How Do You Account for the Predominant Ways in Which Mainstream Media Covers War - Term Paper Example

The assignment was due How do you account for the predominant ways in which mainstream media covers war? Our world since its origination has been a ‘hotbed’ of activity. And an omnipresent media covers all these activities including the important at the same time destructive human activity of war. That is, normally in a war, there will be two sides each having their own reasons, issues, goals, strategies etc. And to present these things, the two sides will use the media or the media will side with any one of the two sides, with unbiased reporting having no say. So, after the siding takes place, the mainstream media in the form of television will dominate the airwaves as well as the mind waves of the audience, ‘injecting’ their view as our view. And these dominant ways influence every nation, even if they are not involved in the war, “a degree of transnationalization of the media. Coverage could come from a broader range of locations, more quickly and be beamed back across the world” (Brown 2003, 4). And the television only brought into focus the important ‘hotspot’ of Iraq. Without analyzing, who is wrong and who is right in the Iraq war and who is the victim and who is the threat, this paper will critically analyze, how the two important Television channels from different backgrounds, CNN and Al-Jazeera covered and importantly ‘showed’ us the Iraq war. So, the aim of the paper is to find out by using Chomsky’s model how predominant ways is not the perfect, ethical way to go about for CNN and Al-Jazeera. CNN way of covering the Iraq war CNN, the acronym for The Cable News Network, is the USA based channel, founded by Ted Turner. CNN rose to fame in 1991 with the coverage of the First Iraq war. That is, when the bombing of Iraq by USA is taking place over Baghdad, CNN was the only news channel, which communicated from Iraq during the initial hours of the American bombing campaign. Actually, its camera crew stationing in the al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad gave covert, live, greenish night-vision shots of the Baghdad sky line with tracers and explosion lighting the night sky, at the same time killing the people. Even though CNN cannot be accused or even asked about these causalities, they can be accused and asked whether they covered the war in a predominant way. The same question is also asked even now with the Iraq invasion and overthrowing of Saddam Hussein. And CNN with its team of reporters, cameraman and crew got well entrenched in Iraq and gave a 24 hour coverage of the war. They especially used the concept of Embedded journalists, the term given to a news reporter, who is attached to a military unit, which is involved in an armed conflict. CNN involved a number of journalists of this type. But the criticism with this concept is, because of the level of oversight, the embedded journalist traveling with the troops and being part of their duties and lifestyle would make reports that were too sympathetic to the American side of the war. So, the journalists functioned like American military’s spokespersons and were called by an alternate term "inbedded journalist". So, the new concept turned into a biased concept and among the many channels that used this concept, CNN’s track record was not very good aiding only to its predominant image. Because, it is accused of only satisfying the government, so it could get all the in house information about the war, which could give them high ratings. Also, there was higher number of military officers, former as well as the present, who worked as pseudo experts or analysts for CNN and made very biased comments. Orr (2004) “considers the contemporary militarization of U.S. civilian psychology”. And in the actual reporting, CNN was accused of pushing one side of the agenda ignoring the other side. That is, it doesn’t sit on the fence covering both sides and giving the visuals for the viewers to decide. Instead, CNN is continuing to disappoint its viewers all over the world with its biased reporting. The view among these people is that, all the Analyses, news coverage and correspondents’ reports seem to be fixated exclusively on the advancement of the American and British forces and the success of their mission. In other words, CNN is criticized for trying to tell the viewers exactly what the American administration wants them to hear: That, all the things are going great in the war front with the American troops being welcomed by the Iraqi citizens and the bombs are used only against the terrorists and not against any civilians. But, this image created by CNN and some other American television channels is far from truth because according to many estimates, lot of people that too innocent civilians suffered a lot and continue to suffer a lot. “ We will wreak havoc abroad. We will endanger our security at home. We will risk the forfeiture of all that we prize."(Bacevich 2005, 225). But, there is no screen space for these suffering Iraqi people, who are the innocent ones, getting stuck between the US troops and the resistance fighters. Another common but critical view is, many viewers are yet to see CNN show footage of the devastation, wreckage, and bloodshed caused by the bombardments of US warplanes on Iraqi cities. So, CNN was accused of never daring to show the whole world especially American public the images of Iraqi citizens killed or injured by US raids on their cities. “Because direct civilian killing on any scale could threaten the mediated legitimacy of the war, media management is a key element in risk-transfer militarism” (Shaw 2002, 7). As these images would definitely damage the image of the US government and fuel further calls in America, to stop the war, CNN is voluntarily or involuntarily is behind this attempt of the US government to make the people view what is favorable to them. Concerns have been raised of insufficiently critical coverage of the activities of U.S. forces in Iraq. In December 2006, the report of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) found that the United States has filtered out reports of violence in order to disguise its policy failings in Iraq. (Landsay 2006). And