Operation Iraqi Freedom FROM THE PUBLISHER
Operation Iraqi Freedom marked a new era in television war coverage. On-the-spot reporting by journalists, photographers, and cameramen captured combat in ways that are nothing less than historic. Sharing the triumphs, tragedies, and daily routines of the soldiers, viewers crouched in the trenches, felt the vibrations of bomb explosions, tasted sands borne on fierce desert winds. We were there -- embedded among the troops, eyewitnesses to the horror of battle. Historic television. Historic journalism. NBC news captured it all and was the acknowledged leader among all the network and cable news organizations covering the Iraqi war. This book + DVD package written and produced by NBC News presents a chronological narrative of reporting from the field supplemented by interviews and anchored broadcasts from Qatar, Kuwait, and the United States. The book includes a Foreword by Tom Brokaw, an Introduction by an NBC military expert, and a special dedication to fallen colleague David Bloom. Thousands of hours of images and words have been molded into a concise, eloquent summary of the historic events of the conflict, further enhanced by the photographic and video record. The DVD contains approxiamately 2 hours of live coverage of the war broadcast by NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC.
SYNOPSIS
Bob Wright opens this work by approvingly quoting an earlier NBC chairman's offer to put all "of our facilities and personnel" at the "instant service" of the President of the United States during an earlier war. That same sentiment sums up NBC's broadcasts during "Operation Iraqi Freedom," as well as this work, a pictorial celebration of NBC and its involvement in the American invasion of Iraq. The experience of the "embedded" war is described in words and pictures from early preparations in Kuwait to the fall of Baghdad, complete with the requisite pictures of Iraqi children waving American flags and American soldiers receiving flowers from the gratefully "liberated." The side of the war that many regular Iraqis and a significant number of U.S. soldiers saw (i.e. blood and non-super-mediated destruction) receives limited attention. The DVD contains "highlights" of the coverage in addition to postwar interviews and commentary. Much like NBC's war, it is narrated by anchor Tom Brokaw. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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