Media Analysis of Gulf War
THE MEDIA & IRAQ: WAR COVERAGE ANALYSIS
BY MARIELLEN DIEMAND
“To speak the truth, there must be two people. One to speak it and one to hear it.”
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Thoreau reminds us that in order for there to be truth in our lives there must be someone to speak it first. We as a society assume those truths will be freely distributed by those who run our country and those who keep us informed – those we are supposed to be able to depend on and trust. In a time of war, free speech comes under fire by our government in the forms of censorship, false reporting and untruths and unbalanced news. The truth needed for a vibrant democracy has dissipated, leaving behind an antiseptic and sanitized version of the war in Iraq, brought to us by media corporations – often referred to as “mouthpieces for the US government” . “Mostly, it works that way in practice because countless journalists – whether they’re flag-wavers at Fox News or liberal sophisticates at NPR News – keep letting authorities define the bounds of appropriate empathy and moral concern,” said Norman Solomon, a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics, on April 17, 2003 in Media Beat. During the course of the war with Iraq, there were many questions about the role of the American media. Some would argue that their role was to inform, but after a slew of false reports, a contract signed by embedded reporters with the Pentagon on “playing by the rules” and a pro-war sentiment ringing throughout cable news networks, it would seem as though objective reporting was the last consideration in the “rush to be first” to inform the public. “If the first two weeks of the coverage was any indication, this war will be a case study in the failure of success by U.S. journalism,” said Robert Jensen, writer for The Progressive, at the height of the conflict. 1 “…There was no meaningful debate on the main news shows of CBS, ABC, NBC or PBS…The media didn’t even provide the straight facts well,” said Jensen.
BY MARIELLEN DIEMAND
“To speak the truth, there must be two people. One to speak it and one to hear it.”
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Thoreau reminds us that in order for there to be truth in our lives there must be someone to speak it first. We as a society assume those truths will be freely distributed by those who run our country and those who keep us informed – those we are supposed to be able to depend on and trust. In a time of war, free speech comes under fire by our government in the forms of censorship, false reporting and untruths and unbalanced news. The truth needed for a vibrant democracy has dissipated, leaving behind an antiseptic and sanitized version of the war in Iraq, brought to us by media corporations – often referred to as “mouthpieces for the US government” . “Mostly, it works that way in practice because countless journalists – whether they’re flag-wavers at Fox News or liberal sophisticates at NPR News – keep letting authorities define the bounds of appropriate empathy and moral concern,” said Norman Solomon, a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics, on April 17, 2003 in Media Beat. During the course of the war with Iraq, there were many questions about the role of the American media. Some would argue that their role was to inform, but after a slew of false reports, a contract signed by embedded reporters with the Pentagon on “playing by the rules” and a pro-war sentiment ringing throughout cable news networks, it would seem as though objective reporting was the last consideration in the “rush to be first” to inform the public. “If the first two weeks of the coverage was any indication, this war will be a case study in the failure of success by U.S. journalism,” said Robert Jensen, writer for The Progressive, at the height of the conflict. 1 “…There was no meaningful debate on the main news shows of CBS, ABC, NBC or PBS…The media didn’t even provide the straight facts well,” said Jensen.