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erring live reports from global spots of conflict to any other type of international story, including interviews with world leaders and background reports (Thussu and Freedman 120). This preference puts an unyielding amount of pressure on newscasters to not come with late breaking news but to also have a dramatic story and footage to go along with it. Television journalists are under tremendous pressure of minutely deadlines, leaving little time for investigation or reflection. During times of war, the sifting gets incredibly difficult due to the mass amount of disinformation and misinformation that is circulated. Journalists have to have the ability to sift through myths and half-truths or find the most accurate story possible. With a limited amount of exciting real time footage and dramatic stories, most news stations resort to speculation and supposition as well as the misconstruing some footage as ‘live’ that is not (Thussu and Freedman 121). Although this does contradict the assertion that news is always as honest as possible and unbiased, the great deal of pressure for newscasts to increase their audience in a period where interests in the news is declining and wartime coverage gets old quickly and when advertisers become less and less thrilled about spots during the news; most executives believe that such truth twisting on some issues is necessary in order to keep the news going so that those who really care and the stories that need to be told can do so.

News nowadays is based on an entertainment format. There are “..video/computer game style images of surgical strikes by ‘intelligent’ weaponry, arresting graphics and satellite pictures and a ‘chat-show’ use of ‘experts’”(Thussu and Freedman 124) The more modern type of news casting is said to have begun with the 1991 US attack against Iraq. For the time military conflict was brought into American homes. There were high tech virtual representations of war, which included cockpit videos of precision bombings that caused mass destruction of lives and property to appear as harmless as a videogame, desensitizing much of America. In addition to these advanced video clips are the complicated maps, graphics, and studio models that illustrate the progress of war. These graphics, the mimicry of warfare, miniature war tanks and airplanes, combined with enthusiastic male correspondents and experts commenting on strategy give news depiction of war a ‘game for boys’ type of feel (Thussu and Freedman 126). Such journalism however is criticized heavily for its affect on the public. Critics argue that viewers are not exposed to the realities of war. Rather they see war in terms of the bloodless strategic bombing escapade that it is depicted as. Many argue that this type of coverage is intentional on the part of the government because if the real images of bomb casualties, famine, poverty, drought, oppression, and brutality were shown, the United States’ public support would erode domestically and internationally (Thussu and Freedman 126).

Many other problems have been discussed with the infotainment of today’s news. One reason why United States coverage of war is and issue is because of the large influence that the US has over other countries in the world. There also is the tendency for this bloodless war coverage to foster feel good feelings among Westerners who only see war as their humanitarian effort to aid the hotspots of the world, which oftentimes