Is No News, Good News?: Media and the Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War was a landmark event on a worldwide scale. For the first time since the end of the Cold War had the world joined together to fight aggression. As the world's armed forces became involved in increasing hostilities in the gulf, the news of what was transpiring in the Middle East grew increasingly important. CNN and many other world media outlets sent men and machinery to the gulf to get the latest news updates. What they encountered was resistance; a resistance that had been learned through past experiences with the media in times of war. The behavior of the allies in dealing with the media is based on recognition of the fact that war would not be sustainable if it became clear just how deadly it is (Kruse, 24).

The US learned this in Vietnam. Images such as the self-immolation of the Buddhist monks and the unforgettable photograph of the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner by General Loan, head of South Vietnam's police force, displayed the true grisly nature of war (Jeffords, 34). The belief that Vietnam was just a "battle against communism" began to buckle once reporters began to bring home such pictures. These images wouldn't have been made accessible had the military and the government exercised a tighter grip on the press while in the streets, rice paddies and jungles of Vietnam (Kruse, 24). The military "absolutely wanted (the press) to see how they were winning; except we showed them that really wasn't what they were doing" (Kruse, 24). The media was never forgiven.

In wars preceding Vietnam, the American media generally served the government's expectations in reporting the goals and objectives of the war. The two groups seemed to work together. The press needed the military and government for the access to the news, and the government needed the press to build popular support for the war on the home front. Stories of military victories and defeats, of war dead and other casualties were confirmed by a point of view that let out as little information as possible. The mainstream media cooperated with the war efforts in WWI and WWII by voluntarily submitting their stories, photos and reports to a censor board, and were subsequently admired for their patriotism (McCain, 22). This whole symbiosis between the press and the government broke down in Vietnam.

In Vietnam the press refused to "join the team", as Presidents Kennedy and Johnson wanted (McCain, 22). Breaking from the past relationship between themselves and the US Government, the press reported the side of war heretofore kept under wraps. No longer was war replete with glory and rationality as it had been in WWII. There were no battle lines, no mass troop movements, no distinct enemy, and no structured battle plan. The confusion played from the jungles of Southeast Asia into the living rooms of the United States on evening news programs. This confusion became especially punctuated when Walter Cronkite, the father figure of the evening news, stated that the war was "unwinnable" (Jeffords, 12). Anti-war protests gained momentum, and soldiers in the field lost morale as the US became increasingly involved in a quagmire played out on television. The growing contempt for the war both at home and in Vietnam drove the US Government to retract their forces and acquire a huge chip on their shoulder.

The majority of the government and the military blamed the press for losing the war in Vietnam. Low-ranking officers who served in Southeast Asia believed the media had a large stake in the loss to the communist forces. Later, when some of these officers became senior military leaders in the 1980's, they were determined to keep the media from undermining their military efforts (McCain, 23).

Arrayed against this ideology is the press who, since the war in Indochina, viewed its role not as a "team player" working towards victory, but as an adversary, a check on the government. The conflict between the press and the military played out in a few instances in the 80's, building up to the Persian Gulf War. The first such instance of restrictions of the press in a time of war was when the British fought the Argentineans over the Falkland Islands in 1982. The British marines took a mere handful of reporters to the war zone, and allowed their reports to be sent back to the United Kingdom only over marine radio--after being highly censored. No television cameras were present, and very few photographs of battle were allowed. Thus the Argentineans, the British public and even the British soldiers in the field were kept informed by a picture of the war agreeable to the British War Department and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Kruse, 24). The United States would use limitations along these lines in their two military invasions in the 80's.

President Ronald Reagan, and later George Bush, applied the restrictions the British used in the Falklands to Grenada and Panama, respectively. Reagan and his administration controlled the early pictures and information of the 1983 invasion of Grenada. They isolated 300 war reporters on the island of Barbados, 155 miles away from the action, spoon-feeding them the news that the administration saw fit for the public (McCain, 23). Although the television and media executives protested, this policy was adopted six years later in the invasion of Panama. This time 600 reporters were held over at the Miami airport before they were allowed to see any action. By that time all hostilities had ceased two days later, the only shots to be taken were of American GI's roaming the streets (Kruse, 24-25). As the increasing inevitability of the Gulf War grew, the government's policy regarding the press had been firmly established; no information is good information.

During the Gulf War the press were restricted in many different ways. The first of which was a list of security guidelines stating what could or could not be reported from the press. The list included categories of sensitivity such as details on troop movements and future operations. This list was created because common knowledge of such specifics can put American and allied lives in jeopardy. The rules established then have been intact since WWI, and the press has voiced no objections to these restrictions (Schanberg, 24). It was the newer restrictions that had the media in the gulf in an uproar.

