The media and military
By
Salama A Salama
Baghdad's subjection to violent attack by heavy artillery and missiles is being accompanied by an equally vicious media war. The media is not reporting developments on the ground but has become a weapon in the conflict.
Military correspondents have been divided into groups and dispersed among troops in the field. News images have become missiles, provoking counter-attacks, while political leaders and military commanders falsify facts to delude their domestic audiences.
It was not surprising that the demonstrators who blocked the streets of New York have accused the American media of duping its audience and concealing acts about the war. The accusations were voiced after news of losses and the tenacious Iraqi resistance seeped through the media cordon imposed by the Pentagon on some 600 American and British journalists embedded with the fighting troops. These journalists face severe restrictions when filing reports from the battlefield: the restrictions are intended to ensure that coverage conforms with what military leaders want to make public or conceal. In return, the journalists are protected against bombs and chemical weapons and their movement across the vast deserts close to the front line is facilitated.
Journalists and media people from countries -- primarily France and Germany -- opposed to the war receive no such access or protection. Unlike the embedded journalists, they have been forced to find their own means to access the battlefields on the front lines at Umm Al-Qasr, Basra, Mosel and other positions. Their freedom of movement has enabled them to broadcast details the American leadership was determined to conceal.
American and international public opinions has been surprised by reports filed by these so-called "media wild cats" which have consistently contradicted the rosy picture painted by the US media.
Arab broadcast stations such as Al-Jazeera and Abu Dhabi Television, as well the European stations Euronews and TV5, have been vital in presenting a more realistic picture of this barbaric war. They have also furnished information on allied casualties, the humanitarian tragedy suffered by Iraqi civilians, and the amount of damage inflicted on Iraq's infrastructure.
It is to be expected that opinions on the ethics of the media coverage of the war will vary. One thing, though, is clear: this unjust war is taking place in a perilous desert of illegitimacy. No US administration in the past has militarised the media with the intention of deceiving the American public quite in the same way as the current occupants of the White House.
Ironically, the satellites used by correspondents and television networks to broadcast their alliance- censored coverage of the war are the very same satellites used to broadcast and disseminate the reports of correspondents whose work is not subject to military surveillance.
There is a bottom line: the levels of truth in the material broadcast by individual networks and individual reporters depends on the positions they hold vis-a-vis the war. It is no longer the case that the more democratic the country, then the greater the leeway in printing the truth. If anything, this war has amply displayed that the more technologically advanced the country, then the bolder it is in militarising the media to distort, amputate and misuse information to serve its interests. this is occurring regardless of whether democracy or dictatorship holds sway.
The only guarantee that the media will uncover the truth is for it to be completely free of military control.
