Midway-2006 Media Version

[Marshal Murat]

Midway Island Demolished. Yorktown, destroyer sunk.
Many US planes lost
June 7, 1942
The United States Navy suffered another blow in its attempt to stem the Japanese juggernaut ravaging the Pacific Ocean. Midway Island, perhaps the most vital U.S. outpost, was pummeled by Japanese Naval aviators. The defending U.S. forces, consisting primarily of antique Buffalo fighters, were competely wiped out while the Japanese attackers suffered few, if any, losses.
In a nearby naval confrontation, the Japanese successfully attacked the Yorktown which was later sunk by a Japanese submarine. A destroyer lashed to the Yorktown was also sunk.

American forces claim to have sunk four Japanese carriers and the cruiser Mogami but those claims were vehemently denied by the Emporer's spokeman.

The American carriers lost an entire squadron of torpedo planes when they failed to link up with fighter escorts. The dive bombers had fighter escort even though they weren't engaged by enemy fighters. The War Dept. refused to answer when asked why the fighters were assigned to the wrong attack groups. The Hornet lost a large number of planes when they couldn't locate the enemy task force. Despite this cavalcade of errors, Admirals Fletcher and Spruance have not been removed.

Code Broken
The failure at Midway is even more disheartening because the U.S. Navy knew the Japanese were coming. Secret documents provided to the NY Times showed that "Magic" intercepts showed the Japanese planned to attack Midway, which they called "AF".

Obsolete Equipment
Some critics blamed the failure at Midway on the use of obsolete aircraft. The inappropriately named Devastator torpedo planes proved no match for the Japanese fighters. Even the Avengers, its schedule replacements, were riddled with bullets and rendered unflyable. Secretary of War Stimson dodged the question saying simply: "You go to war with the Navy you have, not the Navy you want or would like to have". Critics immediately called for his resignation.

One of my friends created this, and I thought it was both thought provoking and slightly humorous. What are your thoughts on this?

[Seamus Fermanagh]

It's not quite that bad -- but there's enough truth in this lampoon to make it a good chuckle. Congrats to him/her.

[Marshal Murat]

My attempt.
Today in the the "War on Facism", a major naval battle has occured around the critical island of Midway. First reports has determined that 400 or more service men have been killed by the Japanese bombing, with unknown Japanese casualties. The battle seems to have opened when Japanese fighters and bombers struck the Marines on Midway. The Marines, equipped with antiquated Buffalo fighters, were no match for this destruction, and almost all fighters were destroyed.
The American Fleet has claimed 4 carriers were damaged and a cruiser destroyed, but the Japanese 'Tokyo Rose' has denounced these claims as 'extremely high' and 'very unlikely'. The American fleet has meanwhile has suffered the loss of a carrier and a destroyer.
Congress has promised an inquiry into the use of old fighters, and the fleets lose of a good number of Devestators, Avengers, and other bombers who were unsupported by American fighters.
There has also been a report that the Americans had broken the Japanese code, but why they didn't use this information to stop the Japanese assaults is unknown. An attack on the Aleutian islands has also been reported, and Hawaiians fear another Japanese attack.

How about it???

On a more serious note (discuss please)
Many believe that the media is biased, and often point to the left wing. I have a feeling that the media takes a very dark tone to war, Vietnam and on.
Why do they do this? Why not celebrate every American triumph? Are they trying to report the news, or sell it?

[Lemur]

You're all forgetting something very important -- at the time of the Battle of Midway the President was a Democrat. So all of the shouting heads on Fox News would be condemning him and declaring the war a bankrupt ploy. Ann Coulter would be foaming at the lips, screaming that the war was just a cover-up for incompetent domestic leadership. And you can bet that Fox would be condemning the use of dark people in combat roles ...

[edit]

Oh, and the Family Research Council would be on the O'Reilly show talking about how the use of Negro Jazz to entertain our soldiers is a sign of moral decay and depravity ...

[Gregoshi]

Don't forget that, at this point in time, the war had "dragged on" for six months.

[Ironside]

On a more serious note (discuss please)
Many believe that the media is biased, and often point to the left wing. I have a feeling that the media takes a very dark tone to war, Vietnam and on.
Why do they do this? Why not celebrate every American triumph? Are they trying to report the news, or sell it?

You live in country that are proud of thier capitalism, how do you think news are treated?
As for the current war in Iraq, it's been politicied from the beginning, niether side takes it truly seriosly. And Afghanistan is alomst forgotten.

