We receive our information in all sorts of ways in today's world, from the printed word in magazines, newspapers, and books, to social media, to news stations online and on the internet, mainstream or not, in which, all of this combined helps us to visualize the world at large. In particular, as the saying goes, "a picture is worth a thousand words", and in reality, a picture or video, in and of itself, without even any vocalization or detailed description attached to it, does often convey a short story to the recipient or viewer of such. This does mean that images matter, and that video matters, and when it comes to war, these images and videos are of immense value and he who controls it, is therefore in the driver's seat of controlling that narrative.
America is an empire, of which most Americans are either blithely unconcerned about it, or simply don't recognize the length, depth, and the breadth of our military and its military or shadow-military campaigns that America is involved with on a continuous basis, from wars that have not been officially declared by our congress but are wars nevertheless, against countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, to covert incursions or special operations forces engaging in battles in which as reported by thenation.com in regards to 2015, "…US Special Operations forces have already deployed to 135 nations," which is an absolutely staggering amount of nations to have deployed to in one calendar year.
While there are always going to be independent, foreign, and mainstream reporters, filing and submitting reports to the American people, of what is or what is not going on in battles around the world, the fact of the matter is that in America's wars, incursions, invasions, stealth attacks, and covert operations of all types, no one reporter, no one organization, or no entire group of reporters or no entire group of organizations, is going to know everything that is going on, because there are too many "hot" points to know everything about it all. That said, the military, though, in all of its many manifestations and departments, essentially knows what is going on in fairly significant detail, but a meaningful portion of that information is classified or obscured in such a manner that the general public and therefore the American people are not permitted to actually know, and certainly not permitted to know on any real-time basis.
All of this leads to the point, that in a fast world that consists often of sound bites, of which pictures and video, have never been more prevalent in telling a story of what is really happening around the world, that, when it comes to our military adventures, the military knows that when they are able to control the taking of and the dissemination of such photos and videos, that they are able to control the narrative in such a manner, that our military engagements aren't view from the standpoint of fair access to what is really going on and what is really happening from a worldview humanitarian standpoint, but instead is viewed primarily from an American-centric viewpoint which is deliberately prejudicial in such a manner that the real human impact of what is occurring against other nations and their people is minimized or obscured.
That is, think about it, where do the pictures and videos come from, in regards to our military adventures of all stripes, for if you believe that they come from truly independent reporters, that are able to gain full access to battlefields, as well as covert and special engagements, all permitted without restrictions from our military, and that therefore they are able to snap pictures and roll video at will, you are mistaken. The official access to our battlefields and covert operations by those recording such, are essentially controlled by the military, and those that do not present the visual storyline in accordance with the military desires, will lose their privileges, so that the storyline, in effect, the pictures and the video, are absolutely masterminded by the military, itself, to the best of their ability and influence, and their influence is massive, for the military in all of its might, has a yearly budget of nearly $700 billion dollars, and the mainstream media, has little issue with being "patriotic" if the money is right.