Regardless of any biases, the national media outlets in the US do not generally misstate facts. If the facts are demonstrably incorrect, a correction usually follows. European papers tend to follow this example.
The Daily Mirror made a terrible mistake when it published what turned out to be faked photographs purporting to show abuse of Iraqi prisoners by British troops. Regardless of how anxious the Daily Mirror is to find evidence to discredit Prime Minister Tony Blair’s decision to join a Coalition in Iraq, the Mirror editors were probably too credulous in believing what they now claim was a “calculated and malicious hoax.” Perhaps the Mirror made its anti-government bias a little too conspicuous when it suggested that the government was deliberately calling into question the legitimacy of the photographs because it “likes to produce a scapegoat to distract attention when it is in a crisis.”
In the end the Mirror did the right thing: it apologized for publishing the photographs and dismissed Piers Morgan, the editor responsible. The really unique situation is that Morgan remained stubbornly unrepentant and disturbingly unconcerned about the veracity of the photographs. He dismissed the fact that the photographs were faked by noting that they nonetheless “accurately illustrated the reality about the appalling conduct of some British troops.” The journalistic ethos, at least in the United States, fortunately still has residual respect for facts.
Media biases are typically not evident in deliberately false statements. Rather, it creeps in indirectly and mostly unintentionally via a bias by agenda. Editors have a finite amount of space and resources to devote to coverage. They, therefore, have to make judgments about what stories are more important, more deserving, or just plain more interesting. It is in deciding between priorities in coverage that even editors and journalists who genuinely seek to be fair can unconsciously allow their own perspectives to color reporting.
This difference in agenda was clearer than usual in the coverage this week of the discovery of an unmarked Iraqi artillery shell containing deadly sarin nerve gas. On the day that the information was released, there was some coverage of the finding, but certainly not the saturation coverage granted the prisoner abuse scandal. The next day, Fox News had found military sources confirming that the tests for sarin gas in the field had been confirmed by further tests. The story was a headline all day at Fox News. CNN did not mention this on its home page and neither did the Washington Post. The NY Times had a small link at the bottom of its page to the story. Apparently the fact that New York was still in the running for the 2012 Olympics and that the actor Tony Randall died were all, in the collective judgments of the NY Times, CNN, and the Washington Post, significantly more important than the first confirmation of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after more than a year. The only way to guard against such differences in agenda is to maintain a truly diverse editorial staff, real intellectual and political diversity.
The bias of agenda based on different editorial perspectives is a well-documented and discussed phenomenon. However, what is less well understood is the bias in news consumption. We all have the natural proclivity to focus on stories that confirm our world view. Hence, those against the Iraq War follow in detail the prisoner abuse scandal, perhaps secretly hoping that the abuse was not isolated and that high officials in the Bush Administration are implicated. While responsible people will not make such an accusation without sufficient evidence, they will still eagerly consume stories like the ones in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh that suggest some culpability on the part of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in prisoner abuse.
Some follow such stories hoping to be politically vindicated. Yet, it would seem that the proper perspective for an American would be to hope that the abuse scandal is isolated, both to redeem American values and make life a little safer for innocent American soldiers. However embarrassing it might be to concede it publicly, Bush opponents are not above a little schadenfreude at the prisoner abuse scandal, regardless of the cost to American prestige and risk to American lives. Such people should ask themselves whether they will be disappointed or excited to find out that prisoner abuse is pervasive. I know of no way to demonstrate this, but am willing to assert than many who are carefully scouring the news for information that Rumsfeld is somehow connect to prisoner abuse are not devoting the same study to scandal in the United Nation’s Oil-for-Food program, or evidence of operational links between Al Qaeda, or the discovery of nuclear material in Jordan.
Similarly those who would prefer to see at least one of the reasons for the war more fully vindicated are more likely to follow with rapt attention stories lending credence to the WMD threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Though the prudent would caution against grasping too tightly at the latest discovery of sarin gas artillery shell, would it not really be a cause of celebration to learn with certainty Hussein disposed of his WMD stockpiles shortly before the war? Would it not be better to be assured that the WMD could not fall into the hands of terrorists terrorists with no scruples against use of such weapons against civilian populations? Some want to believe that their pre-war assessments of WMD, yet evidence supporting such a conclusion might prove to be more destabilizing. Do we really want a world where some WMD have been taken to unknown haunts? Some should ask themselves if they would be disappointed to find out that all WMD stockpiles were destroyed before the war so that the threat of war was sufficient to disarm Saddam (even if we didn’t know at the time). Of course, for those who accepted pre-war WMD assessments, there is sill a graceful way out: These WMD stockpiles could be found and disposed of now.
