Media on the War in Iraq - Essay Example

Media on the War in Iraq Our world since its origination has been a ‘hotbed’ of activity. An omnipresent media covers all these activities including the important at the same time destructive human activity of war. Normally in a war, there will be two sides each having their own reasons, issues, goals, strategies etc. 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. 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). 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 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 (acronym for The Cable News Network) was founded by Ted Turner. CNN rose to fame in 1991 with the coverage of the First Iraq war. That is, when Iraq was bombed by America, CNN was the only news channel, which communicated from Iraq during the initial hours of the American bombing campaign. 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 for these causalities, they can be accused of covering the war in a predominant way. Now, the same accusation was being leveled against CNN with the Iraq invasion and overthrowing of Saddam Hussein. 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 “Embedded” journalists. But there are criticisms to this concept. That is, the embedded journalist, who are 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 one. Among the many channels, which used this concept, CNN’s track record was not very good aiding only to its predominant image. It is accused of only satisfying the government, so it could get all the in-house information about the war and thereby get high Television ratings. There was also 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. 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 the 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 the 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, 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, many innocent civilians were killed and have 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 terrorists or resistance fighters. Another common but critical view is, many viewers are yet to see CNN’s footage of 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). These images would definitely damage the image of the US government and fuel further calls in America, to stop the war. So, 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 also been raised about the insufficient 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. CNN is one of the main tools used by the US Government to do this filtering act. This is a kind of irony because human sufferings, human rights violations, etc should be exposed by the media only. 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, the dominant perception is 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 was started in 1996 as Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel. It diversified into various categories with an English news channel joining the ‘stable’ only last year. The channel gained worldwide attention, when the Osama bin Laden’s videos with his threat statements, “victory” speeches, etc was often telecasted by it, following the September 11 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. 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. Al-Jazeera’s chief, Mohamed Jasem Al Ali, met personally with Saddam Hussein and discussed many things. The criticism with this approach of Al-Jazeera is, it only focuses on the Iraqi side favoring them in every aspect, at the same time portraying the US troops as a ‘bunch of 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 they only showed how the people would suffer if the Americans take the full control of Iraq, which they eventually did. 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 of precautions, the civilians some times became the unintended targets. 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 of the incoming dead bodies and injured people. Then, they sent it to the headquarters in Doha for worldwide telecast of those disturbing and gruesome visuals. This form of reporting is criticized as horrific reporting because the cameraman and reporters doesn’t mind about the condition of the injured. They continued to shoot, without caring even a bit for the injured. Even when the American administration gave the reasons for the accidental bombings, Al-Jazeera is accused of giving least prominence to it, when compared to the screen time the injured and dead bodies got. 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.” While telecasting all the news and news programs, a scroll line under the screen keeps a running tally of civilian Iraqi casualties. This was 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 are horrible images and tactics but Al Jazeera had done that, and is continuing to do it under one pretext or other. 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. When the demand is rejected, they will kill the hostage, sadistically shooting the videos of it. These gruesome videos are mainly telecasted by the Al- Jazeera channel. The criticism is, by repeatedly showing the visuals of murders, Al-Jazeera is actually warning the foreigners that Iraq is a dangerous place to live. If they come, they will be at great risk of being killed. This motive of the resistance fighters of Iraq is aided by Al-Jazeera, through its practice of telecasting these gruesome videos. The dubious functioning of the Al Jazeera network is further proved by the release of certain documents by CIA, through the Iraqi National Congress. The documents showed that Al Jazeera had been infiltrated by Iraqi spies, and was regarded by Iraqi officials as part of their propaganda effort. 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, has banned Al-Jazeera from broadcasting from 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. It was 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 or readers or audiences. In the propaganda model, a theory postulates five general "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. So, this section of the paper will analyze the two channels, CNN and Al-Jazeera through these 5 filters. 1. Ownership The corporate ownership of the media, especially the news media can 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 lead to any kind of actions and results. The same can be said about the CNN and Al-Jazeera. CNN’s Ted Turner could have ordered CNN and its editors to toe the Government line in the Iraq war, mainly to gain and use the influence of the government to run his various businesses. “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. They have 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. Funding will normally happen through financial support from influential persons, 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 the 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 most times have a symbiotic relationship with other media, specifically television channels for economic reasons and importantly as a form of reciprocity of interests like news sharing, video feed sharing, etc. That is, even 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 Baghdad bombing was sold to many forms of media. Likewise in today’s time, Al-Jazeera is doing exactly like CNN by giving lot of video footage from Iraq including the war and 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. 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. 5 Anti-Ideologies; substitutes for anti-communism The fifth and final news filter that Herman and Chomsky identified was anti-communism. In recent times, anti communism is viewed anti-ideology by many. This concept had its peak during the times of Cold War. But, now with the death of communism, new ideologies have become anti-ideologies. This is visible in the form of TV channels like CNN and Al-Jazeera. That is, the CNN have always had conservative views and avoided the taboo subjects. The same extends to Al-Jazeera, which coming from an orthodox Muslim community has limited exposure. The widely held view is, Arabs are only given limited information by their rulers, and the media conveys that information in a biased manner, favoring towards the governments side 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. It is always the wish of every organization to build a positive brand image. But, if the organization’s performance borders on dominance, it will be surely criticized and in course of time there are more chances it will collapse. So, for CNN and Al-Jazeera, this collapse can be averted, if it follows certain regulations. Even though criticisms are part of any organization, how the organization takes that criticism and reacts to it will be watched. If the organization reacts in a positive way, it will pave the way for the organization to succeed. Likewise CNN and Al-Jazeera can succeed in their endeavors and reach the top echelons in their field, and thereby dominate the field in positive direction only if they take criticism in a positive way and try to remove theirs predominant image. If both these channels shed their predominant image and deviate from their predominant ways, it would lead to the extension of their market base and audience base. Reference Asiamedia. Com. (2006).World will benefit from independent Arab voice. South China Morning Post Sunday. Retrieved February 5, 2008 from Bacevich, A. (2005). The New American Militarism: How Americans are seduced by War. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Brown, R. (2003). Clausewitz in the Age of CNN: Rethinking the Military-Media Relationship, Retrieved February 5, 2008 from http://www.apsanet.org/~polcomm/APSA%20Papers/Brown.pdf Carney, S. P. (2006). Reporting from Qatar: This is Al-Jazeera. USAWC strategy report. Retrieved February 6, 2008 from http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/ksil298.pdf. Kellner, D. (2004). 9/11, Spectacles of Terror, and Media Manipulation. Critical Discourse Studies, 1(1): 41-64. Kull, K., Ramsay, C., Lewis, E. (2004). Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War. Political Science Quarterly, 118(4). Qusti, R. (2003). Study in Contrast: CNN Vs. Al-Jazeera. ArabNews. March 26, 2003. Retrieved February 5, 2008 from http://foi.missouri.edu/jourwarcoverage/studyincontrasts.html. Shaw, M. (2003). Risk- Transfer Militarism, Small Massacres and the Historic Legitimacy of War, Retrieved February 5, 2008 from http://presentdanger.irc-online.org/pdf/papers/0406militarism.pdf. IOL.com. Al-Jazeera criticism. Retrieved February 5, 2008 from http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=3&set_id=1&art_id=qw11708638212 Nerchivan, B. (2006). Iraq Leader: Al-Jazeera, WorldNetDaily. Retrieved February 5, 2008 from Read More