"You cannot wage a war without rumors, without media, without propaganda. Any military planner who plans a war, and doesn't put media, propaganda on top of his agenda, is a bad military," says Al Jazeera senior producer, Samir Khader.
In wars, image assumes iconic status. The coverage of the bombing of Baghdad during the first Persian Gulf War put CNN on the media map. Today, the spread of digital technology means that an image can be distributed worldwide within seconds. But are we better informed?
You've got to see it to believe it' but should Americans really trust their eyes?
The complexity of war coverage in the news and press media - does America really get the full picture from American foreign reporting on the war with Iraq?
Images can end wars. At least that's the contention of Vietnam War veteran Larry Stimeling who says on his website "The United States ended the war in Vietnam, not because of defeat on the battlefield, but because of photographs that turned America's stomach". His message highlights the power of the picture, and indivertibly harks back to American coverage of the Vietnam War. So where in the press are the My Lai images from the war in Iraq?
Despite ongoing violence in Iraq, the American media does not fully report the civilian casualties or the deaths of US soldiers. Statistics are printed like test scores in press reports, but with no photo there is no meaning. Yet as the conflict continues the mood of the nation is changing, is America waking up to the reality of war? How has the American news and press media been giving a different representation on the war with Iraq? And what are the implications for news reporting and war journalism in the media?
War media has certainly changed in the past 40 years. Gone are the days when CNN was the only news channel able to dedicate 24 hour of news coverage to a live war. Thanks to deregulation and improvements in communication - satellite and cable channels the war against Iraq has received saturated coverage across all major networks. Despite this magnitude of information, America may not be any better informed.
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.
1. Although most journalists would state that their main objective in reporting on a story is to maintain impartial, this with the onset of cable news stations as well as the internet has become increasingly rare. Cable news stations such as CNN and FOX news are increasingly influenced by the politicians and corporations which control most of their funding. As Michael Moore states in his documentary “ Fahrenheit 9/11”, which ironically is another good example of bias in the media, the man in charge of Fox News’ decision desk on election night was none other then George Bush’s first cousin. I would seem impartially may be compromised in this situation. To say that the media worked together with the media to promote the Iraq war may be an exaggeration, however the media in know way held the government responsible for the fraud that they committed in invading Iraq. The media, whether knowingly or not, promoted the Bush Administrations agenda in Iraq by arousing overwhelming feelings of nationalism in the American people. It then became unpopular, or un-american to oppose the war. In the case of the Iraq war the media failed to properly fulfill its responsibility of maintaining accountability in government as well as most importantly reporting in an impartial style.
Piers Robinson: The CNN Effect: The Myth of News, Foreign Policy, and Intervention, (London: Routledge, 2002), pp.7-24.
In Beyond the Front Lines, Seib used journalist’s chronicles capturing their experiences during the 2003 Iraq War to examine issues and changes they encountered while reporting on the war. For example, throughout the book Seib described how technology (i.e. the Internet, satellite equipment, etc.) changed the way journalists reported information and how viewers received information. F...
The media takes a biased approach on the news that they cover, giving their audience an incomplete view of what had actually happened in a story. Most people believe that they are not “being propagandized or being in some way manipulated” into thinking a certain way or hearing certain “truths” told by their favorite media outlets (Greenwald 827). In reality, everyone is susceptible to suggestion as emphasized in the article “Limiting Democracy: The American Media’s World View, and Ours.” The
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”(Albert Einstein) The motto of the media is “if it bleeds it leads”, the only things to make the front page are things that tarnish the image of people. In time of war the media will never print stories of great achievements of soldiers but the casualties or the “politically incorrect”. In war there is no such thing as politically incorrect and there is a thin red line between whats moral and unmoral, especially in Vietnam.
The war in Iraq is accompanied by a tremendous amount of propaganda from both sides. Propaganda comes in the form of quotes, articles, advertisements, documentaries, and even movies (Levinson). Before America engaged in the war with Iraq, many new documentaries were aired during primetime to show the sufferings of Iraqi citizens under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. It sent a message t...
It’s very important to know how news stations can influence their viewers. Postman and Powers give a great example in their “Television News: The Language of Pictures” article. They said, “Consider a film clip showing an aircraft carrier at sea. One might be able to identify the ship as Soviet or American, but there would be no way of telling where in the world the carrier was, where it was headed, or when the pictures were taken. It is only through languageــــwords spoken over the pictures or reproduced in themــــthat the image of the aircraft carrier takes on specific meaning” (Postman and Powers, 2010, p. 218). In the previous example, we can see that whatever the news station mentions about that aircraft carrier, viewers may believe it. It is just because the picture didn’t provide e...