We are all subject to ugly, quiet feelings. We would rather nestle in the comfort of feeling right, even it that means others would be less well off. From a political perspective, the prospects of the party out of power vary inversely with the prospects of the country as a whole. In this case, the more destabilized Iraq becomes and the slower the economy grows, the better off Democrats are. It is an unfortunate position to be in, but there is no escaping the logic of the situation. There are times when people find themselves grasping their convictions firmly, while at the same time having to hope that they are wrong.
Editorial Discretion in Publishing Images
Sunday, May 30th, 2004This Memorial Day is a particularly special one for two reasons: we are at war in Iraq and the memorial for the World War II generation is being dedicated on the national mall. Those Americans who stood fast against Fascist forces in World War II have been dubbed the “Greatest Generation.” Now there will always be arguments about what constitutes the “greatest.” How does the WW II generation compare to the generation of our Revolutionary War period? How about the 600,000 who died during the American Civil War? It is the sort of question that historians love to argue about. However, it is clear that part of what made the WW II era so unique was the sense of unity and commonality of purpose. There were sincere disagreements, whether to devote more resources to the war in Europe or to the Pacific theater. However, such disagreements never devolved to disarray and self doubt. Coverage by the press played an important role in maintaining this unity.
During WW II reporters often accompanied troops. Reporters saw their role in winning the war as consistent with their roles as reporters. It is no accident that press coverage was more favorable in the Iraq War when the journalists were embedded with the troops and implicitly shared the same experiences. While embedded in both wars, journalists were censored about details of time and location. However, during WW II, there were conscious efforts on the part of reporters to publish images of the war that did not undermine morale at home. That is part of the reason that you saw images of a flag raising at Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima. It is not that there was a deliberate effort at distortion, to put only an heroic face on the war. Rather there was the realization that context and perspective were important and that graphic images of carnage might distort perspective. Appropriate selection of images and stories were seen as necessary for fidelity to the truth, not as an evasion of the facts.
Words are very powerful and can passionately describe events. However, images have a unique ability to capture an emotion or situation that can serve as a permanent and poignant metaphor for good or for ill. Moreover, during any war there are many images showing pain and joy, viciousness and valor, despondency and elation, anger and compassion. The images that are selected for broadcast and publication can serve to frame the political debate.
In World War II, for example, papers ran photographs of images like the one showing the marines at Iwo Jima . They did not (and perhaps they should have) shown Japanese-Americans looking out forlornly from behind barbed wire at internment camps. Both speak about an important truth of WW II. Raising the flag over Iwo Jima illustrates American courage, while the interment camps represent the worst in bigotry. The noblest images were allowed to frame WW II.
By contrast, the Vietnam War is now remembered in three negative images: the execution of a member of the Viet Cong by Nguyen Ngoc Loan of the South Vietnamese Army; the little girl running, after her clothes had been burned off by napalm; and Americans scurrying onto the last helicopter leaving the American Embassy at the end of American involvement.
Journalists and editors have a duty, of course, to report the facts and they are unrestrained in their efforts to do so. However, just because the press is unrestrained does not mean they do not have an obligation to show restraint. There are many facts and many photographs that can be assembled to tell a story. Many different stories can be told by combining the raw data of facts and images. And while the stories and images may all be accurate, without proper context and proportion they may not, in a fuller sense, be true.
It is the thesis here that the saturation airing of photographs showing prison abuse at Abu Ghraib prison are an attempt to drive public sentiment out of proportion to the entire context of events in Iraq. Breaking the story on the abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison probably did not require publishing the images. Almost certainly, a written or spoken story would have provided the facts without the emotional sensationalism of the photographs. If imagery was necessary to draw appropriate attention to the issue (remember the military had months before publicly announced the investigation of abuse charges), certainly only a couple of photographs needed to be shown. We did not need the parade of images day after day: images that may put American lives in danger and make negotiation with allies and adversaries more difficult. Is it not right for the news media to weigh these considerations in their coverage?
Were these images repeatedly broadcast and published under the pecuniary pressures of ratings and circulation? Were new images dribbled out daily as a part of considered journalistic judgment or used as means to make an anti-war or anti-military statement?
In due course, there will be many words documenting the Iraq War. However, much of what we remember will be determined by images permanently imprinted on our minds now. For the Iraq War, will the images remembered be those of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse, those of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down by joyous Iraqis, or those of bones being exhumed from Saddams mass graves that claimed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis? Much depends on what pictures a thrust before us day after day, the choices made by editors and journalist who are said to be writing the “first draft of history.”
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