Reporting the Persian Gulf War
ROBERT WERMAN
Reporting the Persian Gulf War
I would like to talk about the other reporting, the
reporting of the professionals, on TV, on radio, in newspapers
and in news magazines.
There appears to be strong feeling in the US in support of
these reporters. A great deal has to do - I think - with the
fear of tyranny, of cover-up. A free press provides an
important - perhaps the most important - check on these crimes.
As such a free press is a necessity and must be forgiven all
mistakes.
I would suggest - as a spectator - that this freedom and
the extreme degree of latitude given the reporter in the name
of Freedom of the Press obligates him to a degree of
seriousness and dedication to principle. I have failed to see
these qualities in those who report the Persian Gulf War. I
see more of the entertainer than the investigator. The
reporters have not returned the great credit extended them;
they have failed to be as serious and concerned as their
mandate requires of them.
The word mandate brings to mind the problem of election.
We neither elect or select our reporters; they are selected for
us by unnamed others. I am not sure that purely commercial
considerations are not the only criterion in this selection. I
am sure that so serious a function requires a more rounded set
of criteria.
From the very beginning the war reporting has failed the
viewer. It is easy to blame censorship for impeding reporters'
progress, but censorship does not explain the lack of
seriousness - I do not mean in describing technical aspects of
the war - and the lack of morality that has characterized most
of what we have seen.
The reporting of the war is often very abstract, as if
describing a spectacle in which people do not take part. The
role of technology increases from war to war, and in this war
we are treated to the technology of advanced camera techniques
applied to advanced weapon systems. It is easy to spend hours
watching smart bombs spotting the target, locking in and
finally striking and blowing up the building, bridge or tank.
But we learn little about the people under fire, about the
soldiers and civilians bombed, wounded, killed, miraculously
saved.
Never do the correspondents relate to reasons for the
war. This makes the war an abstraction instead of a purposeful
effort on the part of some countries to control what they see
as unprovoked aggression on the part of another country. This
plucking their reports from the conceptual anchor in which the
war takes place adds to the sense of spectacle.
Is it because they do not know the reasons for the war
that the reporters do not relate to them? If it is true that
they are ignorant of the conceptual basis for the war, this is
indeed a sad comment on the nature of their endeavor. Have
they become technicians of the visual, nothing more than the
special effects men of the movies - admirable but not central?
Is it because they do not accept the validity of the
reasons put forward for engaging in war? Is this the reason
for their not putting their reports in the context of the
reasons? But why do they not share their views with us? Is it
a reflection of their disdain of the audience? Are we not
intelligent enough to understand? Or will it be more effective
to instruct us in an indirect way, suggesting, showing
examples, rather than explaining. In other words, is this
reporting or propaganda?
Is it because they want to be "fair" to both sides that
the correspondents do not give the reasons for the war? But
both sides are convinced that they are in the right, and being
fair to both sides is certainly not being fair; it is favoring
the side with the most unpopular position. And why is that
side deserving of special attention? By very virtue of its
unpopularity?
Or is it that the reporters and their producers do not
feel it their concern to deal with reasons - reasons for them
simply not fitting into the category of news. What then is
news? Is news material only for perceptual but not for
conceptual consumption? Is news geared only at the senses
and the heart, liver and kidneys? Not for the brain at all?
If the head is left out, we are left with entertainment
alone. Certainly entertainers have an important place in
society. But we do not usually look for entertainers to give
us reliable pictures of the world. [Are these war
correspondents all embryo Woodie Allens (not a favorite of
mine, by the way)?] Entertainers favor the grotesque, the
exceptional, the amusing. Is this what we are being served in
reports of the war? And only this?
If reasons for the war are not to be discussed, if the
events we see and hear about are not related to the reasons for
the war, we have a strange situation indeed. If we are not
shown the relation of events to the underlying reasons of the
war, there is a strange, lifeless quality to the most
horrifying happenings, to the wounded, to the dead, to the
homeless, to the starving and the sick.
If we are not allowed to see the relationship of events
to the underlying reasons for the war, the implications of
events become fuzzy and undefined. What does all this
technology mean, all this destruction and death? Can it have
any meaning other than in context with the underlying reasons
for the war.
Are we to understand the reluctance of the reporters to
relate events to the reasons for the war as a philosophical
statement, such as "War is hell?" That the reasons can never
be sufficient to justify or explain any war? That there is no
such thing as a guilty party in a war? This is a possibility;
but I doubt it.
By avoiding relating the events of the war to the
underlying reasons, reporters and newscasts have failed us.
They have renounced their right to be taken seriously.
The tone for reporting the war was already set on the
first night, when correspondents spoke only of the lights
bursting in the sky in the bombardment - as if describing a
Fourth of July fireworks display. They added an air of
authority by adding a name, calling a bomb not just a bomb
but a smart bomb, just as the sports announcer tells us that
what we have seen is a triple half-Nelson. And that is the
tone that persists. Just as sports announcers are much better
when reporting canned film than reporting live film, the war
correspondents do much better with canned film. Just as sport
announcers never admit making a mistake, so too the war
reporter never makes a mistake. They both assume that the
mistake will be forgotten or that what they say is just not
that important.
