Did you see Bush with that Bond girl?

In Chapter One, the comparison between the Bond movies and the coverage of the Iraq war was interesting. Saddam Hussein was obviously seen as the villain, the bad guy who would say, "When you remove Mr. Bush's heart, there should be just enough time for him to watch it stop beating." His threat against the world and the hero, was played up tremendously. We were made to be fearful of one man's ability to kill, and we were led to believe that he would not stop killing until he reached us, (ie. the government and the media's constant reassurance that he had weapons of mass destruction that he was going to use) And we were told about how brutal he was to his own people, so how unmerciful would he be towards us and who would stop him? Enter the hero. Though George Bush is nowhere near as attractive as Pierce Brosnan, he was the only man we had to view as the hero, so we were won over. Because of the format of the Bond movies worked on so many different audiences, audiences also ate up the similiar format that enfolded at the beginning of the war.

Part of the reason that audiences buy into these formats so easily is because the information they are given is spun. According to the chapter, "There are, by one count, 20,000 more public relations agents working to doctor the news today than there are journalist writing it, in the United States." If most of the information we receive is coming from press agencies or public relations bureaus and then reporters are simply passing the information on instead of finding out the real truth, it makes it impossible for viewers to form different opinions. Unless viewers go out on their own and read or view different sources, but most probably do not. That is why even at Kuztown, if you're writing a story, the public relations person isn't the first person you should talk to, because you want to find other sources that aren't trying to put the current situation in a positive light.

But some situations just aren't positive. However, even during the war in Iraq, the media still can't show the coffins coming home, a reminder that this war was supposed to be "a clean war" with a simple victory, and no gruesome casualties. And we bought into it, just like we bought into the James Bond films, which talk about violence and have huge explosions, but don't show the bloody gorey mess at the end. But just because you didn't see it doesn't mean it didn't happen.