When war erupts, the world’s media converge on the scene of battle. The bigger the battle, the more consequential the fighting, and the more involved the major power then the more media will attend.
“The very nature of war,” according to journalist Kate Adie (2002), “confuses the role of the journalist” (2002). Confronted with the often horrific realities of conflict, any belief that the journalist can remain distant, remote, or unaffected by what is happening “tends to go out the window” in a hurry. Loss of human life is not always the only casualty in times of war. Truth also becomes a casualty. US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson asserted shortly after the First World War that ‘truth is the first casualty of war’, whilst the former leader of the United Kingdom, Winston Churchill remarked “truth is so precious that she must often be attended by a Bodyguard of Lies”. For the modern journalist, truth amongst wartime reporting is still a major issue and casualty, particularly during the United States’ ‘war on terror’ in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In every war, most reporting is done far from the scene of battle, mostly in newsrooms and news bureaus shielded from the brutality of the war field. More recently however, there has been an increasing shift in how wars are covered by the media. As the world news cycle gets faster, co so does the insatiable hunger of the public for instantaneous access to news and current affairs. As a consequence newsrooms across the world have had to look for new ways to cover events and gain information. Journalists reporting the war in Iraq were given unprecedented access to the warzone. During the Iraq War, media outlets had the option of "embedding" their journalists with the U.S. military. This enabled a j...
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“This is true.” (O’Brien, 420) – with this simple statement which also represents a first, three-word introductory paragraph to Tim O’Brien’s short story, “How to Tell a True War Story”, the author reveals the main problem of what will follow. “Truth” – when looked up in a dictionary, we would probably find definitions similar to sincerity and honesty on the one hand, and correctness, accuracy or reality on the other hand. When looking at these definitions, one can make out two groups of meaning: While sincerity and honesty are very subjective, correctness or accuracy are supposed to be objective by nature. One can be sincere and still not report the truth, due to the simple fact that one does not know any better. Accuracy, however, is supposed to represent facts, bits and pieces of information that paint a picture of an event, untouched by opinion or attitude.
In the aftermath of a comparatively minor misfortune, all parties concerned seem to be eager to direct the blame to someone or something else. It seems so easy to pin down one specific mistake that caused everything else to go wrong in an everyday situation. However, war is a vastly different story. War is ambiguous, an enormous and intangible event, and it cannot simply be blamed for the resulting deaths for which it is indirectly responsible. Tim O’Brien’s story, “In the Field,” illustrates whom the soldiers turn to with the massive burden of responsibility for a tragedy. The horrible circumstances of war transform all involved and tinge them with an absurd feeling of personal responsibility as they struggle to cope.
Images can manipulate many scenarios but it’s tactic used to show the realities of our world. Despite what we see, picture taken of the war and events occurring in the war doesn’t mean they aren’t real. We all live in a messy world and history is constantly repeating itself. Pictures are taken to spread awareness and empathy. It is a reason DeGhett argued that the Iraq brunt solider photograph taken by Kenneth Jarecke should have been posted in order for the public to get a sense that the war occurring at the moment is nothing like in the movies. Images are powerful and we must learn to always look closely and
When something significant happens, every media outlet wants to be the first to let you hear about it. However, to do so they have to draw you in. This is where the deception comes in. In “From Realism to Virtual Reality” the author argues the difference between realism and actual war like images. He explains that the way war is portrayed by the media is not how it really happens. He finds that journalists publish certain images from a war setting just to evoke emotion, whether is portrays the war as it really is or not. For example, he found that many journalists published stand still photographs of mostly dead bodies during the war just to make the audience believe what was being published. Images like these are not accurate, real representations of the war in its entirety. The media is not looking to publish the truth; they’re looking to publish a good
Walter Lippmann once said, “We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy’s side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace”. Every conflict is fought on two grounds: the battlefield and the minds of the people as a means of propaganda. The “good guys” and the “bad guys” can often be guilty of misleading their people with distortions, exaggerations, subjectivity, inaccuracy, and even fabrications, in order to receive support and a sense of legitimacy (Shah, 2005). After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the use of propaganda signified a need to invade Iraq, and expressed both an urgency and obligation to do so. In the years
Other than that, there is no doubt that Journalism of Attachment is very persuasive, but it is criticized for only focusing on human-interest stories, consequently giving less attention to the bigger picture. Karoline von Oppen (2009, p. 10) argues “that paradoxically the Journalism of Attachment made us all bystanders to an alien war which meant that we could absolve all responsibility for its origins and representations” as these human-interest stories only serve to function as a desensitizing apparatus, until the audiences accept that the only solution is military solution (von Oppen 2009) or known as ‘humanitarian intervention’. And as mentioned above, such examples from the past has clearly shown how prominent news network would manipulate news to win audiences over. But in Martin Bell’s defence, it was due to the 1991 Gulf War where the focus was mainly on weaponry and military strategies, so he had to change the focus of the mainstream media towards a more humane approach.
