Manipulation of Media Coverage During War on Iraq

Manipulation of Media Coverage During War on Iraq

The role of the media is critical in nearly every walk of life now because of its expanse especially in the last decade. The media has grown into such a powerful tool of communication and influence that it has now become an integral part of the wars that are being fought e.g. The War on Terror or the U.S. intervention in Iraq. The reason behind the media being such an integral part of the international wars is because the world is now a global village where to preserve the right image and intentions in fighting or winning a war it is important to win the opinions and the support of the global community. Even though most media outlets aim to present both sides of the story, many journalists agree that the pattern has always been the formation of an opinion that is inclined towards one side more so then the other.

The importance of media in winning the wars is perhaps best understood by the United States. The post-Cold War era, where they had to conduct war tactics in Somalia, Kosovo, Haiti and Afghanistan, were all conflicts that weren't just defended out on the battlefield but had to also be defended consistently up at the political front. The media was hence given enough leverage and power to become a part of the medium that allowed the political parties to stand up and defend their actions for the global community.

It cannot be denied that the media poses an unbiased and balanced approach towards reporting the incidence of wars and conflict nevertheless their reporting has a definite influence on the overall public opinion that is formed within the global community. Furthermore, there are many programs on the mediums of television and radio that are framed around the promotion of certain activities over others in the long run. For example there have been many programs based on the necessity, justification and extent of torture tactics that can or can't be used within the dynamics of war. Another example is the use of pictures depicting the joy that the people of Baghdad felt on April 9, 2003 when the war had in some ways ended. It could have also been easy to report that the actual battle wasn't really over and there was still a lot of bloodshed in the region but the picture that the media wanted to convey to the world was that the political loss of the battle was a relief to many natives who found celebration in the end of it.

Role of Media in the U.S. intervention in Iraq:

It is important to note here that the international media outlets cannot be efficiently or accurately broken down into different parts. Even though the media is a varied body of instruments, all of the instruments are interconnected and includes various frameworks that are political in nature, culturally diverse, commercial corporations that control the market as well as the advertisers that sponsor the media. This is perhaps one of the main reasons that the representation of facts as well as the influence of media on the public opinion regarding the war in Iraq has not been completely impartial.

It is also important to note here that the negative media coverage that the United States' government had to face during the Iraq intervention was anticipated by many because of the massive embedding of reporters and troops in the area. This allowed the media to bring a personal opinion into the situation because the embedded reporters were witnessing and going through what the natives of the region were going through. Hence, the fear and the insecurity of the situation was the denominator between the natives and the embedded reporters.

This level of freedom and access was granted to the media irrespective of the high probability of the negative projections that could be openly discussed. The overall disastrous situations and the distaste of many of the soldiers that were sent to Iraq was another negative report that the media highlighted on the global screens which aided in the formation of the negative public opinion. A great example of this was published in the Washington Post when Lieutenant General William Wallace was interviewed and asked to asses the situation he was in charge of. The Lieutenant said that in his opinion this entire exercise was being conducted against an enemy that was "different from the one we war-gamed against."

However, that wasn't what the Department of Defense's Office of General Counsel reported in May 1999 on the state and reasoning behind the similar attacks like the one made on Iraq:

Enemy military forces are declared hostile. They may be attacked at will, along with their equipment and stores. Civilians and civilian property that make a direct contribution to the war effort may also be attacked, along with objects whose damage or destruction would produce a military advantage because of their nature, location, purpose, or use.... Civilian media generally are not considered to be lawful military targets, but circumstances may make them so. In both Rwanda and Somalia, for example, civilian radio broadcasts urged the civilian population to commit acts of violence against members of other tribes, in the case of Rwanda, or against UN-authorized forces providing humanitarian assistance, in the case of Somalia. When it is determined that civilian media broadcasts are directly interfering with the accomplishment of a military force's mission, there is no law of war objection to using the minimum necessary force to shut them down. The extent to which force can be used for purely psychological operations purposes, such as shutting down a civilian radio station for the sole purpose of undermining the morale of the civilian population, is an issue that has yet to be addressed authoritatively by the international community."

The fact of the matter is the medium of all media activities is human and every individual has the right to have and express their opinion on situations around them. hence, the entire approach of the Department of Defense that was taken through the above statement was again severely criticized in the media and the global community. This was so because every statement made above was conflicted by the reports that most of the embedded reporters were presenting on the news on the line of attack and the war tactics that were being employed within Iraq and the number of innocents who were facing the consequences of these tactics. The increase in the importance and dependence on the mediums and channels of media allows the journalists to pose harsh criticisms on the approach employed in Iraq as well as present hard facts that may or may not damage the image of the U.S. government in the short or long run. This of course does stand true for only the embedded reporters but also stands effectively true for most of the media analysts and political assessors.

