Media

Dead People

/ Iraq, Media, War

On Al Jazeera's images of dead bodies and the western press: Tim Cavanaugh in Reasononline (3/24/03).

Since the beginning of the new Iraq war on Wednesday, the Qatari news network Al Jazeera has been showing images of corpses. . . . The station really hit paydirt late Friday and throughout Saturday. Al Jazeera provided some of the most shocking war images ever broadcast on television: A field of bodies after the American strike on the Ansar al-Islam terrorist group in northern Iraq, a blood-soaked emergency room at the same location, and most horrendously of all, a luxuriously-paced tour of civilian casualties in Basra. Among those, one will linger in this viewer's mind forever . . . It was the corpse of a boy with the top of his head blown off. The kid's face, while stiff and covered with dust, retains its human features, but beginning at the forehead the skull simply deflates like an old balloon, ending in an unsupported scalp that (with apologies for the mixed similes) resembles the loose hide of skinned animal. . . .

Al Jazeera photo of dead Iraqi child

The elements of Jazeera's total and terrible victory over its competitors are pretty basic: It treats news as an immediate and vital resource. Jazeera's reporters take great personal risks for exciting footage and stories. The station has rapidly attained core professionalism -- full coverage of press conferences, comments from all sides, and so on. It is welcome in areas where the western networks are not, and it is absolutely not squeamish about presenting any claim or image. . . .

To the extent that the Jazeera version of events presents a plausible case that America could lose the war, every extra day that the war takes to complete will make even victory look more and more like defeat. (In fact, given that current resistance appears to be coming as much from small bands of guerillas as from Iraq's regular army, and considering the near certainty that jihadists are now eagerly making their way into Iraq, it's no longer clear that the peace will look substantially different from what we're seeing right now.) The more CNN's coverage starts to look like Jazeera's, and the messier the war starts to look, the more it will embolden both opponents of the war and those who actually oppose America. Whether it will also reveal how thin domestic support for the war is remains to be seen: Americans may become more determined to fight as more dead soldiers pile up (though significantly, they will no longer claim to be fighting for democracy).

What We Know about Iraq

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, Media, War

New York Times editorial: "Watching Iraq" (3/23/03):

What most of us know of Iraq we know from just the kind of television we are watching now. It's a nation seen over the correspondent's shoulder, or through the windshield of a fighting vehicle moving into a beige void. But in a way, America knows a great deal about Iraq. We actually know every inch of the country. United Nations inspectors have explored it in the ways that interest us most. Surveillance satellites are constantly watching overhead. We've been making fixed-wing surveillance flights since before the first gulf war. Perhaps in some declassified future, those photographs will serve the same purpose as the aerial photos the Luftwaffe took of England in the late summer of 1940. Now, they provide a clear snapshot of the country as it was, an archeological benchmark against which to measure all future change.

Media Failure in Buildup to War

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, Media, War

" In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for Official Views" (FAIR, 3/18/03):

Network newscasts, dominated by current and former U.S. officials, largely exclude Americans who are skeptical of or opposed to an invasion of Iraq, a new study by FAIR has found. of all

Among the major findings in a two-week study (1/30/03=2/12/03) of on-camera network news sources quoted on Iraq:

  • Seventy-six percent of all sources were current or former officials, leaving little room for independent and grassroots views. Similarly, 75 percent of U.S. sources (199/267) were current or former officials.
  • At a time when 61 percent of U.S. respondents were telling pollsters that more time was needed for diplomacy and inspections (2/6/03), only 6 percent of U.S. sources on the four networks were skeptics regarding the need for war.
  • Sources affiliated with anti-war activism were nearly non-existent. On the four networks combined, just three of 393 sources were identified as being affiliated with anti-war activism-- less than 1 percent. Just one of 267 U.S. sources was affiliated with anti-war activism-- less than half a percent.

