Why The Military Times Is A Joke
At the Military Blogging Conference a few weeks ago, Jonn made the case (rightly so) for going after the media and calling them out when they do wrong. Well what happens when the media is supposed to be “our media.” The publications and press that cover the military exclusively?
We’ll call them out too.
This is the latest cover of the Marine Corps Times, which falls under the umbrella of the Military Times. Take a good look. It’s not Weekly World News, Star Magazine, or the National Enquirer. It’s a publication that is sold at every Marine Corps installation and read by Marines worldwide.
The most important story, or lead, is about a “swinger couple”. That’s the attention grabber. That’s the one that’s supposed to make you pick this up and take it to the register and put down three dollars and fifty cents.
Now look to the right: 2 Navy Crosses, which they then term, “Legendary Badassery”. Yeah, that was certainly the case. Then right below that, the Faces of the Fallen. Apparently the fact that two Marines earned our nation’s second-highest award isn’t exciting enough.
During the engagement, Wooldridge snatched a machine gun from the hands of an enemy fighter and, following a tense struggle on the ground, killed his opponent by striking him in the head with the weapon’s butt stock. The remaining Taliban then retreated, ending a potentially deadly ambush against Wooldridge’s platoon, according to an account of the battle provided to Marine Corps Times in late 2010.
This must be a pretty boring story, according to Military Times. The rest of the media will not cover these amazing acts of heroism — at least not enough. They are brushed aside as one-minute segments at the end of the broadcast, pushed to page D12 of the newspaper and forgotten. Politics, the economy, and what Lady Gaga is wearing is much more important.
And Military Times has fallen in line.
Category: Marine Corps, Media, Military issues
I do use them for content on a Marine page but yesh, they are so tabloidy…..
Beside the tabloid nature of the MilitartyTimes family of newspapers, they’re also liberal rags.
And so is the Stars and Stripes.
I’ve heard it a few times from higher ups, “remember, AF Times is not an official newspaper of the USAF, they’re to be referred to PA like anyone else”. I agree with everyone else though, very tabloidy.
For whatever reason, reading the Marine Times whilst taking a shit makes you have to take even more of a shit. I’m baffled.
Like any of the various services Times rags are any different.
They’re owned by Gannett, home of such hard-hitting journalistic powerhouses like USA Today, aka “McPaper.”
Pardon me if I’m less than impressed by 1–their journalistic ethics, 2–their ability to target their audience rather than blast sensationalist bullshit, 3–ability to waste space on coffee tables at barracks, medical/dental facilities, VFW’s, and American Legions everywhere.
I happen to work at an unnamed printing company that prints many of the base publications in the Washington D.C. area.
It’s all about revenue. Print media is hurting. If I can’t sell advertising in the paper, I can’t print a paper. It may be tawdry, cheap and tabloidy, but if it moves papers off of the racks then I might be tempted to put something like that on the cover of a tabloid size paper. Every page in that paper has to be paid for by advertising. Paper and print costs have gone through the roof.
I am not defending the use of that kind of content, but I can sure understand it.
Ben–S&S gave up their ability to be unbiased long ago when any military-related stories they published they picked up from the various newswires like AP, Reuters, etc. All they’ve been for a couple of decades now is cut-and-paste MSM stories.
I don’t recall OCS being that fun, and I certainly don’t recall any swingers parties.
The Military Times has been drifting this way for a while in my opinion and I think too many civilians and a decline in the overall newspaper market has turned publications like these into sensationalist rags that are so busy trying to stay above water that they’re going to lower journalistic integrity to do it.
The sad part is that I hope that they don’t see a readership SPIKE with something like this because somebody will see it as ‘what the readers apparently want’ and then keep it up. With attention on it like this, are we inadvertently pushing stats and becoming part of the problem?
FYI:
All those rags are published by Gannet, the same group that puts out the USA Today (yesterday) fishwrapper.
Anybody notice the Stars and Stripes…the gay agenda is in full swing. Its one article after another.
@11, almost like Room 2 of Bldg 5882.
