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Critical media voices face censorship
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The thick fog of war on American television
By Norman Solomon
Minutes after the dawn spread daylight across the Iraqi desert, “embedded”
CNN correspondent Walter Rodgers was on the air with a live report. Another
employee at the network, former US Gen. Wesley Clark — on the job
in a TV studio back home — asked his colleague a question. When Rodgers
responded, he addressed Clark as “general” and “sir.”
The only thing missing was a salute.
That deferential tone pretty much sums up the overall relationship between
American journalists and the US military on major TV networks. Correspondents
in the field have bonded with troops to the point that their language
and enunciated outlooks are often indistinguishable. Meanwhile, no matter
what tensions exist, reporters remain basically comfortable with Pentagon
sources. And what passes for debate is rarely anything more than the second-guessing
of military decisions. It’s OK to question how — but not why
— the war is being fought. Sure, some journalists have raised uncomfortable
questions for top war makers in Washington. At this point, within the
bounds of mass media, the loudest voices of pseudo-dissent have demanded
to know whether the US government miscalculated by failing to deploy enough
troops from the outset.
When the media debate centers on whether the United States has attacked
Iraq with adequate troop strength and sufficient lethal violence, the
fulcrum of supposed media balance is far into the realm of fervent militarism.
Exceptional reports on American television, conspicuous for their rarity,
have asked deeper questions. On the ABC program “Nightline,”
correspondent John Donvan shed light on what “embeds” have routinely
missed. Rather than traveling under the Pentagon’s wing, Donvan and
other intrepid “unilaterals” venture out on their own. In his
case, the results included an illuminating dispatch from the Iraqi town
of Safwan. “Just because the Iraqis don’t like Saddam, doesn’t
mean they like us for trying to take him out,” Donvan explained.
“To the contrary. Although people started out talking to us in a
friendly way, after a while it became a little tense. These people were
mad at America, very mad. And they wanted us to know why. It was because,
they said, people in town had been shot at by the United States.”
Declining to travel in tandem with US troops, Donvan was able and willing
to report on views not apt to be expressed by Iraqis looking down the
barrels of the invaders’ guns: “Why are you taking over Iraq?
That’s how the people in this crowd saw it — takeover, not liberation.”
In contrast to the multitudes of “embedded” American reporters,
the “unilateral” Donvan was oriented toward realities deeper
than fleeting images. Instead of zooming along on the media fast track,
he could linger: “In short, if embeds are always moving with the
troops, unilaterals get to see what happens after they’ve passed
through.” The visible anger of Iraqi people has roots in events that
usually get described in antiseptic and euphemistic terms by US media
outlets. “What else did we see by going in as unilaterals? The close-up
view of collateral damage. The US says it’s trying to limit injuries
to civilians. It is, however, hard not to take it personally when that
collateral damage is you.”
Donvan reported on a wounded Iraqi man, evidently a bus driver, who had
lost his wife over the weekend: “She was collateral damage. So were
his two brothers. So were his two children.” Journalism that may
seem notably daring in the US media would not raise an eyebrow elsewhere.
For instance, the contrast is stark between National Public Radio and
BBC Radio, or the PBS “NewsHour With Jim Lehrer” and BBC Television.
In comparison, most public broadcasting in the United States seems to
be cravenly licking the boots of Uncle Sam. With a straight face, and
with scant willingness to raise fundamental questions, American networks
uncritically relay a nonstop barrage of statements from US officials that
portray deadly Iraqi actions as heinous and deadly American actions as
positive. They have “death squads,” and we have noble troops.
Their bullets and bombs are odious; ours are remedies for tyranny.
“It looks and feels like terrorism,” a Pentagon official said
on national television after several American soldiers died at the hands
of an Iraqi suicide bomber. But if attacks on US troops inside Iraq are
“terrorism,” what should we call the massive bombing of Baghdad?
Surely, to many people in that city, the current assault looks and feels
like terrorism.
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Critical media voices face censorship
Apr. 3— Although the invasion of Iraq is being fought
under the name “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” it has constricted
the range of expression sanctioned by media outlets within the US. Starting
before the war began, several national and local media figures have had
their work jeopardized, either explicitly or implicitly because of the
critical views they expressed on the war.
* MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue’s talkshow after an internal memo (leaked
to the All Your TV website, 2/25/03) argued that he would be a “difficult
public face for NBC in a time of war. ...He seems to delight in presenting
guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush, and skeptical of the administration’s
motives.” The report warned that the Donahue show could be “a
home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors
are waving the flag at every opportunity.”
An email from a network executive, also leaked to All Your TV (3/5/03),
suggested that it would be “unlikely” that Donahue could be
used by MSNBC to “reinvent itself” and “cross-pollinate
our programming” with the “anticipated larger audience who will
tune in during a time of war” by linking pundits to war coverage,
“particularly given his public stance on the advisability of the
war effort.”
* Brent Flynn, a reporter for the Lewisville (Texas) Leader, was told
he could no longer write a column for the paper in which he had expressed
anti-war views. “I was told that because I had attended an anti-war
rally, I had violated the newspaper’s ethics policy that prohibits
members of the editorial staff from participating in any political activity
other than voting,” Flynn wrote in a note on his personal website.
“I am convinced that if my column was supportive of the war and it
was a pro-war rally that I attended, they would not have dared to cancel
my column. ...The fact that the column was cancelled just days before
the start of the US invasion of Iraq raises serious questions about the
motives for the cancellation.” Although Flynn was ostensibly sanctioned
for compromising the paper’s “objectivity,” he continues
to serve as a news reporter for the paper, while losing the part of his
job where he was expected to express opinions.
* Kurt Hauglie, a reporter and columnist for Michigan’s Huron Daily
Tribune, quit the paper after allegedly being told that an anti-war column
he had written would not run because it might upset readers (WJRT-TV,
3/28/03).
* The website YellowTimes.org, which featured original anti-war reporting
and commentary, was shut down by its Web hosting company on Mar. 24, after
it posted images of US POWs and Iraqi civilian victims of the war. Orlando-based
Vortech Hosting told Yellow Times in an e-mail, “Your account has
been suspended because [of] inappropriate graphic material.” Later,
the company clarified: “As ‘NO’ TV station in the US is
allowing any dead US soldiers or POWs to be displayed and we will not
either.” As of Apr. 3, the site was still down.
* The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news network’s attempts to set up an
English-language website were foiled by unidentified US-based hackers
who launched a denial-of-service attack. Al-Jazeera is expected to try
to relaunch its site in mid-April. The station’s reporters also had
their press credentials revoked by the New York Stock Exchange, and were
unable to obtain alternative credentials at the NASDAQ exchange: “In
light of Al-Jazeera’s recent conduct during the war, in which they
have broadcast footage of US POWs in alleged violation of the Geneva Convention,
they are not welcome to broadcast from our facility at this time,”
a NASDAQ spokesperson told the Los Angeles Times (3/26/03). [As of Apr.
3, Al-Jazeera’s site was up and running again.]
* Veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett was fired by NBC as a result
of an interview that he gave to Iraqi TV in which he said that war planners
had “misjudged the determination of the Iraqi forces” and that
there was “a growing challenge to President Bush about the conduct
of the war.”
After initially defending Arnett, NBC released a statement saying that
“it was wrong for Mr. Arnett to grant an interview to state-controlled
Iraqi TV -- especially at a time of war -- and it was wrong for him to
discuss his personal observations and opinions in that interview.”
Source: Fairness & Accuracy
In Reporting (FAIR): <www.fair.org>
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