one of the main tools used by the US Government to do this filtering act is CNN. This is a kind of irony because normally, human sufferings, human rights violations etc should be exposed by the media only. Robinson (2000) had stated that “media influence is likely to occur in humanitarian intervention cases when policy is uncertain and media coverage is critically framed”. But this concept was clearly missed by CNN because without showing the human sufferings, it tried to create an image of ‘utopia’, where nothing went tragic, and the US troops were winning without any civilian deaths. So, in the final analysis one easily get the idea that the performance of CNN in their coverage of Iraq war is well short of the mark. Al-Jazeera way of covering the war Al Jazeera started in 1996 as Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel, diversified into various categories with an English news channel joining the stable only last year. The channel gained worldwide attention and became the channel to watch when the Osama bin laden videos with his threat statements, “victory” speeches etc was often telecasted by it, following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the Twin towers. Before its extension all over the world, the somewhat hard-edged shows of Al-Jazeera created controversies in autocratic Arab Gulf States. And it entered the Iraq war mainly to show the views of the Saddam Hussein’s regime. Even though Hussein’s regime was thought as brutal one, Al-Jazeera showed its perspectives. They did this because, they were actually in collusion with Saddam Hussein even the before ‘war on terror’ began. That is, Al-Jazeera’s chief, Mohamed Jasem Al Ali, met personally with Saddam Hussein last year and discussed many things (smh.co.m.au 2003). And the criticism with this approach of Al-Jazeera is, it only focusses on the Iraqi side favoring them in every aspect, at the same time portraying the US troops as a bunch of baby killers. That is, after the war had begun and the American troops marched into Iraq, they showed minimum images of the American troop’s progress instead concentrating only on how the people would suffer in case the American rule is total. Then, during the full-scale attack, to overthrow the much-criticized Saddam regime, civilian causalities occurred as a form of collateral damage. That is, the US troops attacked Saddam regime’s areas mainly based on inputs from its intelligence. But even after taking lot precautions, the civilians some times become the unintended targets. But, Al Jazeera concentrated only on these causalities without trying to find from the American side why the accident took place. That is, they stationed the cameras mainly in the important hospitals of Iraq and took photos and videos sending it to the headquarters in Doha for worldwide telecast of the visuals. This form of reporting is criticized as gruesome reporting because the cameraman and reporters doesn’t mind about the condition of the injured and they will continue to shoot without caring even a bit for the injured. And even when the American administration gives the reasons for the accidental bombings, Al-Jazeera is accused of giving it least prominence to it when compared to the screen time the injured and dead bodies gets. Also most of the times, statements from Iraqi officials are covered on Al-Jazeera as facts while comments from American officials are portrayed as “claims.” Also while telecasting all the news and news programs, a scroll line under the screen keeps a running tally of civilian Iraqi casualties. This is done with the ulterior motive to motivate the Arabs to see the dead toll and rise against the American forces. “In a global media world, extravagant terror spectacles have been orchestrated in part to gain worldwide attention, dramatize the issues of the groups involved, and achieve specific political objectives” (Kellner 2004, 87). Another widely reported criticism against Al Jazeera is the oft-repeated allegation that Al Jazeera had always shown gruesome videos of masked terrorists beheading western hostages in Iraq. These will be horrible viewing but Al Jazeera had done that, and is continuing to it under one pretext or other. That is, the hostages are chosen mainly from the countries, which support this war on terror. That is, resistant fighters will kidnap the citizens of these countries who are working in Iraq and demand the withdrawal of their respective country’s troops from Iraq and when the demand is rejected, they will kill the hostage and sadistically will take the videos of it. And, these gruesome videos are mainly telecasted by the Al- Jazeera channel only. And the criticism is, by repeatedly showing the visuals of murders of hostages, Al-Jazeera is actually warning the foreigners that Iraq is a dangerous place to live, and if they come, they will be at great risk of being killed. And this motive of the resistance fighters of Iraq is aided by Al-Jazeera through the continuation of the practice of telecasting these gruesome videos. And the dubious functioning of the Al Jazeera network is further proved by the release of documents by CIA, through the Iraqi National Congress, which showed that Al Jazeera had been infiltrated by Iraqi spies, and was regarded by Iraqi officials as part of their propaganda effort (wikipedia.com 2006). So, all the charges against Al-Jazeera have shown that it is also committing mistakes, which is detrimental to the lives of many people. Even the Iraqi government, the centre of all this discussion have banned Al-Jazeera for causing death and destruction all over the country of Iraq. The statement said, "The Al-Jazeera channel continues in its overtly hostile attitude towards the Iraqi people and continues to contribute to the spread of death and destruction by adopting a line that is frankly hostile to the Iraqi people and government," (IOL.com) Chomsky model Chomsky model is the other name given to the ‘propaganda model’, formulated by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. First presented in their 1988 book titled, Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media, the propaganda model views the private media only as a business that sells a product of entertainment, information, live events, news etc, etc to the customer of readers and audiences. And in the propaganda model, a theory postulates five general "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. And this section of the paper will analyze the two channels, CNN and Al-Jazeera through the 5 filters. 