And the news hadn't been saying that it wasn't a victory, only that the victory was pointless, because new Japanese ships would have been arraving soon and that you should focus on the shipyards, not the ships.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

You're all forgetting something very important -- at the time of the Battle of Midway the President was a Democrat. So all of the shouting heads on Fox News would be condemning him and declaring the war a bankrupt ploy. Ann Coulter would be foaming at the lips, screaming that the war was just a cover-up for incompetent domestic leadership. And you can bet that Fox would be condemning the use of dark people in combat roles ...

[edit]

Oh, and the Family Research Council would be on the O'Reilly show talking about how the use of Negro Jazz to entertain our soldiers is a sign of moral decay and depravity ...

Well, had things been as polarized then as they are now, there might have been some of that -- but it wouldnot have centered on the Pacific theatre. They had attacked us, so the yelping would be why aren't we focusing on the ones who attacked us directly.

[Vladimir]

You're all forgetting something very important -- at the time of the Battle of Midway the President was a Democrat. So all of the shouting heads on Fox News would be condemning him and declaring the war a bankrupt ploy. Ann Coulter would be foaming at the lips, screaming that the war was just a cover-up for incompetent domestic leadership. And you can bet that Fox would be condemning the use of dark people in combat roles ...

[edit]

Oh, and the Family Research Council would be on the O'Reilly show talking about how the use of Negro Jazz to entertain our soldiers is a sign of moral decay and depravity ...

Well you started out good but became asinine. I take it you're trying to add a twist to the "bad, right wing bias"?

[yesdachi]

Yesdachi’s version if it happened today:

Sad news from the pacific today, Bradjolena was not able to adopt a child from Midway because of a skirmish between US and Japanese troops, the fate of the child Bradjolena planned on adopting is not known. For more on this story we are joined by the 41st President George HW Bush, Mr. President… They had some rough times leading up to this adoption but they aren’t whining about it (with that Bush Sr. bursts into tears). After the break we’ll tell you about how an egg-toss prank went seriously wrong.

[Lemur]

Well you started out good but became asinine. I take it you're trying to add a twist to the "bad, right wing bias"?

I assume you're saying that my post was asinine -- you don't know me nearly well enough to decide I'm a jerk. I haven't had a chance to be an ass in person!

I was attempting, however clumsily, to counterpoint the initial post, which had as its base assumption the idea that modern media would reflexively undermine any war effort, due to liberal bias. If you will recall, Clinton's warlet in Bosnia received a withering level of contempt from the right-wing media at the time, as well as denunciations from the Republicans in Congress.

And if you will recall, the media in the U.S.A. was as rah-rah as possible during the initial combat phase of Iraq War 2, a fact that came back to haunt them when the sequel turned out to have a complicated plot.

The thrust of the initial post was that modern media (which is controlled by the Liberal Elite, and possibly the Jews and Commies) are not only partisan, but anti-war, and possibly a fifth column of treachery. This is a trope that has been running on blogs and talk radio for decades. A countering position was warranted, even if I handled it clumsily.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

The thrust of the initial post was that modern media (which is controlled by the Liberal Elite, and possibly the Jews and Commies) are not only partisan, but anti-war, and possibly a fifth column of treachery. This is a trope that has been running on blogs and talk radio for decades. A countering position was warranted, even if I handled it clumsily.

Sadly you will be able to find some who take this position on the media for the "tinfoil hat"-type reasons you suggest. There are a few morons who are convinced that all of Wetern history is a plot authored by the Rothschilds and the Rosicrucians. Sadly, many of these individuals continue to breed.

I do believe that much of the media are partisans of secular progressivism. They attack with glee any political/public figure whose views do not line up with this macro goal. I do not, however, believe this to be an overt strategy for most media figures, but a product of their training/intellectual orientation. Most of them hold, personally, views which are strongly secular-progressive in character and they naturally feel more comfortable taking this stance -- even though most make at least some effort to be objective. So this influence is only partly be design.

The media is anti-war only if the conflict lasts longer than two news cycles. After that, they want another story so the war gets labeled as "a quagmire" or "unusually prolonged." The "major combat operations" portions they adore and are very happy to report in rah-rah fashion. These happen quickly and provide great pictures/copy. This is exceedingly short-term thinking, but that is part of the nature of the media used. I think a lot of the parody that starts this thread for this reason. Under modern media guidelines, I think FDR and the Navy would have been catching grief for not having done more concrete things to "turn around" the Pacific by June of '42. Six months is an eternity for the modern media.

A fith column of treachery? That's wishful thinking for people who would like to be able to blame a single discrete target. TV may have had that kind of public opinion leverage in 1968 with Cronkhite, but 15+ years after the advent of talk radio and the internet this kind of thinking is a bit wishful to say the least.