How are the Chronicle and CNN Handling the Information War?
But Wolf Blitzer
knows what he is doing, and is doing it extremely well. A major problem for CNN
is how to avoid becoming part of the Pentagon's propaganda war. To date,
embedded war correspondents are proving to be better proponents of the military
effort than the Pentagon itself. That could change depending on how long the
war lasts, and how much opposition to the war begins to take hold.
Major ethical issues face the CNN producers, like whether to show images of captured Americans once they were aired on Al Jazeera and posted on the Internet. So far, they seem to be navigating through these issues fairly well, mainly by disclosing what they are, and are not, showing us and why. This transparency is vital for retaining audience trust.
One problem for
consumers is it is not healthy, physically or psychologically, to stay glued to
CNN all the time. As we know from the Gulf War, the more people watched TV
coverage of that conflict, the less they actually knew about it.
This war's
coverage is so different, it is premature to say whether a similar effect will
be apparent this time around. But everybody needs to take breaks from all of
this stressful news and these shocking images, even if they are informative.
not the only
story
Which brings me
to the plight of the worst news junkies of all -- we journalists. We are all in
danger of losing our perspective and being out of touch with our audiences if
we devote ourselves completely to war coverage.
It is a big
story, but it is not the only story. In the end, a more varied approach would
lower some of the hype that inevitably creeps into saturation coverage and
remind the public that the war is happening in a larger context that keeps
changing.
An ludicrous
example of the myopia of many journalists was on display at the White House
press conference on the first day of the “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign.
A number of
reporters expressed disbelief that President Bush had not been watching the
bombing on TV. They couldn’t imagine anyone, let alone the president, who could
have refrained from watching the fireworks show. It did not seem to occur to
them that he had more pressing things to do.
In essence, what
we are witnessing is a grand lab experiment on how humans wage war in the
information age. It is too early to predict what the outcome will be, but it’s
easy to conclude that we’ve reached a turning point in the convergence of
military and media strategies from which there can be no return.
David Weir teaches journalism
at Stanford University