Is it in the framework of entertainment or sport that we
must forgive Peter Arnett for allowing the Iraqis to use world
TV as a platform for undisguised, often crude anti-US, anti-
coalition propaganda?
Their disdain for the audience is something that can
never be forgiven the war reporters. Even boorishness is more
acceptable. For many, this war is much more than entertainment.
There are those who are directly involved or whose relatives
or friends are directly involved in the war; this is no light
matter for them. There are those whose country is directly
involved; this is no light matter for them. There are those
in the audience who want to know what is going on so they may
make an informed evaluation; are they too to be treated to
disdain? Or should they change channels? Where to?
Without presenting the context in which they occur,
events are nothing more than pornography, meant to stimulate,
titillate, excite. Such events lack reality. I suppose that
pornography has a place in some countries, at some times. But
war, to our sorrow, is much more than titillation; war is
dangerous to man, animal and property. Very dangerous.
******************************
A few words about the appearances of experts on various
phases of the war in the media and about those who interview
them.
I have, after hour on hour of watching the experts, never
heard one confess that he had been wrong. Almost all of them
[I have never seen one consistently correct in his analysis;
some have not been tested by time or by me.] have, in my
experience, been wrong a number of times and even consistently
wrong. They are not abashed by their performance, by their
failures. As if their past record means nothing, they continue
to radiate confidence and the air of their expertise.
The producers who continue to invite them are also
undisturbed by the failures of the experts. The interviewers
never remind them of their failures.
I too would like to be an expert. But I do not think I
have the hutzpa [collosal nerve].
One expert who was consistent in refusing to speculate in
the area of his expertise - apparently out of concern for
revealing information of military value - was fired by the
network for which he worked.
Responsibility is not one of the desired qualities of an
expert.
The interviewers of the experts are another matter. Many
do not seem to listen to the answers given; they have an agenda,
expect certain answers and proceed as if the answer anticipated
has indeed been given. Sometimes they feel the necessity to
restate what the expert tells them, at which point they get it
all wrong. At other times, they seem to get hung up on a word,
or on a technical term, to the exclusion of the intended
meaning, and beat the word or term to an ignominious death.
If it makes others happy, Israeli interviewers do
exactly the same thing.
******************************
I have been told that I exaggerated in stating that the
CNN map of the Middle East did not show the name of Israel. I
looked once again, and confess that I was wrong. The name
Israel can indeed be found on the CNN map - not over the
country's shape, as is true for all her neighbors with their
large areas - but in the Mediterranean Sea.
Israel: this is the country, too small to put a legible
name on it, that they want to cut up into two countries.
The only other small country in the Middle East is
Lebanon. This unfortunate state has been a battlefield for more
than 15 years, when the Christian Arabs were seen to no longer
be a majority. Long before Israel's unfortunate invasion of
Lebanon in 1982 - to put an end to ceaseless attacks from that
country on the northern settlements of Israel - internal strife
claimed - and since Israel's withdrawal continues to claim -
the lives of hundreds of citizens each year. This country is
torn apart by irresolvable strife between different Arab groups,
with the main divisions being between Muslim and Christian Arabs.
Israel is the country that they want to cut up into two,
one part Jewish, one Muslim. Israel is the country that they
want to fashion into the same anarchy that is Lebanon's.
__Bob Werman
rwerman@hujivms
Jerusalem
copyright 1991 USA. All rights reserved.
victor yodaiken
>Monday, 18 February
>
>Reporting the Persian Gulf War
>
Mr. Werman's remarks about truth and reporting are deleted. In a previous
post, Mr. Werman, in passing, suggested that Noam Chomsky was among those
denying the reality of the shoah. This is a very serious accusation. If it
were true, we would be justified in ignoring Prof. Chomsky's political
writings as the works of a madman. On the other hand, it is a very serious
matter to falsely accuse anyone of holding such a view, and it is especially
serious to accuse an ashkenazi jew who undoubtedly lost relatives to the
Nazis. Mr. Werman, I again call on you to either document your accusation,
or apologize. How can we take your missives about truth and reporting
seriously, if you are willing to make, but not substantiate, such
statements?
Mark Steinberger
The current posting has much merit. I especially enjoyed the points
about Lebanon, which, unfortunately, appear at the end of the post, and
may not get noticed by everyone.
But I would like to note the following with regard to the war
reporting:
Why should we expect the quality of the news coverage of the war to be
any better than the quality of peacetime coverage, where the serious
issues regarding taxation, budgetary expenditures, education, science,
proposed new laws, etc. get such cursory coverage that the viewer is
left with impressions which are misleading at best.
Maybe the war is just bringing home the reality of what television
news is really all about: entertainment and a platform for the biases
of the news organization.
--Mark