Mood swings
Shocking and gung-ho
"Shocking" and "gung-ho" were the words Greg Dyke, director-general of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), chose to describe the main American television networks' coverage of the recent war in Iraq. I have begun with Dyke's words because a friend at the American Embassy in Cairo sent me a message saying he was upset by comments I made in an interview with Egypt's Nile TV about how Arab and American television viewers were watching two different wars.
In the interview, I argued that the way networks such as Fox, CNN and MSNBC covered the war was no less biased than that of the state-owned Iraqi television run by Mohamed Said Al-Sahhaf, the infamous and extremely popular former Iraqi information minister. The majority of the networks forwent the basic rules of objective journalism and became propaganda machines, mobilising the nation behind warmongers at the Pentagon and the White House. Any dissenting voices were silenced and those who initially opposed the war were forced, under nearly McCarthy-style pressure, to pledge their support for the troops and the "commander in chief" once the fighting began.
Living in Washington DC, I have learnt a few of the taboos that can cost a career in American politics -- never make controversial comments about African Americans, Jews or homosexuals, and never oppose a war if American lives are at risk. That would be unpatriotic and tantamount to treason, potentially wrecking the political careers of those seeking posts in the nearly 24-hour, non-stop election-obsessed American power capital.
Dyke is a white, British gentleman, unlike the single- minded, conspiracy-oriented and emotional Arab that I am. So, he must be more credible. Dyke recently commented: "Personally, I was shocked while in the United States by how unquestioning the broadcast news media was during this war." He added that many American networks "wrapped themselves in the American flag and swapped impartiality for patriotism".
Embedded reporters, whose lives depended on the soldiers with whom they travelled and whose reports were restricted, were treated as heroes by TV anchors, asking them to "take care" as the troops approached "enemy" positions. The majority of Americans, for reasons that I only recently discovered, tend to believe US media. While watching the war on television, they saw US tanks firing shells and highly sophisticated precision bombs falling on their targets. But they never saw the damage those heavy explosives caused to the victims on the ground. When Arab satellite channels aired pictures of civilian losses in Iraq's hospitals, the American networks took hours to mention the deaths. Without quoting any officials, well-trained television anchors stated that such losses could have been caused by Iraqi missiles falling on innocent civilians. Regardless of who caused the damage, the ugly side of the war was not revealed to Americans.
The most shocking and humiliating comment I was able to report during the war, however, was that made by Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld while seeking to downplay the looting and chaos that marred Baghdad and other major Iraqi cities after the downfall of the former regime. Rumsfeld said "freedom was untidy" and that "free people were free to commit crimes". He ignored the fact that looters were committing crimes under the noses of US soldiers and that these acts were committed against all of humanity. They cannot be seen as an expression of freedom. The innocent Iraqi civilians who were killed in this unjustified war, the priceless artifacts stolen from the Iraqi museum and the 1,000-year-old Arabic manuscripts burned cannot be the price for freedom.
To assure my friend at the American embassy that I was not the only one who was disappointed and horrified by the way the US television networks covered the war, here is testimony by someone who belongs to the "free" world. Veteran NBC News correspondent Ashleigh, who hosts the cable TV news show MSNBC Investigates: Banfield recently said in a lecture that Americans were never shown the sobering realities of the recent war. "We did not see what happened after mortars landed, only the puff of smoke. There were horrors that were completely left out of this war. So was this journalism? Or was this coverage?" Worse, Banfield said that the way the networks covered the war, as if it were a "courageous and terrific endeavour", might make Americans believe that war is an easy adventure, thereby making them willing to do it again.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 22 - 28 May 2003 (Issue No. 639)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/639/li4.htm