Nov.-Dec. 2001:
Drums of War, Voices for Peace
Pacifism in a Time of National Pain
Roots of Conflict
What’s Next for Global Justice?
Pentagon’s Blank Check
Our One-Dimensional Media
Countering Military Recruiting
The Constitution in Turmoil
A Nonmilitary Response
New Yorkers Against War

Homepages:
War Resisters League
The Nonviolent Activist

Our One-Dimensional Media

by David Croteau

nyone concerned with peace and justice knows that the media coverage in the month following the September 11 attacks (which is when I am writing) was inadequate. The disaster coverage of the attacks and their immediate aftermath quickly gave way to dramatic, heart-wrenching stories of heroes and victims. Historical context and serious review of U.S. foreign policy were rare. Debates about possible policy options were almost non-existent. The government and the media were preparing the U.S. people for war.

photo: David McReynolds

So why has the coverage of the attacks and the U.S. response been so terrible? There are at least five factors that must be taken into account:

Industry Economics. The media industry has been undergoing massive conglomeration in the last two decades. Every time one of those mergers occurs, funding and staff in news divisions are reduced as a cost-cutting measure. This has meant massive reductions in the number of U.S. journalists abroad and in the amount of international news included in U.S. media. When a major international incident occurred, therefore, the U.S. media did not have the newsgathering infrastructure nor the expertise to cover the event. Coverage that is more informative could be seen from public broadcasting efforts elsewhere. Britain’s BBC was carried by some PBS affiliates, and Canada’s CBC was carried by C-SPAN.

Sources. The media rely on a short list of sources to provide them with information that can be easily converted into “news.” For national media, the State Department, Pentagon, White House, and so forth are the usual beats that serve up a daily dose of news. It is efficient and cost-effective for the media to rely on these predictable sources of information. The result is that the news agenda is driven by these powerful sources, and the media reflect the views of those in power. Seeking out alternative or critical voices costs additional time, effort, and money, so it is not often done.

Experts. To put events and issues in context, broadcast media rely on “experts” who are often hired on contract basis by the networks. (Again, this is cost-effective since these experts are essentially temp workers for the networks.) Usually, these analysts developed their expertise by working for the very same institutions (the Pentagon, the CIA, etc.) about which they are now commenting. Rather than provide alternative viewpoints, these experts tend to operate with the same world view as the sources upon which journalists rely.

False Balance. In times of peace, journalists usually present “balance” in their reports by citing the usual Republican/Democrat differences, which sometimes is almost no difference at all. Thus the illusion of balance is maintained and the status quo is reinforced. In times of war, when the differences between Republicans and Democrats seems to disappear entirely, the “balance” becomes “us versus them,” that is, the U.S. position versus that of foreigners. This, of course, ignores or marginalizes domestic dissidents. Again, the status quo is reaffirmed.

Censorship. During the Vietnam war, the government faced a “credibility gap.” The press had relatively free access to troops and fighting in Vietnam, and what they saw and reported bore little resemblance to the misleading information being promoted by the military in their daily press briefings, which the press corps dubbed the “Five O’Clock Follies.” Determined never again to let truth get in the way of promoting a war effort, the Pentagon responded, first, by vastly increasing the size of their public relations efforts (hiring dozens of Vietnam correspondents to teach them how to more effectively manipulate the press) and, second, by developing new ways of controlling the flow of information. Modeled in part after Margaret Thatcher’s restrictions on the British Press during the Falklands War and tested during the U.S. invasions of Grenada and Panama, the system of press control developed by the Pentagon came into full fruition during the Persian Gulf War. This approach involved restricting access to potentially damaging information while flooding the press with positive images of the war effort. Restriction was achieved via “press pools” that were created to limit the number of journalists with access to troops and battlefields. Strict restrictions on when journalists could travel, where they could go, and who they could speak with meant that embarrassing or problematic information would not reach the American people. (We did not learn until well after the war was over, for example, that U.S. troops had buried thousands of Iraqi soldiers alive in their trenches.) In addition, press pool copy and video had to pass through military censors.

Meanwhile, the press was flooded with positive, sanitized images of the war effort via numerous press briefings and gun-camera images from “smart” weapons. The briefings, often carried live by the 24-hour news channels, allowed the government to speak directly to the American people without the potentially pesky filtering of the news media. The touting of “smart” weapons (which in fact were less then 10 percent of the munitions dropped during the Gulf War, and which were not nearly as accurate as they were portrayed) gave the illusion of a clean, precise war with minimal “collateral damage”—the antithesis of Vietnam coverage.

Similar techniques are in use with the “war on terrorism” with one notable addition: many of the military operations are being labeled covert and journalists are therefore being excluded entirely from the operations. As a result, it will be a long time—if ever—before we really know what went on in the U.S. “war on terrorism.” Instead, we are being flooded with media coverage that largely parrots the Pentagon’s line and leaves the nation with little understanding of the origins of the crisis or the possible long-term consequences of current U.S. policy.

David Croteau is a sociology professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. His latest book, written with William Hoynes, is The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest (2001).