ending suspense. When is the right time to open our eyes and recognize the genocide in Iraq and not treat the war as a bumper sticker, where the problem is acknowledged, but no action is taken? The fact is that our society has being diagnosed with media syndrome –a combination of phenomena seen in association. The objective is to find out if the war in Iraq is a symptom, indicating an existing dilemma; or a side effect, an unintended consequence specifically arising from mass media’s illness.

-Lo bueno es que al menos lo empecé, lo malo es que se entrega hoy a las 10 PM y yo... yo ya no funciono para pensar. 1/3 Besos,

Arianne Ponce.