A study by the University of Maryland indicated a third of Fox News’ audience believed Iraq participated in the 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center despite military and diplomatic proof they did not. This belief, accompanied by several other misunderstandings about the Iraq war, developed through negligent representation of world events by the news (Marcovitz). Sometimes, the news doesn’t do what it is intended to do—accurately publicize information. Media has a tendency to focus less on the truth and more on a good story for high ratings. Obsessive coverage of certain pieces can lead to the neglect of other important issues, specifically, world tragedies—natural disasters and civic crises. Regarding our response to human adversity, the advent of social media has come with new advantages and new problems. Media’s coverage of worldly disasters is important to inform people and encourage help, but the wide variety of media available now must be used responsibly.
Instead of telling readers what to think through words, readers can form their own point of view from a photo. A photograph that showed different interpretations was taken during WWII after the destruction of Iwo Jima in Japan of Americans soldiers raising an American flag in the ruins. Some viewers may perceive this act as patriotic, and others may have thought it was an act of terrorism and revenge. Either opinion could be argued and the photograph is the evidence. Since photographs can be unbiased, they can also hold truthful detail. For example, one photograph from the Vietnam war depicted a Vietnamese police officer shooting a Viet Cong in the streets. There are a lot of emotion in that photograph that words cannot describe all; which included the fear and hostility that was upheld during the time. Newspapers need to print more of these kinds of photographs to educate people the ugliness of war and death. Ephron pointed out, “throughout the Vietnam War, editors were reluctant to print atrocity pictures. . . That 's what that war was about.” War and its deaths are a part of history too, and history needs to be kept true and unbiased. As long as the photos are not altered nor used for propaganda, they can be
The year is 2006,watching TV, you flip through the various news stations to learn about the recent news in Iraq, the majority of the news simply says that ‘x’ amount of soldiers or marines were killed in such and such attack. You don’t like what you are hearing so you go online to read an independent embedded (embedded refers to news reporters who are attached to military units) reporters story. Online you read that two new schools were built, and the Iraqis, supported by US forces, led an attack to capture an insurgent leader. The big media corporations such as FOX, NBC, CNN, and many others distort the facts that are on the ground. The small, mostly independent, reporters generally try to get a first-hand account of the situation on the ground. They are their alongside the soldiers, sailors, and marines. In some cases these reporters may need to drop their camera or pen and defend themselves. These examples bring many questions that I want to know. The biggest of these questions is how do these different types of reporting, the “main stream media”, and the small independent embedded reporters affect the views that the American people have back home? The reason I chose this topic is that after reading The Good Soldiers and Moment of Truth in Iraq, I was intrigued in the considerable difference between what was wrote in books and what CNN reported on the nightly news. I did not find a ‘good’ answer I could find to answer my question, however I did draw three conclusions. The conclusions are as follows: the ‘big media’ misconstrues the information from the battlefield to fit their own agendas; the media fails to obtain a personal more in depth view and instead report after the smoke has cleared instead of what happened during t...
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
9, 10) ?War, Propaganda and the Media? (2003). Online at: <http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Propaganda/Iraq.asp#SomeExamplesofPropaganda>, consulted on March 30th, 2004.
In extreme situations, journalists choose the angle they can find, tick the boxes to the news worthiness, but never having a stand. According to Kempf, journalists fulfill certain criteria of newsworthiness and fake empirical evidence, which implements propaganda and in the journalists’ defense “that it did not matter the pictures were faked since they only showed what people already ‘knew’ and since they served the goal of opening the eyes of the public” (Kempf 2002, p. 60). Various examples from the War on Terror, where journalists and reporters would fake evidence just to gain more audiences but examples like this could elevate the issues, and it is as if this responsibility of Journalism of Attachment only adds fuel to the fire and this is done in the name of peace (Kempf 2002).
...ir and balanced” news? No. Certain members of the public need to be reminded that, in today’s media, a “No-Spin Zone” does not exist, on any channel. To be an informed citizen requires research, the ability to understand the message behind a pundit’s words and, most importantly, knowing all sides of the issue. And so, on behalf of network news: turn off your brain, listen, no need to interpret–we are here to do that for you. Then you are informed; albeit “Fox News-informed” or “MSNBC-informed.”
The impact of the internet on journalism is one area that continues to attract the attention of media scholars. The technology has brought forth a set of opportunities and challenges for conventional media (Garrison, 1996). The last ten years have seen a lot of inventions which have greatly altered the way people access and consume news. Audiences have also “developed more sophisticated and specific demands and tastes for news delivery, thanks in part to the explosion of social media and mobile technology.” (Kolodzy 2013)