Minutes after the dawn spread daylight across the Iraqi desert,
"embedded" CNN correspondent Walter Rodgers was on the air with a live
report. Another employee at the network, former U.S. Gen. Wesley
Clark -- on the job in a TV studio back home -- asked his colleague a
question. When Rodgers responded, he addressed Clark as "general" and
"sir." The only thing missing was a salute.
That deferential tone pretty much sums up the overall relationship
between American journalists and the U.S. military on major TV networks.
Correspondents in the field have bonded with troops to the point that
their language and enunciated outlooks are often indistinguishable.
Meanwhile, no matter what tensions exist, reporters remain
basically comfortable with Pentagon sources. And what passes for debate
is rarely anything more than the second-guessing of military decisions.
It's OK to question how -- but not why -- the war is being fought.
Sure, some journalists have raised uncomfortable questions for top
war makers in Washington. At this point, within the bounds of mass
media, the loudest voices of pseudo-dissent have demanded to know
whether the U.S. government miscalculated by failing to deploy enough
troops from the outset.
When the media debate centers on whether the United States has
attacked Iraq with adequate troop strength and sufficient lethal
violence, the fulcrum of supposed media balance is far into the realm of
fervent militarism.
Exceptional reports on American television, conspicuous for their
rarity, have asked deeper questions. On the ABC program "Nightline,"
correspondent John Donvan shed light on what "embeds" have routinely
missed. Rather than traveling under the Pentagon's wing, Donvan and
other intrepid "unilaterals" venture out on their own. In his case, the
results included an illuminating dispatch from the Iraqi town of Safwan.
"Just because the Iraqis don't like Saddam, doesn't mean they like
us for trying to take him out," Donvan explained. "To the contrary.
Although people started out talking to us in a friendly way, after a
while it became a little tense. These people were mad at America, very
mad. And they wanted us to know why. It was because, they said, people
in town had been shot at by the United States."
Declining to travel in tandem with U.S. troops, Donvan was able and
willing to report on views not apt to be expressed by Iraqis looking
down the barrels of the invaders' guns: "Why are you taking over Iraq?
That's how the people in this crowd saw it -- takeover, not liberation."
In contrast to the multitudes of "embedded" American reporters, the
"unilateral" Donvan was oriented toward realities deeper than fleeting
images. Instead of zooming along on the media fast track, he could
linger: "In short, if embeds are always moving with the troops,
unilaterals get to see what happens after they've passed through."
The visible anger of Iraqi people has roots in events that usually
get described in antiseptic and euphemistic terms by U.S. media outlets.
"What else did we see by going in as unilaterals? The close-up view of
collateral damage. The U.S. says it's trying to limit injuries to
civilians. It is, however, hard not to take it personally when that
collateral damage is you." Donvan reported on a wounded Iraqi man,
evidently a bus driver, who had lost his wife over the weekend: "She was
collateral damage. So were his two brothers. So were his two children."
Journalism that may seem notably daring in the U.S. media would not
raise an eyebrow elsewhere. For instance, the contrast is stark between
National Public Radio and BBC Radio, or the PBS "NewsHour With Jim
Lehrer" and BBC Television. In comparison, most public broadcasting in
the United States seems to be cravenly licking the boots of Uncle Sam.
With a straight face, and with scant willingness to raise
fundamental questions, American networks uncritically relay a nonstop
barrage of statements from U.S. officials that portray deadly Iraqi
actions as heinous and deadly American actions as positive. They have
"death squads," and we have noble troops. Their bullets and bombs are
odious; ours are remedies for tyranny.
"It looks and feels like terrorism," a Pentagon official said on
national television after several American soldiers died at the hands of
an Iraqi suicide bomber. But if attacks on U.S. troops inside Iraq are
"terrorism," what should we call the continuously massive bombing of
Baghdad? Surely, to people in that city, the current assault looks and
feels like terrorism.
_____________________________
Norman Solomon is co-author of the new book "Target Iraq: What the News
Media Didn't Tell You." For an excerpt and other information, go to:
www.contextbooks.com/new.html#target