Walter Lippmann once said, “We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy’s side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace.” Every battle has two sides to the story. One story comes from the media, and one comes from the field of battle, the people who were there. The media insists on using hyperbole to attract people into believing the complete wrong story. ("War, Propaganda and the Media." - Global Issues. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.) The goal behind media is to get people excited into knowing the wrong things. Maybe not necessarily wrong, but maybe they just don’t tell you the whole story. They only use selective stories and they also narrow down the range of discourse. For example, Vietnam was named the first television war. PBS was the station that reported things. Also, the people that wanted to know things about the war and follow it, were very disappointed in what they heard. Americans finally realized this was a war we should have fought to win and wondered why we didn’t. People believe it was because of how the media reported the war. It was said that “during the Vietnam war, journalism and news media unintentionally caused a massive shift of American citizens viewpoint of the war.” The reason for this was because it was the first time people could write and report to the American citiz...
The critically acclaimed documentary The War You Don’t See was released in 2010, and was produced to protest the media’s role in past wars/conflicts. The War You Don’t See is a British film, however it consistently focuses on the United States’ involvement in war, and how the media manipulated citizens into supporting mediation in the Middle Eastern conflicts (Hupp 57). The film frequently uses anecdotal sources, and includes some that trace back to World War I. However, it primarily focuses on the recent conflicts in the Middle East. In addition to using an abundance of primary sources, the film also takes time to provide copious amounts of analytical statistics, research, and unedited footage to the viewer. With my protracted history of being
Solomon, Norman 2009, Abstract Quality Journalism for War, The Humanist; Sep/Oct; 69, 5; ProQuest Central pg. 37
Instead of being given the truth about our attacks and the real consequences of them, we are given these Hollywood inspired stories glorifying the military for the damage being done in Iraq. I remember as a child sitting and watching the news shows covering the events in Iraq, and all I ever heard was would how solders would infiltrate and bomb cities like Baghdad and how we are fighting for freedom. Not once did I ever hear about how innocent children were being killed, and how the bombs being dropped were obliterating neighborhoods filled with innocent families. I don’t remember hearing about the fourteen journalists being killed covering the stories in Iraq. Nor do I remember hearing about how the U.S. knowingly shelled a Palestinian hotel that was filled with hundreds of journalists from all over the world. Yet these are the kinds of events that television stations like CNN and FOX forget to show or just barely seem to cover. How do we as American citizens living in a “Democracy” expect to get real unbiased media coverage about the war when we have individuals like U.S. General Wesley Clark covering and reporting the events in Iraq? Like Amy Goodman stated if they can have U.S. army generals on their payroll reporting the news why not also hire peace activists, and peace leaders to share their input as well. Why not bring in some credible doctors to show the people how the terrible effects of the bombs being dropped in Baghdad really are. That’s what a true democracy would do; but instead we are feed this extremely biased garbage of news brainwashing our citizens into thinking that what we are doing in Iraq is perfectly fine when it obviously isn’t. It’s a shame knowing that American citizens have to watch the news from other countries to get an accurate report about what’s going on in
As the nature of modern day conflict evolves, the news organization has also been forced to change their practices in order to adequately represent these conflicts to their audiences. “Networked journalism” has played a large role in covering modern day conflicts and its benefits have been instrumental for the work of journalists around the world. While networked journalism has permanently changed the way traditional media outlets operates, it has also created significant challenges for journalism pertaining to the verification of information, the capacity to build networks and adjusting older business models. (Beckett, 2010) For the purposes of this essay, I will use the case study of reporting the crisis in Syria, specifically the civil war and coalition fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), to illustrate the challenges associated with networked journalism.
Generally, it is very difficult to reach an absolute truth in the war. Instead of the truth, each party in the conflict, satisfy itself with their own interests of truth. It is understandable that each side wants to take credit for all the ideals of kindness, generosity, justice, and when time comes to describe a war, then everyone wants to be a victim, and no one wants the role of the aggressor and perpetrator. I do think the truth is the “first casualty of War” in the context of war reporting. Usually the truth about what really happened during a war is coming to the surface when the war is finished. Sometimes it takes years and years – We are still learning new things about the World War II. We can go back to World War II, a hundred years ago, and we find that the coverage of the war has always been problematic, been represented from the point of view of the government or military structures with whom journalists are always connected and to whom journalists always feel some sort of loyalty. So, of course, the truth is the first casualty in any war reporting. I think that those who form the opinions, they must do all they can to encourage a sense of skepticism with readers and viewers, to lead them to realize that just because something is in the newspapers or on TV does not mean it is true. The Army has an advantage over the press because it is an institution that lasts. Journalists come and go, mostly go. The Army has a system of transferring lessons they learned about every war. Journalists start from the beginning every time. We have a right to expect from journalists to seek the truth; from individuals, journalists and the journalism in general. It is our right to expect it. However, all systems are made up of human beings ...
"Journalism Ethics Online Journalism Ethics Gatekeeping." Journalism Ethics for the Global Citizen. Web. 05 Dec. 2010. .
No one probably thinks about the number of journalists and photographers that are placed all over the world by mainstream news to cover stories and return that information to the readers. With many of these professionals working for newspapers, one can only wonder how anyone will know about what is happening around the world when they no longer have a job to do. These foreign correspondents keep people safe by reporting on the news happening globally and without them; people may find themselves in the dark about safety and injustice (Alterman,
The nature of war journalism has also changed; the Iraq war has introduced the concept of the embedded reporter' to the world. Journalists have unprecedented access, and with the aid of new technologies (such as the video phone, satellite and broadband) news reporters can air slices of the action from the front line within seconds of events unfolding.