Neo-Conned! Again

by D Liam O'Huallachain

  This belief is largely a myth, according to University of California-San Diego professor Daniel Hallin, who has extensively studied the content of Vietnam war reporting. “Blood and gore were rarely shown,” he states. “The violence in news reports often involved little more than puffs of smoke in the distance, as aircraft bombed the unseen enemy. Only during the 1968 Tet and 1972 spring offensives, when the war came into urban areas, did its suffering and destruction appear with any regularity on TV …. For the first few years of the living room war most of the coverage was upbeat …. In the early years, when morale was strong, television reflected the upbeat tone of the troops. But as withdrawals continued and morale declined, the tone of field reporting changed. This shift was paralleled by developments on the 'home front.' Here, divisions over the war received increasing air time, and the anti-war movement, which had been vilified as Communist-inspired in the early years, was more often accepted as a legitimate political movement.”2

  Regardless of whether television coverage created anti-war sentiment or merely reflected it, as Hallin suggests, the Vietnam war marked a watershed in the relationship between the military and the media. In subsequent wars, military planners placed considerable emphasis on controlling the information that reached the American public. Journalists were excluded from the wars in Granada and Panama until the fighting was already concluded. This in turn led to complaints from journalists, and in the 1990 war in Iraq, code-named Operation Desert Storm, the Pentagon adopted a “pool system” through which a hand-picked group of reporters were allowed to travel with soldiers under tightly controlled conditions. Between August 1990 and January 1991 only the “combat pools” – about 23 groups of reporters – were allowed access to military units in the field. The Pentagon's Joint Information Bureau, which was responsible for pool assignments, denied reporters access to some areas of the war zone on military orders. “For historic purposes, for truth-telling purposes, there were no independent eyes and ears” to document all the events of the war, recalled Frank Aukofer, former bureau chief of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.1 As a result, the public saw a largely sanitized version of the war, dominated by Pentagonsupplied video footage of “smart bombs” blowing up buildings and other inanimate targets with pinpoint accuracy. Journalists who refused to participate in the pool system, such as photographer Peter Turnley, captured images of “incredible carnage” but were dismayed that their coverage of the graphic side of war went largely unpublished.2

  By the time of the 2001 war in Afghanistan, however, reporters had come to identify with the soldiers they were covering. FOX war correspondent Geraldo Rivera went so far as to announce on air that he was carrying a gun (a violation of the rules of war for journalists under the Geneva Conventions) and told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he hoped to kill Osama bin Laden personally, to “kick his head in, then bring it home and bronze it.” Just as reality TV crossed the boundary between journalism and entertainment, FOX and Geraldo crossed the boundary between reporters and combatants. Rather than exclude reporters from the battlefield, the Pentagon realized that it had little to lose and everything to gain by inviting them in.

  Victoria (Torie) Clarke, formerly the Pentagon's assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, is credited with developing the Pentagon's strategy of “embedding” reporters with troops.3 Clarke came to the military after running the Washington, D.C., office of the Hill & Knowlton public relations firm, which had run the PR campaign for the government-in-exile of Kuwait during the buildup to Operation Desert Storm a decade earlier. In a 13-page document outlining the ground rules for embedded journalists, the Pentagon stated that “media coverage of any future operation will, to a large extent, shape public perception” in the United States as well as other countries. The system of “embedding” allowed reporters to travel with military units – so long as they followed the rules. Those rules said reporters could not travel independently, interviews had to be on the record (which meant lower-level service members were less likely to speak candidly), and officers could censor and temporarily delay reports for “operational security.”1 Along with journalists, the Pentagon embedded its own public relations officers, who helped manage the reporters, steering them toward stories, facilitating interviews and photo opportunities.2

  Overt censorship played a relatively minor role in shaping the content of reports from the field. Far more important was the way embedding encouraged reporters to identify with the soldiers they were covering. Part of the “point of view” to any journalistic account depends on the actual physical location from which reporters witness events. Since much of modern warfare involves the use of air power or long-range artillery, the journalists embedded with troops witnessed weapons being fired but rarely saw what happened at the receiving end. At the same time that an unprecedented number of reporters were traveling with American troops, there was almost no journalistic presence in Iraqi cities. Prior to the launch of war, Defense Department officials warned reporters to clear out of Baghdad, saying the war would be far more intense than the 1991 war. “If your template is Desert Storm, you've got to imagine something much, much different,” said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.3 Although some print journalists remained in Baghdad, almost all of the television networks took the Pentagon's advice and pulled out in the days immediately preceding the start of fighting.4 Of the major networks, only CNN still had correspondents in the city on the day the war began.5In the absence of their own news teams, the other networks were forced to rely on feeds from CNN and Aljazeera, the Arabic satellite network once derided by Bush administration officials as “All Osama All the Time.”1

