Quick! Turn on CNN, MSNBC, or FOX News. "Yeah," you might reply, "it's war. So what?"
So what? Show some respect. You're witnessing history.
Sure, wars have been fought before, on the very same soil as a matter of fact. That's not necessarily the historical part. The innovation in this war is that we get to watch it unfold essentially in real time.
The level of media access to American troops engaged in armed conflict in Iraq is historically unprecedented. Not since Vietnam have Americans seen this much media streaming from the battlefields of a foreign land. And never have we seen it so immediately.
Even in Vietnam, media access to troops in the field was largely an accidental occurrence. Journalists were not supposed to see the things that they saw. This was evidenced by the fact that the military would often offer information that could be proved to be patently false by reporters in the field. Hence, the fabled "credibility gap."
This catastrophic failure of the military to maintain control of the flow of information led to a severely restricted role for the press in military operations throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
During military operations in Grenada, Panama and the first Persian Gulf conflict, reporters were saddled with the onerous pool system, and largely confined to the rear of the fighting or places where military action had already concluded. These safe and relatively controlled positions are all but useless for any sort of independent verification. Perfect for the military, bad for the public.
The campaign in Afghanistan brought with it a different set of challenges. Reporters were restricted by practical considerations from traveling with U.S. Special Forces units because they did not have the same type of training.
That is to say, reporters can't go along with airborne troops because they're not certified to jump out of airplanes like soldiers are. Thus, with reporters effectively barred from the battlefield, the Pentagon sought to control information, dispensing it in choice bits at times of its choosing.
Now, it appears, we have a change of heart. Reporters are everywhere. There are reporters aboard the USS Roosevelt in the Persian Gulf. There are reporters embedded with the 101st airborne, the 3rd infantry, the 7th Cavalry, the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, even the British Royal Marines.
They are everywhere! And through the magic of videophone technology, Americans can watch American armor race across the Iraqi desert in real time. This war is literally being televised live, twenty-four hours a day.
It really is a victory for American journalism to be allowed such unfettered access to American troops in the field. But now a new problem arises. What is to be made of this newfound power? CNN has crafted nifty graphics and a color scheme for its war coverage. "War in Iraq" is plastered all over the screen at all times. CBS has its own template for the presentation of war news, the top corner of the screen adorned with an animated graphic of Iraq at the center of a radar scope.
The government has done its part by granting journalists full access to the battlefield. The responsibility now rests with journalists, as it should, to decide how much is too much. By neatly packaging and presenting war news as a news product of sorts, media outlets run the risk of turning it into a form of "infotainment," thereby destroying its gravity.
While it might be a novelty to be able to watch an Abrams tank sink a couple shells into a building halfway around the world on live television, there are actual breathing human beings on the receiving end of that shell who might not be breathing for much longer.
War is serious business, and it should not be about which network has the most comprehensive, expansive or continuous war coverage. It should be about giving the people as much information as they need to determine whether or not they believe that their government is behaving as it should in the conduct of a war.
Simply saturating the airwaves with all war, all the time will only serve to desensitize the public to a topic that no one should ever become desensitized to. On the other hand, failing to provide an adequate amount of information to the public is an unforgivable breach of trust.
The U.S. military has shown an uncharacteristic friendliness toward journalism thus far, giving journalists the keys to the proverbial palace. Will they make nice rather than risk their newfound freedom? Will access suddenly dry up if coverage turns sour?
The American people would be ill served either way. Here's hoping that they're up to the challenge.
Chris Kotterman is a journalism and political science senior. Reach him at chris.kotterman@asu.edu.
