by Richard M. Berthold
Daily Lobo Columnist
In Tuesday’s Albuquerque Journal, there was in an AP story about fighting in Baghdad a tiny notice that was a horrifying reminder of what war is really about and that caused me to actually weep.
Following a brief discussion of the American policy of firing warning shots at approaching civilians and then shooting to kill was this: “An old man approached, disoriented and alone, faltering forward with his cane after three warning shots. Finally, U.S. weapons burst and he fell dead.”
I understand the fear of suicide bombers and enemy soldiers in civilian clothes, but was this really necessary?
Yes, American concern about civilian casualties is admirable, but such incidents as this should remind us that innocents actually do die in wars and not just as “collateral damage.”
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Iraq would appear to be following the Vietnam pattern: because you cannot trust some civilians, soon you will not trust any of them; then the distrust turns to hate and they are all gooks, to be killed without qualms. And Americans become even more desensitized to the violence they are so outraged by when it happens to them.
This is an aspect of this war and every war that we need constantly to be reminded of, but you will not find much unpleasantness such as this in the American media, especially television. One expects the local news to be unabashedly patriotic, but the degree to which the national media have stooped to little more than cheerleading is appalling. And even more appalling is the fact that it has less to do with government control or censorship than with ratings and the bottom line.
Polls are revealing that it all boils down to entertainment. Americans clearly do not want to see mangled bodies or any hint of what is at the other end of all those cool explosions. They much prefer images of our heroic troops and their impressive weaponry and if your news organization shows anything unpleasant, your ratings will drop.
Granted, news as harmless entertainment was developing long before the war, but this conflict has dramatically accelerated that process and produced coverage that is trivializing the death and destruction that is war.
To watch CNN, a network that once had great credibility, you might think the war was some sort of exercise or game, complete with cheerleading analysts, color men and neat animations. Yesterday’s front-page war photo in the Journal was of a marine cheering when his mortar blew up a building; of course, is it really that different from a touchdown?
Some of the limitation on war coverage certainly stems from a government and military that, like all governments and militaries, does not care for bad press. Is an “in-bedded with” newsman really going to say anything negative about the troops upon whom his life might depend? Will you be granted any further access if you start sending back pictures of headless corpses or old men being blown away?
The military seems to have found the perfect media arrangement: they get only supportive and exciting images and stories about our troops and cannot be accused of keeping the press in the dark, like the last time around. (And if a group like Al-Jazeera publishes uncomfortable material, why, just blow up their headquarters in Baghdad!)
But it is ultimately the American people who are fault. Being perceived as unpatriotic, that is, criticizing the war and especially our military in any way, will hurt your news organization.
Ask Peter Arnett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and expert in the Middle East, who presented what appear to be very valid criticisms of our war planning. NBC fired him, not because of what he said, but because they were flooded with demands from viewers that this traitor be terminated.
Better a user-friendly Wolf Blitzer (“Is my hair OK?) or Judy Woodruff (“Of course these people would not be free to demonstrate in Iraq”). Violence and entertainment have long been closely associated in our society, but never has a war been so overtly and uncritically presented as something amusing and uplifting for the American people. But then, never has an administration so seriously threatened our Constitution and freedoms and done so with the overwhelming approval of the people.
Meanwhile, that Iraqi old man is certainly now free of Saddam’s dictatorship.