1. Ownership The corporate ownership of the media, especially the news media can and will shape the editorial content due to the personal interests involved in it. Also, the sheer size and influence of the ownership of the media corporations will yield any kind of actions and results. The same can be said about the CNN and Al-Jazeera. CNN was owned by the media mogul, Ted Turner and to gain and use the influence of the government to run his various businesses, Turner could have ordered CNN and its editors to toe the Government line in the Iraq war. “CNN tries to tell you exactly what the American administration wants you to hear” (Qusti 2003). Likewise Al-Jazeera was founded in 1996 with the backing of the ruler of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa. So, with this heavy backing of an Arab ruler, not so much deviation in the editorial content can be made and this television network has to support the Arab feelings and emotions by opposing the Iraq war. This attitude of the workers of the TV channels is visible in the initial stages itself, and “there is also evidence that in the run-up to, during, and for a period after the war, many in the press appeared to feel that it was not their role to challenge the administration” (Kull, Ramsay and Lewis 2003-04, 592) 2. Funding The second filter of the propaganda model is funding, which can happen through financial support from influential person, advertising, fee for the services offered by the channel etc, etc… Television has to attract all these funds to run it. But the person who provides financial support and the company, which gives advertisements, may influence the editorial content of the TV channels. That is, in the case of CNN the petrochemical companies, which gave lot of advertisements, have been influencing the channel in the Iraq war. Likewise, “Al-Jazeera was launched as an independent voice amid the heavily censored Middle Eastern media with a grant of US$150 million from the emir, a comparative liberal in his region” but has strong views in various conservative hard-edged issues importantly the Iraq war (Asiamedia.com). 3 Sourcing The third of Chomsky and Hermans 5 filters relates to the sourcing of mass media news. The mass media are most times have an a symbiotic relationship with other media specifically television channels for economic reasons and importantly as a form of reciprocity of interest like news sharing, video feed sharing etc. That is, with even a large media corporations cannot afford to place reporters everywhere, in that case filter will be a viable option. CNN did that during the Iraq war in 1991 when its exclusive footage of the Bagdad bombing was sold to many forms of media. Likewise in today’s time, Al-Jazeera did the CNN by the giving lot of video footage from Iraq including the war, hostage killing videos to variety of sources, enlarging the scope of sourcing. Actually “during Operation Desert Fox, it was Al-Jazeera who scooped the West by providing on the spot; 24-hour real time news reporting from Baghdad, Iraq to the rest of the world via footage sold to Western media outlets”. (Carney 2006 5-6) 4. Flak The fourth filter of flak is described by Chomsky and Herman as negative responses to a news, event, program etc telecasted by the channels. That is, some of the news, programs etc may have offended, insulted or even hurt someone or group of people and in that case, the reaction of the audience will be in the negative mode with the emotions running very high. The responses could come from many quarters in the form of E-mails (specifically hate E-mails), letters, phone calls, petitions, lawsuits, even legislation in the Congress etc. CNN also faced this same kind of flak for not giving a balanced reporting from the warfront in Iraq. While, Al-Jazeeera got the flak for telecasting the gruesome images of hostage killings in the form of videos. “The government believes that Arabic television channels encourage kidnapping by broadcasting video footage of foreign hostages” (Hussein and Barnet 2004) 5 Anti-Ideologies; substitutes for anti-communism. The fifth and final news filter that Herman and Chomsky identified was anti-communism. Anti communism in recent times have been denoted as anti ideology by few ones. And this concept had its peak during the times of cold war. But now with the death of communism, new ideologies have become anti-ideologists. And this is visible in the TV channels of CNN and Al-Jazeera. That is, the CNN have always had conservative views and the taboo subjects should be avoided. The same extends to Al-Jazeera, which coming from an orthodox Muslim community will have limited exposure. That is, “It is widely believed internationally that inhabitants of the Arab world are given limited information by their governments and media and the and that what is conveyed is biased towards the governments views” (wikipedia.com) Conclusion "CNN International and Al Jazeera are equally bad in their coverage of the situation in Iraq," (Barzani 2006). This sentence uttered by Barzani sums up the bad effects of the predominant image tried by CNN and Al Jazeera. That is, it is always the wish of every organization to build positive brand image, but if the organization’s performance borders on dominance, it will surely be criticized and in course of time will collapse. So, for CNN and Al-Jazeera, this collapse can be averted, if it follows certain regulations. So even though this much criticism is part of any life or any work or any organization. How one takes that criticism and reacts to it will be watched. And if the organization reacts in the positive way, it will pave the way for the organization to succeed. Likewise for both CNN and Al-Jazeera to succeed in their endeavors and reach the top echelons in their field and thereby dominate the field in positive direction, they have to take criticism in a positive way and try to remove theirs predominant image. 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