Reporting Wars

1. Reporting Wars Between Watchdog and Mouthpiece

2. War and the Media From the government’s standpoint: The rally around the flag effect (or syndrome). • It is a concept about increased short-run popular support of the President during periods of international crisis or war. Because of this effect, the administration can reduce criticism of governmental policies. From the media’s view: Historically, newspaper sales increase and television ratings go up in wartime. • Thus, being a war correspondent is often considered the most dangerous form of journalism. On the other hand, war coverage is also one of the most successful branches of journalism.

3. Why can’t the media tell truth about wars? • War v. Peace • Patriotism v. Objectivity • Monopoly of information • In December 1917, David Lloyd George, Britain's prime minister during much of the first world war, told CP Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian. "If people really knew the truth, the war would be stopped tomorrow. But of course they don't know, and can't know." • The history of war deception.

4. Spanish-American War and Yellow Journalism • Joseph J. Pulitzer (1847 – 1911) was a publisher of the St. Louis Post Dispatch and the New York World. Pulitzer who introduced the techniques of yellow journalism, a type of journalism that presents sensationalism and poorly researched news. • William Randolph Hearst Sr. (1863 – 1951) was a publisher who built the nation's largest newspaper chain, Hearst Communications. • It is said Pulitzer and Hearst are the cause of the United States' entry into the Spanish–American War (1898) due to sensationalist stories or exaggerations of the terrible conditions in Cuba.

5. Examples of stories: • Hearst became a war hawk after a rebellion broke out in Cuba in 1895. • Spain’s brutally repressive measures to halt the rebellion were graphically portrayed. • When the American battleship USS Maine which had been sent to protect U.S. citizens and property after anti-Spanish rioting in Havana, sank, the media quickly concluded she was attacked by Spain. It is still unexplained.

6. Between Watchdog and Mouthpiece • Vietnam-era war correspondence was markedly focused on investigative journalism and discussion of the ethics surrounding the war and America's role in it. • Reporters from dozens of media outlets were dispatched to Vietnam, with the number of correspondents surpassing 400 at the peak of the war. 68 would be killed. • The role of war correspondents in the Gulf War would prove to be quite different from their role in Vietnam. The Pentagon blamed the media for the loss of the Vietnam war. So the military took control of the message and image of the war. • Numerous restrictions were placed on the activities of correspondents covering the war in the Gulf. Journalists allowed to accompany the troops were organized into "pools", where small groups were escorted into combat zones by US troops and allowed to share their findings later.

7. The Mỹ Lai Massacre • The Mỹ Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of unarmed Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops in South Vietnam on 16 March 1968. Between 347 and 504 unarmed people were massacred by the U.S. Army soldiers. • Victims included men, women, children, and infants. Some of the women were gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. Twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, but only Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in C Company, was convicted. • Found guilty of killing 22 villagers, he was originally given a life sentence, but served only three and a half years under house arrest.

8. How the massacre unfolded: • Initial reports claimed "128 Viet Cong and 22 civilians" had been killed in the village during a "fierce fire fight". General Westmoreland, the Military Assistance Command in Vietnam (MACV) commander, congratulated the unit on the "outstanding job". • Six months later, Tom Glen, a 21-year-old soldier of the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, wrote a letter to General Creighton Abrams, the new MACV commander, asking for an investigation. • Independent investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, after extensive interviews with Calley and others, broke the story on 12 November 1969, on the Associated Press wire service. The Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio) published explicit photographs of dead villagers. • Hersh received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize. In 2004, he notably reported on the US military's mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison.

9. Gulf war and controlled message • When the Gulf War began in 1991, journalists were tightly corralled under the supervision of public affairs officers, an arrangement that authorities had practiced on a smaller scale in Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989). • As a result, Americans experienced much of the war  via video feed from cameras attached to U.S. bombers and long-distance footage of the psychedelic trails left by dueling Scud and Patriot missiles hurtling through night skies. Terms like smart bombs or surgical strikes were used in news. • Peter Arnett who worked for CNN became a household name worldwide when he became the only reporter with live coverage directly from Baghdad. Although 40 foreign journalists were present at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad at the time, only CNN possessed the means to connect to New York. • He reported civilian casualties and deaths by U.S. bombing. Some media, using anonymous sources, attacked Arnett that he was reporting Iraqi disinformation propaganda.

10. Invasion of Iraq and the media • In March 2003, a military campaign dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out by a combined forces from the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia and Poland. • Citing government sources, the U.S. media ran stories after stories describing Saddam Hussein's attempts to build weapons of mass destruction. For example, the New York Times 8 September 2002 article was titled "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts." • Was it true? Was there even some grounds for the report? Trump debate. • Did anybody question the authenticity of the report? Chilcot Report

11. Judith Miller case – 2005Background: Invasion of Iraq and the media • In March 2003, a military campaign dubbed Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out by a combined forces from the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia and Poland. • Citing government sources, the U.S. media ran stories after stories describing Saddam Hussein's attempts to build weapons of mass destruction. For example, the New York Times 8 September 2002 article was titled "U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts." • Was it true? Was there even some grounds for the report? Trump debate. • Did anybody question the authenticity of the report? Chilcot Report

12. Whistle blowers are prosecuted. • Facts of Plamegate and Judith Miller case • The legitimacy of Iraq War was in question. Especially, the reports of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in Iraq that Bush Administration spread was questioned. • A former official who served in one of the government investigation, Joseph Wilson disclosed publicly that the reports were exaggerated. • Libby leaked that his wife, Valerie Plame is a covert CIA agent. And it was Plame that recommended Wilson for a job in the investigation. Plame-gate broke out.

13. Wikileak • The Iraq War documents leak is the disclosure to WikiLeaks of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 and published on the Internet on 22 October 2010. • The files record 66,081 civilian deaths out of 109,000 recorded death. The leak resulted in the Iraq Body Count project adding 15,000 civilian deaths to their count, bringing their total to over 150,000, with roughly 80% of those civilians. It is the biggest leak in the military history of the United States, surpassing the Afghan War documents leak of 25 July 2010.

14. Truth will surface eventually • Journalism must not be hijacked to provide stereotypes and propaganda. Ethical reporting must portray events and people in an informed context, avoiding the vivid contrasts that governments prefer in their own black and white visions of the conflict. • The role of a journalist is to provide their audience with fact-based information, to show humanity and to strive to tell the truths that need to be heard, even if they offend their own political leaders in the process. • Overview of the Pentagon Paper case

15. Next, we go to the Middle East • Reporting Islam • CNN effect, Aljazeera and New Media • Israel-Palestine Conflict & Changing Public Opinion • Iran and Saudi Arabia, What Is Happening Inside?