The Truth Behind War Coverage

Within Joyce Nelson’s essay, “TV News: A Structure of Reassurance”, Nelson criticizes the TV news structure that perpetually disconnects current events from their historical background through comforting anchorpeople partnered with advanced technology to create a TV program that minimizes the important implications of current events. Though lacking the amount of information that a print news publication can maintain, the TV news can convey immediate information through technological advances of modern TV equipment to allow the medium to remain competitive. The façade of in-the-moment international information broadcasted directly to viewers enables anchorpeople to maintain the feeling of immediateness, keeping the viewers believing the program

As I am reading The Things They Carried by author Tim O’Brien my heart becomes very heavy. The physical and emotional heaviness for the people who dedicate their lives for their country weighed on me. The war has always been a difficult understanding for me, in the sense of why do we need to prepare for war. I began to question if things could be handled differently in our society today. Pictures of what they go through on a daily bases filled my mind; killing people, watching soldiers get killed, missing their families back home, wondering if this will be their last moment, then returning to a world they do not realize anymore. How do you honestly heal from all of the moments? Tim O’Brien gave me and other readers the opportunity to know what the war is really like from the prospective of different fighters.

Approximately 57% of Americans get their daily news by watching some kind of nightly news on their televisions, while the internet is not far behind at at 38% (Mitchell 2016). Being a nation of conglomerate monopolies the United States has three major news stations that control a majority of the viewership, CNN, MSNBC, and Fox Television. “The big three”, as they’re know, compete every day for the highest ratings by desperately pulling and keeping in as many viewers as possible, while providing vastly different agenda backed content. Public Broadcasting Service, PBS, draws in a much smaller crowd and with it has a significantly lower budget for stories. While companies like CNN and FOX are able to spend tens of millions of dollars on 24/7

Carlson, Timothy and Katovsky, Bill, _Embedded: The media at war in Iraq_, The Lyons Press, Guilford, 2003.

Operation Iraqi Freedom saw a new rise in media censorship for embedded journalists, before departing their country of origin and being embedded with a military unit journalists were required to undergo joint training and sign contracts vowing not to report information that could compromise unit position, future missions, classified weapons, and information they might find during their time in the field. When asked about the purpose of the embedded journalists and these new restrictions Lt. Col. Rick Long of the U.S. Marine Corps replied "Our job is to win the war. Part of that is information warfare. So we are going to attempt to dominate the information environment.” Journalism from the front was no longer being used as a method of information broadcasting for concerned families and civilians at home, but to ensure proper reception of the war and shape public opinion not only in the United States, but the world as a whole.

Human beings are influenced by what they see, hear, or read on the news. Today we have several sources to receive news: newspapers, internet, and radio. However, with this information people come to question what is truly the truth. The Cable News Network (CNN) displays footage of current events happening all around the world. This well-known 24-hour news broadcasting system began to change its traditional pattern of news began to encapsulate the way media directs the foreign policy formulation. For the individuals behind the scenes, including policy makers and academics, the 1990’s was a time of media empowerment and growth. Piers Robinson thesis in the “CNN effect revisited” is the ways in which the media influences foreign policy formulation, socially and politically. In his argumentative essay, Robinson discusses the development of foreign policy since the “war on terror” and the “humanitarian war.” Additionally, Robinson discusses the ways media intervened with political decisions and how the media’s voice created military action. The media that has the privilege to voice opinions, can result in less freedom for the press

The views of this slowly began to change throughout different American conflicts. For instance, during the gulf war, Operation Desert Storm became the most widely and most swiftly reported war in history due to the “CNN effect”, which refers to the widely available round-the-clock broadcasts of the Cable News Network. (Belknap) General Powell instructed National Defense University students, “Once you’ve got all the forces moving and everything’s being taken care of by the commanders, and turn your attention to television, because you can win the battle but lose the war if you don’t handle the story right” (Belknap). Both the media and the military began to share a dedication to American freedoms, and neither wanted a news story to be the cause of a single American soldier’s death. This marked a turning point in military-media relations and a turning point for Americans’ view of that relationship. Despite this progress, another lawsuit challenged press restrictions during the Persian Gulf War in 1991. In the case titled Nation Magazine v. Dept. of Defense, several news organizations confronted a

When an individual would like to be informed of the vast social, political and economical events of the world they naturally turn to television news outlets or their favorite internet news source. We humans as seekers of knowledge and truth, would like to think the objective of news media first and foremost is a matter of keeping individuals properly informed. This may very well not be the case. Popular television news, as most of the population can agree, has become a polarizing, dramatic and opinionated trainwreck. With that truth achknowledged, aside the large number of events on the planet, major news networks should highly consider discontinuing their programs as a consequence of their toxis level of bias and their seemingly infinite perspective imperatives. News used to be an apparatus intended to inform people about current events, however its present status is begging to be proven wrong.

