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The Press: A Giant That Can't Walk Straight
10/08/2003

Lane Core brought my attention to a piece by Ralph Peters in the New York Post:

ONE of the whopping lies of our time is that journalists are simply innocent bystanders with no responsibility for the outcome of events. In fact, our own media may turn out to be the crucial variable in Iraq. They've already made a success of post-modern terrorism as surely as Colonel Tom Parker made Elvis a star.

The truth is that today's media shape reality - often for the worse. The media form a powerful strategic factor. They're actors, not merely observers.

I can only hope that, should I ever reach a point of influence, I'll have the wherewithal to remember that I wield it. But just as "peace" protestors were objectively pro-Saddam before the war, journalists are proving objectively pro-insurgents in Iraq, and news outlets are finding themselves on the hot seat for that very reason. The occasional report of better news in Iraq has begun to appear, as if to defuse the growing rage at the media's being the single greatest factor threatening our success.

But the writers just can't manage it.

Paris-based freelance reporter Vivianne Walt was recently in Iraq for Time and the Boston Globe, and the Providence Journal ran a piece by her under the headline, "Normality gaining on violence -- Heard the good news from Baghdad?" She does admit that life is improving in Iraq, but by the time I'd read to the end of the article, I found myself wondering whether Ms. Walt might be only the first in the media to seek to answer the complaints of pessimism by seeking to effect an American defeat through unjustified optimism.

Of course, there are the what-world-does-she-live-in comments like this: "Since the stakes are critical, the Bush administration is eager to advertise one reality, while glossing over the other." (The "other" being "glossed over" happens to be, incidentally, the only one that the media as seen fit to present thus far.) But the ending is a jaw dropper:

What would happen if the U.S. Humvees disappeared? In visits last month, both Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that chaos could erupt if the occupation ended too soon. Perhaps Iraq would turn into the former Lebanon, where political violence also coexisted with bits of normal life. That's hardly what the Bush team had in mind for Iraq. But maybe the violence would dissipate, leaving Americans feeling bruised while giving Iraqis space to lay claim to the routine and minor pleasures of everyday life.

From the preceding context, it's clear that Walt believes the "but maybe" to be the case. Keep an eye out for this meme — the sudden switch from cries that we haven't done enough and are failing to assertions that we're doing too much and have succeeded as well as we need to.

Peters is correct when he writes, "Distorted reporting is at least as deadly as any bomb in our arsenal."

Posted by Justin Katz @ 05:01 PM EST

3 comments

Perhaps the meme of which you speak is starting. Here is the quotation of the day from Oct 10 NY Times on-line:

"I don't want anymore work with the police. I will get
a simple job to avoid problems and explosions."
- JASSIM MIHSIN, an Iraqi police officer injured in a
suicide bombing.

Bill Draeger @ 10/11/2003 01:16 AM EST

Another thought on this thread:

The problem with preemption is that one will never know if it works unless the action is not taken. Conversely, the problem with prevention is one will never know if it is working unless the action is stopped. Unlike our government officials, the media pundits assume no risk for their decisions in either area.

Bill Draeger @ 10/11/2003 02:37 AM EST

Bill,

Regarding the latter post, I'm starting to hear subtle comments to test the waters for an offensive on the "what threat of terrorist attacks?" front. Success in something as off-the-front-page as the war on terror is not necessarily in the President's political interests (which is why I suspect the Dems would start to back off it once in office).

Justin Katz @ 10/11/2003 08:43 AM EST