When the mother of Army Spec. Joseph Hudson found out her son had been captured by Iraqi forces, she wasn't watching CNN, NBC, CBS, ABC or Fox News Channel. She was watching ABS-CBN's The Filipino Channel.
If the last Gulf War was chronicled by the rise of CNN, this time out, we have hundreds of media sources at our fingertips. On the internet, Warblogs abound-- some written by pundits here in the U.S., some updated by reporters and even soldiers overseas. (The most famous has become a mysterious weblog written by someone purportedly in Baghdad who goes by the name Salam Pax.)
On our DirecTV system, we have access to Newsworld International, a Canadian all-news channel that carries CBC coverage of the war. We can also catch up on BBC coverage via BBC America. Cable outfits also carry channels such as Middle Eastern news outlet Al Jazeera, and channels from across the globe, from Korea, Russia, France, Spain, you name it. This time around, we can watch the whole world as it watches the world.
Meanwhile, this is probably the first time most Americans had even heard of the Filipino Channel, let alone knew that such a channel was available in the U.S. The fact that Anecita Hudson was watching it from her home in Alamogordo, N.M., and saw her son on TV, is an amazing example of this wired age. The Pentagon had asked American news organizations not to air the video or pictures from the POWs or identify any of the prisoners until their families are notified, but that didn't stop news organizations from outside the country from airing the video.
Other coverage about the coverage:
The New Yorker
Time
Variety
more to come...
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