Embedded journalism became rather discredited during Iraq. “The phrase came to evoke an image of the supposedly independent correspondent truckling to military mentors who spoon-feed him or her absurdly optimistic information about the course of the war.” (The Independent, 2010) After news anchors, embedded journalists had become largest identifiable form of reportage during this time with embeds constituting for 17 per cent of the coverage. (Allan & Zelizer, 2004, p. 287-288) This coverage

How was local television news changed by September 11 – the moment American foreign policy and the specter of terrorism became a local story?

This historic event was marked by the fall of the Berlin Wall and with that came the end of a structured way of decision-making for US policy makers (Potter, et al., 2010). This lack of structure was the result of the US no longer having the policy of containment to rely upon for policy direction as they had for the previous 50 years. CNN became more relevant through their ability to deliver coverage globally as they became “a center of gravity” for US foreign policy which caused US foreign policy to become very crisis oriented (Livingston, 2005). This new direction in foreign policy was in large part the result of coverage of the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990’s. During the Persian Gulf War CNN delivered the first live, 24/7 war news coverage and did so exclusively from Baghdad (Gunther, 2001). This live coverage affected not only the general population but the eye of political leaders as well. This was the case because CNN’s coverage allowed for a constant feed of updates on what was occurring on the ground so that people of all levels could stay informed. As stated by former US Congressman Markey, “CNN has provided instantaneous coverage that is watched by everyone from Saddam himself to analysts in the Pentagon (U.S Communications Policy, 1991).” This result not only was evident in the early 1990’s but carried over as this was seen in the 9/11 attacks. While the

The US Government, via several departments and agencies, uses the media to influence its enemies. This influence takes various forms and is used to accomplish different objectives depending on which part of the government is being used. In addition, there is a direct relationship between which part of the government is doing the influencing, who the “enemy” may be, and what kinds of media tactics are used.

     During the attack of the “black, billowing cloud,” a man holding a television with a blank screen talks about the lack of media coverage on the event. “No film footage, no live report. Does this kind of thing happen so often that nobody cares anymore? Don’t those people know what we’ve been through…? Is it possible

In times of War, the media plays a crucial role both in reporting, monitoring and giving updates. During the Vietnam War of 1955-1975, the American press played crucial roles of reporting until it ended up shifting its tone under the influence of occurrence of some events like the Tet Offensive, the My Lai Massacre, the bombing of Cambodia and leaking of Pentagon papers resulting into lack of trust in the press (Knightly 1975). From the beginning of the war up to present times there have been undying debates over the role of media in the war. The have been various criticisms over the American News Media’s actions and influences on the outcome of the war. The debate is embedded on the particular political assumptions perceived across the

In the last decade of the 20th century, Al-Jazeera is constructing a new imperative of competition in the news industry (Radsch, 2007: 1). Ever since Al-Jazeera assists system changes in situation where political movement are dynamic and political transformation process begun to unfold, there is increment of audiences who turn to Al Jazeera as their first news choice (Jamal, 2009 & Radsch, 2007). In 2008, Boyd-Barrett and Xie claimed that Al-Jazeera has an estimation of 50 million audiences worldwide from its various channels such as the original international service, a news channel broadcasting 24-hours in Arab language; Al-Jazeera Sports 1 and 2; a children’s channel; a documentary channel, and Al-Jazeera Mobasher, a live political and public interest channel similar to C-SPAN or BBC that broadcasts conferences in real-time without editing or commentary. Moreover, Al-Jazeera has soon open up a vast array of medium for news such as online press, social media, and citizen journalism on Internet which emerged as an alternative to mainstream press (Radsch, 2007; Hafez, 2008: 333; Nötzold, 2009: 4). Not to forget its first privately own satellite TV. Thus, this has eventually intensified the competition among news producers whereby the journalists aim to tailor a better coverage especially on satellite stations to attract audiences who have short attention span (Radsch, 2007: 7). For instance, the Egyptian government launched Nile News after seeing the appearance of