Ralph Peters is perhaps one of the advocates of the media and its power in the modern world and he after analyzing the condition prevalent in Iraq after the withdrawal of troops from Fallujah in April-May 2004 explains the overall that media authority that media has in the result of the military activities in the following words:

The [U.S.] Marines in Fallujah weren't beaten by the terrorists and insurgents, who were being eliminated effectively and accurately. They were beaten by al-Jazeera.... The media [are] often referred to off-handedly as a strategic factor. But we still don't fully appreciate [their] fatal power.... In Fallujah, we allowed a bonanza of hundreds of terrorists and insurgents to escape us -- despite promising that we would bring them to justice. We stopped because we were worried about what already hostile populations might think of us. The global media disrupted the U.S. And Coalition chains of command.... We could have won militarily. Instead, we surrendered politically and called it a success. Our enemies won the information war. We literally didn't know what hit us. The Fallujah stalemate demonstrates that the neutral status that the press enjoys in conflicts is far removed from neutrality in any normative sense. The question then becomes whether this is an appropriate circumstance, whether it is sustainable, and what are the likely implications?"

Another impact that the media had on the U.S. government tactics was adding the pressure on coming true to their promise of withdrawing the U.S. troops from Iraq once they had liberated and freed the Iraqi of the oppressive governments that had ruled them in the past. Yet throughout the entire conflict, Channels like CNN, BBC and FNC were all comparing the prior activities of the U.S. government when most conflicts fought on the name of liberation were contradicted by the disrespectful destruction of statuettes and local structures. However, again they were able to twist all that negativity as a point if closure and celebration when they positively reported that the war in Iraq was over with the destruction of Hussein's statue at Firdos Square.

The fact of matter is that the image of the destruction of the statue of a man who was believed to be an oppressive ruler was portrayed as the most appropriate indication of the end of the war and the start of the liberation process in the region. Most of the presenters on these news channels widely and strongly claimed that the conflict was at its completion stages and the effect of such an extensive claim was that the overall coverage of conflicts and war tactics within the region were then decreased by a large percentage over not only the aforementioned channels but other media outlets as well. Most of the media outlets portrayed that all of the efforts made by the troops form that point on were based on the liberation of the area and not based around warring tactics.

It is important to note here that this media projection and approach did end the Iraq war on the political front irrespective of whether it was over on the battlefield. Even though, the overall representation of the destruction of the statue was a false pretense by the media and did not necessarily bear the truth, the fact still remains that it was the media and its coverage that allowed the war in Iraq become a less important topic or news in the short run of things.

Another perception that the media was influential in portraying was the attitude that the Iraqi natives had towards the American troops. All of the news that embedded reporters aired as well as all the interviews of the troops that were taken always aimed to exhibit that the American troops were in truth welcomed by the natives and these natives wanted the American troops to free them off the oppressive rule that they were living under. This was perhaps the one positive beat that the media played when covering the war on Iraq and this alone was one of the reasons why many members of the global community were able to bear the continuation of the intervention. Again, the truth of the matter is not clear but the media had the power to manipulate the coverage that they gave the Iraq war and hence indirectly manipulate and influence the global opinion on a large scale.

The above explanations of the manipulations of media also exemplify two relational theories of media i.e. The news frames and the news agenda. Both the agenda of a news story and the framing of it are interdependent and influential on each other. The fact of the matter is that the news frame of a story can change the future agendas that would be presented about the story in the future. This simply means, taking the above examples into context, the overall news frame that the war had technically ended in Iraq with the destruction of Hussein's statue structured the news agendas of the media to shift from focusing on the conditions of the Iraqi natives and the overall updates on the Iraqi conflict and focus on other issues like the economy or the banking systems.

Of course, the media is not the only player in the creation of this image. The U.S. government was the first to deign the destruction of the statue of Hussein as a sign of the accomplishment of their goals and that is what they projected in the media through speeches. From a theoretical perspective, this study adds to a growing literature exploring the relationship between news frames and news agendas. This was immediately logically adopted by the media and projected the long-drawn-out victory was finally complete.

There have been many empirical studies done on the media input and the government investments on how they are projected in the media. The above illustration of the manipulation is one of the significant practical proofs that the U.S. government did take the input of the media on the Iraq war very seriously and wanted to somewhat control the overall context and extent that it was covered by the media. Furthermore, the entire approach of the U.S. government towards the media and its input is also significantly important for the media students to analyze if they want to clearly understand the impact that news frame can and does have on the overall news agenda in the short and the long run.

One of the strongest inputs that the media has had during the wars, especially during the Iraq war, is the use of embedding reporting. There are many prominent leaders and individuals who have had to say a lot on the importance of the embedded reporting in giving media the kind of power that it has over the coverage of wars now.

For example a case study conducted by Columbia University's Project for Excellence in Journalism claimed that the nature of embedded reports is "largely anecdotal. [They were] combat-focused, and mostly live and unedited. Much [of the reporting] lacks context but is usually rich in detail. It has all the virtues and vices of reporting only what you can see."

Also the Chief of the British General Staff, General Sir Mike Jackson, is reported to have said that the embedded reporting is able to project opinions and situations that "are no more than snapshots at a particular time and a particular place. Dramatic they may be, but frankly they tell you very little, if anything at all, about the progress of the campaign at a strategic level."