Warheads: Cable News And the Fog of War

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• Who are these people we see on our television screens whenever there is a war, disaster, or other major event? What goes on behind the scenes at our major cable news outlets? Is the public well-served? Kenneth Allard pulls aside the curtain and demystifies much of what we see on our 24-hour news stations, as he explains how news is assembled and presented. He writes from the perspective of a former soldier who has been hired as a Warhead, or military analyst, for cable news stations, and his critique of how 9/11, Afghanistan, and Iraq were reported is a sharp one. He questions whether the realities of war can be packaged in three-minute bits, and whether difficult questions remain unasked--so he asks them.
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  Both scholarly and skeptical, Allard is also at times funny and always informative when writing on what he calls the "Electronic Coliseum."
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• The "warheads" is a term Allard (former Dean of the National War College) seems to have adapted from the more venerable "talking heads" in order to designate those current and former military figures who become so ubiquitous on cable news channels every time the US decides to attack someone. Himself a "warhead," he describes his experiences on cable news as Clinton bombed Kosovo and as Bush later invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. In his account, he offers some criticisms of the media and the military's relationship to the media, but rarely of a systemic nature. Annotation ?2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
• What happens when a nation loses an important part of its connection with history, when its heritage and even its roots are sacrificed to political expediency? When the offspring of The Greatest Generation out source national service to Other People?s Kids? Finally, having distanced themselves from the harsh realities of war, what happens when an implacable enemy with an ideology of generations-long conflict attacks this country? The answer is that the nation watches the war on TV, the "Electronic Coliseum" that substitutes for the direct experience that our Founders always assumed would be a cornerstone of American democracy.
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  WARHEADS reveals what goes on behind the closed doors of that coliseum, from the make-up rooms and TV studios of cable news to the E-ring conference rooms of the Pentagon. Written by one of the best-known members of television?s elite cadre of military analysts, or Warheads, Colonel Ken Allard?s hard-hitting and often hilarious narrative shows how he and his colleagues from MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News covered the events of 9/11, the war in Afghanistan, and the invasion of Iraq--usually in "hits" of three minutes or less. In his book, Allard also considers the tough issues that the Warheads could seldom wedge into their hits: that technology is never the final answer in warfare and that, from Hurricane Katrina to the war on terror, no robot can substitute for the American soldier. He concludes with the highly provocative question: are the American political and media establishments up to the challenges of a war from which there may be neither end nor retreat?

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