  Embedding also encouraged emotional bonding between reporters and soldiers. CBS News reporter Jim Axelrod, traveling with the Third Infantry, told viewers that he had just come from a military intelligence briefing. “We've been given orders,” he said before correcting himself to say, “soldiers have been given orders.”2

  NBC News correspondent David Bloom (who died tragically of a blood clot) said the soldiers “have done anything and everything that we could ask of them, and we in turn are trying to return the favor by doing anything and everything that they can ask of us.”3

  “They're my protectors,” said ABC's John Donovan.4

  Oliver North, the former Marine lieutenant colonel and Iran/Contra defendant turned talk show host, became an embedded reporter for FOX, further blurring the line between journalists and warfighters. “I say General Franks should be commended – that's a U.S. Marine saying that about an Army general,” he said in one broadcast.5

  “Sheer genius,” commented U.S. public relations consultant Katie Delahaye Paine, saying that the embedded reporters

  have been spectacular, bringing war into our living rooms like never before …. The sagacity of the tactic is that it is based on the basic tenet of public relations: it's all about relationships. The better the relationship any of us has with a journalist, the better the chance of that journalist picking up and reporting our messages. So now we have journalists making dozens – if not hundreds – of new friends among the armed forces.6

  You're on Combat Camera

  In addition to embedded journalists, the Pentagon offered combatants-as-journalists, with its own film crew, called “Combat Camera.” In fact, one of the biggest media scoops of the war – the dramatic rescue of POW Jessica Lynch – was a Combat Camera exclusive. Baltimore Sun correspondent Ariel Sabar watched the Combat Camera team at work: “A dozen employees at computer stations sift through the 600 to 800 photographs and 25 to 50 video clips beamed in each day from the front lines. About 80% are made available to the news media and the public,” he reported.

  The images glisten from big screens at the news briefings in the Pentagon and the U.S. Central Command in Qatar. A gallery on the Defense Department Web site gets 750,000 hits a day, triple the number before the war. And for the first time, Combat Camera is emailing a daily batch of photographs to major news organizat
ions …. In the battlefield of public opinion, experts say, images are as potent as bullets …. Photos of sleek fighter jets, rescued POWs, and smiling Iraqis cheering the arrival of U.S. troops are easy to find among Combat Camera's public images. Photos of bombed-out Baghdad neighborhoods and so-called “collateral damage” are not.1

  “We've got a lot of good humanitarian images, showing us helping the Iraqi people and the people in Baghdad celebrating,” said Lt. Jane Laroque, the officer in charge of Combat Camera's soldiers in Iraq. “A lot of our imagery will have a big impact on world opinion.”2

  Outside the United States, however, the imagery that people were seeing was quite different. Instead of heroic soldiers giving candy to Iraqi children and heartwarming rescues of injured POWs, the television networks in Europe and the Arab world showed images of war that were violent, disturbing, and unlikely to have the impact that Laroque imagined.

  1. The Jeremy Glick who appeared on The O'Reilly Factor is the son of Barry Glick, a 51-year-old worker at Port Authority. He is not related to Jeremy Glick, the 31-year-old passenger of Flight 93 who is believed to have fought the hijackers and prevented them from crashing the plane into its intended target.

  1. The O'Reilly Factor, February 4, 2003, Transcript #020404cb.256, available on the LEXIS-NEXIS news database. Also see http://www.thismodernworld.com/weblog/mtarchives/week_2003_02_02.html.

  2. See http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/836052/posts.

  1. Bill O'Reilly, “Using Quasi-Prostitutes to Sell Sneakers,” FOX News, February 25, 2003, online.

  2. Media Research Center, IRS Form 990, 2001 (http://documents.guidestar.org/2001/541/429/2001–541429009–1–9.pdf); Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, IRS Form 990 for fiscal year ending June 30, 2002 (–133392362–1–9.pdf).

