Pentagon Bitten by the ‘Show Biz’ Bug

However noble the U.S. campaign against terror, involving the Pentagon in TV’s so-called “reality” shows is a terrible idea, a dangerous idea, an un-American idea. Yet it’s happening.

As this paper has reported, the Pentagon is now granting producers of these entertainment shows access to its war effort. Why would the Pentagon do this after imposing such strict limits on news organizations covering the war in Afghanistan before easing up in recent weeks?

What better way to erase one of those demarcations essential for democracy--the line separating state and entertainment content--than to allow government to influence the course of prime-time series that are advertised to the public as unfiltered information?

What better way for government to foster self-flattering images--the ones supporting its policies--than through a venue most Americans instinctively trust as being free of propaganda?

“There are a variety of ways of providing information to the American people,” a military spokesman told The Times in a recent story about this convergence of interests. “This is a great way.”

From the Pentagon’s perspective, is it ever.

There are precedents for this, entertainment and politics having a long history when it comes to collaborating on public theater. In past years, Hollywood figures have been summoned east to help presidents effectively deliver their messages to the public. And movie directors, from D.W. Griffith to John Huston, have been signed to make propaganda films that whip up patriotism in wartime.

On TV, moreover, law-enforcement agencies have been glorified for years by such media ride-along shows as Fox’s “Cops,” whose celebratory tone makes them dishonest by definition. The badged heroes on these shows are pure of heart and mostly mistake free, servants of the people who bear no resemblance to the bad-cop minority that makes news headlines.

Partnering the U.S. military with entertainment producers will also skew reality and potentially mislead viewers.

But get ready. Arriving March 29 is “American Fighter Pilots,” which profiles fliers and is being updated to include the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that took place after this CBS series was initiated.

In addition, the Pentagon is working with producers of an upcoming VH1 series featuring the video diaries of military personnel, and with the future ABC series “Profiles From the Front Line.”

Although the Pentagon is pre-screening these two, as the Air Force is “American Fighter Pilots,” the producers maintain they will retain editorial control.

“We’re trying to do something balanced, tell real stories about Americans and the allies who are out there while we’re sitting at home,” Bertram van Munster, a producer for the ABC series, told The Times.

A nice plan.

Yet the presence of a camera inevitably alters reality on some level, as does the presence of a Pentagon information officer nearby, standing ready to give assistance and ... advice.

That’s hardly the half of it, though. Essential to their survival is the access these shows must have to stay on the air, as did their law-enforcement predecessors from “Cops” to the syndicated “LAPD: Life on the Beat.”

That means the Pentagon won’t have to censor them. They’ll censor themselves, knowing that if they telecast something negative, or anything that appears to question Pentagon policy, their umbilical cords will be severed by a government agency that dislikes being second-guessed. As all do, whether the White House is Republican or Democrat.

No access, no show.

Not that anyone connected to these wartime “reality” efforts will be inclined to go against the government grain in any case. The producers are not military historians or journalists, after all. Their interests naturally lie elsewhere. Even those with documentary experience are essentially entertainers in this instance, their agenda being solely to put on a good TV show.

The counter-argument: What’s to worry? If the series are clearly labeled for what they are, viewers will see them not as news but as entertainment, so no problem.

Not quite. That would have been the case many decades ago before the high-tech, multimedia age of what visionary British writer Malcolm Muggeridge aptly titled “Newzak.” What he meant was that we are bombarded by infinite media of infinite types that together become too much to sort out and comprehend. As a result, they reach our brains as the same background hum heard on an elevator.

Although Muggeridge wrote this well before the Internet and CNN revolutions, it applies also to the present nonstop hum of news programs, gussied-up information shows and even some entertainment series whose messages congeal in our minds. Adding to that disorientation is the latest Internet-influenced gambit of the cable news channels that has audiences trying to heed anchor lips while reading headlines from other stories that scroll rapidly across the bottom of the screen.

The problem in all of this: Processing information and distinguishing one source from another becomes nearly impossible--if not immediately, then in the future, when you try recalling what you’ve heard and its origin.

As Muggeridge might say, we are knowing more but understanding less. And adding to this phenomenon, this glut, will be Pentagon-assisted TV shows keyed to the war effort.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg @latimes.com.