The most binding of the new restrictions was the use of "pools". In this system, the only way a reporter could visit the front line would be to qualify for a pool. The handful of reporters in these pools represented the entire press corps and share their stories with everyone (Lamb, 33). This gave rise to a journalistic caste system, where only a fraction of the reporters, and these were mostly ones from the largest news organizations were allowed to take part in the pool (Schanberg, 23). The other several hundred journalists were stuck in the back, foraging for remedial stories about the life of an American soldier in Saudi Arabia or troop morale behind the lines. This in itself doesn't amount to censorship; pools are a part of daily newsgathering, yet it was what the military added onto the pool system that made it so reprehensible to the media.

The military positioned an officer to escort each and every pool. This escort accompanied the pools at all times, dictated where they went, and were even present when interviewing troops, duefully compromising the spontaneity and candor of the interviews (Schanberg, 24). Reporters grew increasingly frustrated when they were told where to go, what to do, and when to leave. Some went outside the military established pools, and interviewed troops without permission. This scrounging for information was frowned upon by the military and by the press corps itself. The press, trying to work together in the pool system, viewed these mavericks that denied the pool system with distaste; yet couldn't do anything, short of telling the command authority, about it. "You're ruining it for the rest of us," cried a pool reporter when he caught another reporter digging for information in Saudi Arabia (Corry, 25). The military, on the other hand took measures to make sure such vagabond spirits wouldn't ruin a good thing. Access to troops in the field or other military was cut off to reporters who criticized the military or to those who defied the pools. ABC's John Laurence was refused access to troops after he produced a segment questioning the abilities of some machinery in the desert sand. Another reporter was also denied his request to interview Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf because his articles "were not liked" by the military (Kellner, 83). The military didn't just censor the reporters; they censored the stories of the reporters as well.

Censorship was never used by name; the military euphemism for "censorship" in the gulf was the term "security review". According to Sydney Schanberg (the reporter who wrote "The Killing Fields" about his experiences in Cambodia), "The 'security review' at the end of the pool process merely applies the final, harassing, delaying, cosmeticizing touches on the information and completes the subjugation of the press corps" (Schanberg, 24). The security review was what the pools in the field had to submit their stories to in order that they may be put into print, or in the case of televised news, on the air. This slow, aggravating process compromised both the speed of 'breaking news' and the information available to the public. One instance of particular note came when military censors had a problem with a single word in a reporter's column. The censors disapproved of a reporter's use of the word "giddy" in describing stealth bomber pilots demeanors after returning from their mission. The censor changed "giddy" to "proud". Even when the change is innocent, the military believed that national security is "threatened" (Schanberg, 24). Combined with the limited access the pools provided, the security review served the US Government as a tool to subjugate information and censor the press.

The US Government and military took these measures to assure that sensitive information wouldn't become public knowledge. Damaging information could hinder public support at home and hamstring morale in the field. The media took part in mobilizing public support for US intervention in the gulf. Television showed US troops serving their country, putting themselves "in harm's way" for their country. The support drummed up by the press for the popularization of the war was shown by the public in ritualistic displays such as yellow ribbons and chanting and waving flags in pro-war demonstrations (Kellner, 236). The media did this with upbeat appraisals of allied successes and by vilifying the Iraqis and their dictator Saddam Hussein. Images of launching Patriot missiles, surrendering enemy troops, and videos of smart bombs blowing up munitions depots showed the power of the allies. The cruelty of the Iraqis was related in horrible stories of torture, such as how Iraqi soldiers took newborn infants out of incubators and left them for dead on hospital tables (Smith, 146). Even though some stories turned out to be horribly inaccurate, the perception of Saddam Hussein as evil incarnate remained. The number one media outlet of information throughout the span of the Persian Gulf crisis, CNN (Cable News Network), both helped perpetuate these opposite ideals of the allied coalition and the Iraqis stretching the barriers of US censorship.

Having begun its twenty-four hour news a decade before the crisis in the gulf began, CNN had already established itself as a reliable source for news; the hostility in the gulf cemented this fact. CNN was the only television news organization that could update events in the gulf on a minute-to-minute basis; covering everything from troops in the gulf to briefings in the Pentagon, all day and all night. On the first day following the bombing of Baghdad, CNN, who usually floundered far behind the networks in ratings, jumped fractions of a ratings point behind CBS, the ratings leader. Beyond this, hundreds of local networks carried CNN's coverage, including stations affiliated with the major networks (Smith, 6). Not only in the United States was the reporting of CNN noticed above and beyond that of its competitors; foreign countries with access to CNN raved about its coverage.

Truly, according to a newspaper in Cairo, "the whole world is watching CNN". "CNN is on the ball whilst German broadcasters were in a deep slumber," read one German paper. Venice's major daily had a headline reading, "Without any doubt, the American CNN dominates". In Japan, CNN became so popular that people began wearing CNN t-shirts and carrying CNN tote bags (McCain, 8). CNN had previously become a power in reporting international events. With bureaus throughout the world and top rate journalists on staff to report at a moment's notice, CNN had already tried to establish itself as distinct from other American news organizations.

Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, believed that CNN should be thought of from a broad, worldly perspective. In a memo he wrote to the CNN staff prior to the war, Turner banned the word "foreign" from the entire network. He changed all things once referred to as "foreign" to "international" (Kamen, 27). This philosophy centered on the network's ability to report the news as neutrally, and from as great an "international" perspective as possible. Many of CNN's anchors took much heat for their neutrality in the time of war. At a time when big name TV journalists such as Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and Barbara Walters referred to the US/allied forces with "we" and "our" to bind themselves to the military and the nation, CNN's most recognizable figure, Bernard Shaw, refused to take sides in the fighting (Kellner, 87). "There's no 'enemy', there's no 'friendly'," Shaw said "I can't take sides, and I don't take sides... as a reporter, I am neutral" (Kamen, 28). Even though CNN had firmly established itself as a worldwide network by the beginning of the Gulf War, they continued to carry right-wing US propaganda on a daily basis.

CNN's "Crisis in the Gulf" premiered during prime time on August 13 and quickly became the most "jingoistic and militarist program during the first months of the confrontation" (Kellner, 86). The show opened with bombastic music laid over troops crossing the desert, and images of George Bush and Saddam Hussein, followed by shots of Arabs, the desert and oil (Kellner, 86). The juxtaposition of images of the United States (Bush and the American soldiers) and the Middle East (Hussein and the desert) placed recognized faces of President Bush and US troops against the "otherness" of Hussein and the desert. The show itself was laden with very patriotic news stories and discussion with hard-line right-wing guests (Kellner, 87).

The news stories on "Crisis in the Gulf" were positive military images meant to build support for the armed solution to the crisis. Shots of endless lines of tanks, ships, helicopters, airplanes and troops showed the might of the US military presence in the gulf. Interviews with soldiers and military spokespersons gave an increasingly humanized outlook of American soldiers who were serving their country. The dialogue amongst politicians, analysts and pundits on the show also furthered the show's sense of propaganda.

Right-wing personalities such as Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and the omnipresent Pat Buchanan perpetuated the conservative slant "Crisis in the Gulf" seemed to have. Discourse on such issues as US military responses, the possibilities of terrorism and other militarily entered topics ruled the show's hour-long time span day in and day out. These hawkish, pro-military discussions brought the tone of "Crisis in the Gulf" to a high point of militarism and chauvinism (Kellner, 89). In this respect, CNN showed themselves to be little more than a mode for American military propaganda to disseminate among the population of the world. When the neutrality of CNN was in question, both in the case of Bernard Shaw and "Crisis in the Gulf", the experience of CNN's own "Scud Stud", Peter Arnett, was the most important.

Peter Arnett had untold experience in reporting wars, and had received a Pulitzer Prize for his reports of Vietnam; but it was when he was allowed to be the only western journalist to remain in Baghdad after the bombing began when his would become a household name. For the first time in history, a television network was providing sustained telephone, and later live television coverage of warfare; and Arnett was at the heart of it in Baghdad (Smith, 31). What looked like the triumph of unbiased journalism soon turned into what many considered filthy propaganda on behalf of Saddam Hussein's government, with Peter Arnett as the voice.

The first controversy came when Arnett gave a heavily censored Iraqi report about allied POW's. CNN quickly made sure that it was known that this report was censored, but the damage was done. The biggest incident came when Arnett reported the bombing of a target that the Iraqis claimed was a baby formula factory (Smith, 32). This new information that was quite contrary to what American people believed was an exacting war of precision, a war with as few civilian casualties as possible, was met with great distaste. Letters of extreme criticism came into CNN regarding Arnett as a spy, as a "lackey" of the Iraqis and even as a traitor. The government even became involved when Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) labeled him a "sympathizer" (Jeffords, 132). Under scrutiny from both the Iraqis and from the United States, Arnett tried to stay neutral, but was force-fed Iraqi propaganda.

"I can only confirm what my eyes see," Arnett said, "and I can't always say that I'm seeing exactly what I think I'm seeing" (Kamen, 28). Everything that Arnett saw, heard, and experienced on a day to day basis was exactly what the Iraqis had wanted to see, and with sufficient censorship, the Iraqis used Arnett as a talking head for their government; an attempt to gain popular support for a war that had been brought to their homes. Arnett tried to report the scenes as he saw them, but many felt he simply became Saddam Hussein's organ for propaganda.

By restricting the free flow of information, through methods such as censorship or propaganda, the realities of war can be kept to those who make it. Especially in the case of the Persian Gulf War was the freedom of the press compromised by all parties involved. The Gulf War was successful for the United States and her allies, this, like Vietnam was before it, will be used as a lesson to those going to war in the future... no news is good news.