  3. Jim Rutenberg and Bill Carter, “Network Coverage a Target of Fire from Conservatives,” New York Times, November 7, 200, online.

  4. Press briefing by Ari Fleischer (transcript), White House Office of the Press Secretary, September 26, 2001 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010926–5.html).

  1. Testimony of Attorney General John Ashcroft, Senate Committee on the Judiciary, December 6, 2001 (http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2001/1206transcriptsenate judiciarycommittee.htm).

  2. “They Heard It All Here, And That's the Trouble,” Washington Post, June 16, 2002 (online at http://foi.missouri.edu/terrorismfoi/theyhearditall.html).

  3. Roy Greenslade, “Their Master's Voice,” Guardian, February 17, 2003, online.

  4. “The New York Post Captures the Mood of the Extreme Right,” Global Beat, Center for War, Peace and the News Media, New York University, February 17–24, 2003 (http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat/index021703.html).

  5. Ciar Byrne, “Sun's French Stunt Called 'Disgusting,'” The Guardian, February 21, 2003, online.

  1. Sam Keen, “To Create an Enemy” (poem), cited in “Healing the Enemy 2001” (sermon), preached at Grace North Church, Berkeley, CA, January 21, 2001 (http://www.apocry-phile.net/homily/sermons/enemy01.html).

  2. Bill Carter, “MSNBC Cancels Donahue,” February 25, 2003 (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/25/business/media/25CND-PHIL.html).

  3. Rick Ellis, “Commentary: The Surrender of MSNBC,” AllYourTV.com, February 25, 2003 (http://www.allyourtv.com/0203season/news/02252003donahue.html).

  4. “GE, Microsoft Bring Bigotry to Life,” FAIR Action Alert, February 12, 2003 (http://www.fair.org/activism/msnbc-savage.html).

  1. Stephen Marshall, “Prime Time Payola,” In These Times, April 4, 2003 (http://inthese-times.com/comments.php?id=148_0_1_0_C).

  2. John Schwartz and Geraldine Fabrikant, “War Puts Radio Giant on the Defensive,” New York Times, March 31, 2003 (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/31/business/media/31RADI.html).

  3. “Dixie Chicks' 'Top of the World Tour' a Great Success” (news release), Clear Channel Entertainment, Inc., March 7, 2003 (http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/030307/75279_1.html).

  4. “DJs Suspended for Playing Dixie Chicks,” Washington Post, May 6, 2003 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19571–2003May6.html).

  5. “Treatment of Dixie Chicks by Some Radio Stations Raises Troubling Issues,” Citizen Times (Asheville, NC), May 2, 2003 (http://cgi.citizen-times.com/cgi-bin/story/editorial/34115).

  6. John Mainelli, “Tough Talkers,” New York Post, March 21, 2003 (http://www.nypost.com/entertainment/71400.htm).

  1. Todd Gitlin, “The Pro-War Post,” American Prospect, April 2003, p. 43.

  2. Michael Getler, “Worth More Than a One-liner,” Washington Post, October 6, 2002, p. B6.

  3. Ira Teinowitz, “Battle Rages Over Anti-war TV Commercials,” Advertising Age, February 24, 2003 (http://www.adage.com/news.cms?newsId=37202).

  4. Nat Ives, “MTV Refuses Antiwar Commercial,” New York Times, March 13, 2003, online.

  1. Claude Moisy, “The Foreign News Flow in the Information Age,” Discussion Paper D-23, Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy, Harvard University, November 1996, p. 4 (http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/presspol/publications/pdfs/62062_D-23.pdf).

  2. Mark Fitzgerald, “TV Trounced Newspapers During Iraq War,” Editor & Publisher, April 30, 2003, online.

  1. Ibid.

  2. Josh Getlin, “All-News Channels Find Big Audience,” Los Angeles Times, April 5, 2003, online.

  3. Eric Deggans, “Pride and Prejudice,” St. Petersburg Times, April 25, 2003, online.

  4. Allison Romano, “CNN Out-Foxed in War Coverage,” Broadcasting & Cable, March 20, 2003 (http://www.broadcastingcable.com/index.asp?layout=story_stocks& articleId=CA286394).