Covering the War Crisis

/ GW Bush Admin, Iraq, Media, War

David Greenberg on American vs. overseas press coverage of the war crisis in the Washington Post, 3/16/03:

American journalists tend to be more squeamish than their European counterparts about setting the news agenda. If the leading political players don't get worked up about a would-be scandal, the press (usually) balks at arrogating that role to itself. European papers, on the other hand, allow themselves more freedom in deciding what's news, independent of official say-so.

Yet we should be cautious about ascribing differing American and foreign assessments of news stories to national traits or institutions. After all, not long ago the U.S. media would have treated these recent episodes as huge scandals -- the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers or My Lai or the 18-minute gap in Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a simmering American skepticism about the motives and morality of our leaders boiled over. . . . And then the mood of active distrust began to subside. It was as if Americans, having faced the darkest elements of their system, couldn't bear to see any more. . . . Ever since [9/11], the public, including the press, has ascribed to the president a degree of goodwill unprecedented in the post-1960s era.

Overseas, however, events since Sept. 11 have led people in the opposite direction. Suspicion of U.S. motives has escalated; willingness to cut the Bush administration some slack has plunged. Where Americans' trust in their leaders seems distressingly high, as if the Nixon years have been forgotten, foreigners' faith in us is troublingly low. In that divide lie the roots of our irreconcilable takes on the news, and our contrary fears for the future.

Conservative Newspapers on 2/15 Protests

/ Iraq, Media, War

(As noted on the afternoon of February 16)

Canada's National Post: "Millions say 'No' to war. Cities around the world overrun in biggest protest in history"

Barricade, antiwar demonstration, New York City, 2/15/03

Orlando Sentinel: "Millions Protest War" (mainly a summary of wire services)

Cleveland Plain Dealer: No coverage on home page. AP story, "Demonstrators around the World March against War with Iraq," runs below headlines about the weather and a Bloodmobile.

Arkansas Democrat Gazette: No coverage on home page

Las Vegas Review Journal: No coverage on home page, but you can read about a stock car race being delayed by twenty minutes due to weather.

Indianapolis Star: "Weather Fails to Dampen Spirits at Rally" linked from home page. The lede, "Hearty Hoosiers, about 450 of them, braved snow, sleet and horizontal hail Saturday to join in spirit with millions of people around the world protesting an impending war with Iraq," is the only mention of protests outside Indianapolis.

Oklahoma City Daily Oklahoman links to an AP story, "Iraq Hails Rallies; U.S. Works in Turkey." Lede: "Iraq on Sunday took heart from the global outpouring of opposition to the U.S. threat of attack, saying anti-war demonstrations in dozens of countries signaled an Iraqi victory and "the defeat and isolation of America." No other coverage.

Manchester Union Leader: An A.P. story, "Anti-war protesters gather near United Nations in NYC," is linked near top of home page. The story also summarizes protests elsewhere.

New York Post: "When Doves Cry: Dozens Busted in Anti-War Protests" linked at top of home page. Despite the headline, the article is actually a fairly balanced account of the New York protest. Beyond its mention that "It was one of many rallies around the world yesterday. More than a million people came out in Rome and London to protest the impending war in Iraq," no coverage of demonstrations elsewhere is offered.

Washington Times: Link to "Protests for Peace" near top of home page. The long article has a brief summary of demonstrations in the United States, but no mention of protests elsewhere apart from a single sentence noting that "Anti-war protests yesterday occurred in 300 cities worldwide, including 78 cities in Europe." Longer coverage of how protests were organized, and about the participation of "anti-war conservatives."

Orange County Register: Home page links to AP story, "Europe's Cities Send a Message," summarizing European protests (and featuring high-end participation figures for the most part). A "Related Stories" link from this article points to "O.C.'s biggest anti-war protest draws 2,000," which also covers other U.S. protests briefly -- and with much attention to counterprotests ("about 1,000 in Manhattan and a handful in Orange," as well as "some 200 war supporters" in Wausau, Wisconsin). Antiwar attendance estimates for New York appear later in the article, not at all for Wausau.