All of the “Times” news rags lay unread in the ‘Ronda Room’, the bar at AmLeg Post 41 here in Phoenix, because no one believes what they print! I personally haven’t read the Marine Corps Times in a good five years. Frank got it right, “fishwrappers”.
There’s a reason calls Military Times “The National Enquirer of the military”.
There’s a reason KEITH… calls MT.
I haven’t bought a newspaper of any kind in years. I do still buy magazines, but my main sources of information now are websites and blogs. I just don’t want to waste my time reading stories like the headliner above, and I don’t have the money to waste, either.
Well it was a nice thing to have on staff duty, but it seemed like the stories that came out had been covered weeks before. But since they replaced “Private Murphy’s Law” I have not bought many since.
Thought it was fun to see our website named in it.
Spork–probably the only reason I ever picked up a copy of Navy Times back in the day was the Broadside cartoon contained therein.
My particular favorite:
http://www.militarytimes.com/blogs/broadside/wp-content/gallery/broadside-faves-1/broad20_fighting_nukes.jpg
ETA: The caption read, “It looked like another long night for the ‘Fighting Nukes from Orlando.'”
SO I guess you guys aren’t a fan of Power Point Ranger?
When I see PPT Ranger, I expect a laugh. When I look at the cover of MC Times, I’m not supposed to laugh.
There are three reasons to read the military times…Power Point Ranger, Terminal Lance, and Beetle Bailey. Those guys are funny as hell. You can learn most everything about the military from those three sources. Now if the military times has the journalisty integrity of the Duffelblog? Too bad those asshats at the Onion decided to copy their writing style…
Beards, Kilts, and Mowhawks forever!
had the journalistic integrity
For going on 3 decades; the Military Times and Stars & Stripes (other than the cartoons)have only been good as shite paper.
I subscribe to Army Times-this is far from the first time something like this has happened. A few years ago their feature story was the tool at Ft. Lewis who robbed banks and then fled to Canada (a sidebar story was about valor-I don’t have that edition at hand, but I remember that they got called out on it in the letters in a later edition). However, I did get to read the story about valor in Army Times-I didn’t see it in another publication (I wish I could say that about stories that are harmful to the military).
Military Times is good on things like pending legislation concerning the military, reorganization and other issues that get ignored by the MSM (to include valor). They exist in a slightly different environment than other newspapers, but they face some of the same financial concerns and sex sells.
To me casual hookups repugnant, but I don’t understand the issue here. So long as they were both aware and saved it for outside of work then who cares what they do in their bedroom?
Why are they wasting time on one swinger couple? How about they push for culling the military of the problem children and/or personnel with rap sheets who got in under the radar due to the the rampant personnel shortages?
I love it when people start saying “According to the Army Times…” and then try to implement changes because of an unnamed source at the pentagon or where ever.
I buy Army Times every week. I like doing the crossword puzzle with my Saturday morning coffee. That and reading the idiocy that gets printed in the forums section. One letter will not cause the SMA to wake up in the morning and say, “you know, that SPC(ret) was right, ACU’s suck and are the main reason Soldiers lack pride and discipline and I need to fix it, by God!”
I’ll date myself. I can remember when Stars&Stripes (S&S) IMO lost their journalistic integrity.
That occurred in 1984-1985. At the time, there was a scandal in Germany involving the German Army. A German guy was making the rounds in the gay bar scene in Germany (either Bonn, Berlin, or both as I recall) in full German general’s regalia, and introducing himself as “Jurgen from the Bundeswehr”. He apparently bore a striking resemblance to a high ranking officer of the Bundeswehr.
The German General was temporarily suspended from duty and formally investigated, but was later exonerated by the investigation. Turns out it really was a guy who looked one helluva lot like him.
I was in Korea at the time. The Pacific S&S ran the story. The European S&S did not, allegedly at the “request” of EUCOM.
That’s when IMO the S&S lost their integrity as journalists. I understand not wanting to piss off allies, but IMO that’s going a bit too far.
I think the only thing it’s good for now is if you want a chuckle over idiot military crime stories. Some things they publish are just plain pointless. I could understand a minor article or blurb on the Marine phony ‘Gunny’ Whalen, but they put it on the cover and made it the main article that week.