March 27, 2003 Episode 38: The Made-For-TV War
The War on Iraq will make history and set precedent for a number of reasons. Among them will be the way in which the media coverage of war will change, and indeed, how media itself will change. We took issue this week with two problems in the coverage of the war: adequate coverage of anti-war protests and the implications of embedded journalism.
First, we spoke with Kathy Feltey about peace activism and, among many things, how the media is distorting the messages of peace echoing from so many places around the globe. Kathy Feltey is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Akron. Her research areas are homelessness and violence in the lives of women and girls, citizen participation in local communities, and spirituality and social change. She is co-founder of the Campus Community Against War at the University of Akron. She is also active in People for Peace of Greater Akron (a community coalition formed after 9-11).
Then we discuss at length the implications of embedded journalism for war coverage, cultural hegemony and patriotism. By embedding the media in ground divisions, concentrating on the regular GI Joe, two things are accomplished (either intentionally or not). First, arguments against protesting the war that include an accusation of a lack of support for the troops are reinforced by heart-wrenching pictures of the men and women fighting in Iraq. Second, by putting the focus on the rank and file, the focus is taken off the politicians and military leaders who are pushing this war forward. Embedded journalism unmarks important power relationships.
Read a newspaper, turn on the radio or the television, pull up news websites and Internet bulletin boards. It is everywhere. War. Rumours of war. Threats of war. Consequences of war. Protests of war. Counter-protests in favour of war. We are saturated with information about war.
We have noted that in spite of this saturated coverage, little information is offered about the Anglo-US/Iraqi war other than bombings, casualties and profiles of GI Joe. Oh, and there have been some protests around the world and crowds are large! -- What the crowds are saying, how they critique the war and what they want isn't important to the corporate media - just the ever disputed count of their numbers is newsworthy, it appears.
US General William Westmoreland spoke of the news coverage on the Vietnam war:
Quote, Vietnam was the first war ever fought without any censorship. Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind, close quote.
Vietnam was the first televised war. The first Gulf War generals took Westmoreland's words to heart and made sure that the press had little coverage - allowing only well-controlled press conferences. The US government took some criticism for this closed-mouth policy. The US press took even more criticism for allowing this to control their coverage. During this Gulf War a compromise has been reached, and now the US military and its press corps are fully in bed with each other - we now have a thing called the quote, embedded journalist, close quote. Each military ground commander has decided how many journalists he or she can accommodate and protect as they proceed in their campaign. These embedded journalists travel with the troops and are given limited access to the action, emphasizing the fighting soldier.
On the surface this seems like a compromise between battle conditions and freedom of the press, but whether intended or not, this kind of coverage has the effect of unmarking the military and political hierarchy that controls the battle. Protesters in the US are being criticized by the government and pro-war activists for showing a lack of support for American troops. This kind of embedded coverage of the war works well with that anti-protest rhetoric. We see the war from the eyes of those troops and we sympathize, forgetting who put these troops in harm's way and why they are there in the first place.
More extensive coverage of anti-war efforts has been left to the activists themselves. Only independent sources carry extensive discussions about activism in the United States. Canada and European presses have been more balanced in their coverage, but they still often concentrate on quantity rather than quality. This discussion of who and how many leaves the messages of the protesters on the back-burner. The global anti-war protests have a much more complex relationship to war, the specific conflict and the related issues surrounding this war.
We spoke with US sociologist and peace activist Kathy Feltey this week about her work protesting the war on Iraq. She is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Akron. Her research areas are homelessness and violence in the lives of women and girls, citizen participation in local communities, and spirituality and social change. She is co-founder of the Campus Community Against War at the University of Akron. She is also active in People for Peace of Greater Akron (a community coalition formed after 9-11). Kathy spoke with us, reflecting upon why she feels her anti-war stance is important and on the social interaction aspects of working for peace in a country at war.These issues are important. Consider the words of Hermann Goering, Commander-in-Chief of the Luftwaffe, President of the Reichstag, Prime Minister of Prussia and, as Hitler's designated successor, the number two man in the Third Reich:
Quote, Naturally, the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country, close quote.
Join us this hour as we examine the protest movement a little more closely and air our grievances with the press that refuses to cover them in an episode called "The Made-For-TV-War."
copyright by Pattie Thomas and Carl Wilkerson 2003
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