Middle East Crisis: “Up-Close” Has “Power To Distort The Overall Picture”

Howard Kurtz writes in Monday’s WP: “The 13-day battle between Israel and both Hamas and Hezbollah may be the most up-close-and-personal ever transmitted by television. Unlike Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, where conditions were either too dangerous or tightly controlled by the U.S. military, the Mideast conflict of 2006 allows journalists to roam freely, not just watching rocket attacks but interviewing victims’ families, neighbors, refugees and just about anyone else. It is Vietnam on satellite steroids.

But the very technology that enables reporters to show footage of a Lebanese father soon after his young son has been killed by a bomb blast carries not just an emotional punch but the power to distort the overall picture.” Here’s the rest…