Our generation was without a great war, until the war on terrorism, and without a war we grew accustomed to getting all sides of a story, and everyone's opinions on it. The war on terrorism, and more specifically the war on Iraq changed all of that. The overwhelming support for the war here in America did not go unnoticed by the media. Many channels, especially the twenty-four hour news channels like Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, had an agenda, which was to keep the main portion of the American public happy, and to keep them watching. Life for the twenty-four hour cable news channels is a life of constantly looking at ratings, and constantly wondering if you said something to offend your audience 3. They attempted to do this by quietly telling the liberal commentators that many of the stations hired to stay home for the duration of the war. Commentators such as Phil Donahue 4, who also produced and hosted an editorial show for MSNBC which was touted as a liberal's voice show was canceled and Donahue "released", which should be read as fired, because of his views on the war, and the republican government. Fox News was especially guilty, so much so, that over in the United Kingdom some people even went so far as to try to get the station banned because it didn't fall into Britain's Independent Television Commission 5. The complaints said that Fox News should be investigated for not applying Britain's impartiality regulations.
When the war actually started all of the twenty-four hour channels put a halt to their editorial shows, and instead created a round the clock war watch, which was commentated by many of their editorial show hosts, and their reporters. This clearly gave the impression to the people that watched that they were going to report pure facts, when in fact, there turned out to be far more editorializing than actual news reporting. The government allowed imbedded reporters, who basically turned the war into one giant romantic trek across the desert and into Baghdad.