  5. Jim Rutenberg, “Cable's War Coverage Suggests a New 'FOX Effect' on Television,” New York Times, April 16, 2003, online.

  6. Moisy, op. cit.

  1. Ibid.

  2. Justin Lewis, Sut Jhally and Michael Morgan, “The Gulf War: A Study of the Media, Public Opinion and Public Knowledge” (Center for the Study of Communication, University of Massachusetts, March, 1991). [Emphasis ours.—Ed.]

  3. Neil Cavuto, “American First, Journalist Second,” FOX News, March 28, 2003 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,82504,00.html).

  1. Chuck Barney, “FOX Offering More News Talk Than News,” Knight Ridder, April 11, 2003, online.

  1. MSNBC, Hardball with Chris Matthews, April 2, 2003, transcript #040201cb.461.

  2. Peter Johnson, “Media's War Footing Looks Solid,” USA Today, February 17, 2003, p. 1D.

  1. “Operation IRAQI FREEDOM,” transcript #032606cb.455, MSNBC, March 26, 2003.

  2. “Press, freedom of the,” The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6 ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003 (http://www.bartleby.com/65/pr/press-fr.html).

  1. “How the War Changed the Way Military Conflicts Are Reported,” University Times (University of Pittsburgh), vol. 32, no. 21, June 22, 2000 (http://www.pitt.edu/utimes/issues/32/000622/15.html).

  2. Daniel Hallin, “Vietnam on Television,” The Encyclopedia of Television, Museum of Broadcast Communications (http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/V/htmlV/vietnam-onte/vietnamonte.htm).

  1. Namrata Savoor, “Persian Gulf War Press Pool Worked Well in Some Ways,” Newseum.org, July 16, 2001 (http://www.newseum.org/warstories/exhibitinfo/newss-tory.asp?DocumentID=14402).

  2. Peter Turnley, “The Unseen Gulf War,” World Association for Christian Communication (http://www.wacc.org.uk/publications/action/250/unseen_war.html).

  3. Peter Johnson, “Who Won, and Who Lost, in the Media Battle,” USA Today, April 13, 2003, online.

  1. Robert Jensen, “The Military's Media,” May 20, 2003 (http://www.progressive.org/may03/jen0503.html).

  2. Douglas Quenqua, “Pentagon PA Staff Helping Out Embedded Reporters,” PR Week, March 31, 2003 (http://www.prweek.com/news/news_story.cfm?ID=175623&site=3).

  3. Douglas Holt, “Media Face Difficult Call on Reporters in War Zone,” Chicago Tribune, March 12, 2003, online.

  4. “NBC, ABC Pull Reporters from Baghdad After Com
ments Indicating War,” Associated Press, March 17, 2003 (http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/entertainment/tele-vision/5414596.htm); see also Jim Rutenberg, “US News Organizations Tell Employees to Leave Baghdad,” New York Times, March 19, 2003, online.

  5. Allesandra Stanley, “After a Lengthy Buildup, an Anticlimactic Strike” New York Times, March 20, 2003, online.

  1. Jane Perlez with Jim Rutenberg, “U.S. Courts Network It Once Described as 'All Osama,'” New York Times, March 20, 2003, online.

  2. Robert Jensen, The Progressive, “The Military's Media,” May 20, 2003, online.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Howard Kurtz, “For Media After Iraq, a Case of Shell Shock,” Washington Post, April 28, 2003, p. A1.

  5. David Folkenflik, “FOX News Defends Its 'Patriotic' Coverage,” Baltimore Sun, April 2, 2003, online.

  6. K.D. Paine, “Army Intelligence,” The Measurement Standard, March 28, 2003, online.

  1. Ariel Sabar, “Military Crews Capture Images from Front Line,” Baltimore Sun, April 18, 2003, online.

  2. Ibid.

  THE EDITORS' GLOSS: On August 5, 2005, an opinion piece appeared in USA Today, written by Larry DiRita, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs, arguing that it would be a mistake to make Congress “the arbiter of standards for interrogating captured terrorists.” He was referring to amendments that Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), and John Warner (R-Va.) proposed be added to the 2006 Defense Authorization Act to establish policies that would right some of the wrongs identified in this anthology's previous section. The McCain amendment says that “no individual in the custody or under the physical control of the United States Government, regardless of nationality or physical location, shall be subject to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.” Sounds good.