War Correspondents Notes

War and Media Bias

• Carl von Clausewitz Quote:
  • "…all action takes place… in a kind of twilight… which, like fog or moonlight, often tends to make things seem grotesque and larger than they really are…"
  • "Whatever is hidden from full view in this feeble light… has to be guessed at by talent or simply left to chance."
• Media bias in war reporting is amplified.
  • Commercial bias: Context is sacrificed for action (daily battles, car bombs).
  • Status quo bias: Elevated as patriotism; reporters avoid attacking leaders during national crises.
  • Access bias: Military controls reporter access (barring, expelling, jailing), influencing coverage.
  • Visual bias: Enhanced by technology, from sketches to satellite feeds.
  • Bad news bias: War is inherently bad news.
  • Narrative bias: Governments provide plots, threats, and portray the enemy's depravity; atrocity stories are recycled.

Fabrications and Deception in War

• Nayirah Al-Sabah Testimony (1990):
  • False testimony about Iraqi soldiers removing babies from incubators in Kuwait.
  • She was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the U.S.
  • The story was crafted with the help of Hill & Knowlton.
  • Influenced the Senate vote for the resolution to go to war in January 1991.
• Premises for war often built on fabrications.
  • Examples: Sinking of the Maine and Lusitania, Gulf of Tonkin, Saddam's WMDs.
• Government mistrust leads to deception.
• The best defense against deception is more reporting; however, journalists often accept fabrications.
• Fairness bias is lacking during war.
• War reporters may become addicted to battle and distort what they see.
  • They may "embrace the cause" despite skepticism.
• Combat reporters focus on fighting, losing sight of the reason for fighting.

Early War Reporting and Censorship

• William Howard Russell (1854):
  • Reported on the charge of the British Light Cavalry Brigade in Crimea for the London Times.
  • Detailed soldiers being ill-fed, ill-led, and left to die.
  • His reporting turned the public against the government, leading to military censorship.
  • Hailed as "the father of war reporting."
  • He covered the American Civil War until his press credentials were removed.
• Any reporter who reports information useful to the enemy will be expelled.

The Civil War and Technological Advances

• The Civil War saw the rise of photography and telegraphy.
• Samuel Morse's telegraph debut (1844): "WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT?"
• The immediacy of technology fueled an appetite for battlefield drama.
• Telegraphs were used to send all news and rumors.
• Concerns raised about the spread of lies and doubt due to false information.

Civil War Reporting

• Pro-Union reporters invented stories when they couldn't find any.
• Union officer wrote home that reporters had "taken" Atlanta weeks before the Army.
• Battlefield illustrators depicted unwitnessed events.
• General William T. Sherman banned reporters from the front, viewing them as spies.
• War Secretary Edwin Stanton's actions:
  • Implemented press passes and press releases.
  • Controlled telegraph lines.
  • Imposed news blackouts.
• Hysterical rumors filled the void due to the news blackout.
• Southern newspapers printed on wallpaper due to supply shortages.
• Northern editors criticized each other and Lincoln's war strategy.
• Horace Greeley, New York Tribune editor, advocated extreme strategies.

Notable Civil War Journalism

• Antietam (September 17, 1862): Bloodiest day in U.S. history.
• George Smalley, Tribune reporter, attached himself to General Joe Hooker's staff.
• His honest and courageous account was a paragon of war journalism.
• Smalley's dispatch was sent directly to Lincoln, awaiting the news.
• Lincoln fired McClellan after Smalley's report.

Post-Civil War Media Landscape

• Emergence of the template for future war journalism: use/abuse of technology, press releases, censorship, passive reporting.
• Reporting varied from clarity to being warped by ideals and patriotism.
• Before the war, reporting was anonymous.
• General Joe Hooker demanded reporters sign their work to hold them accountable.
• The military contained the media using carrots, sticks, and patriotism.
• Senator Hiram Johnson (1917) quote: "The first casualty, when war comes, is truth."

World War I Propaganda

• Woodrow Wilson ran against war in 1916 but then sold it in 1917.
• Espionage and Sedition Acts: Outlawed dissent.
• Committee on Public Information (CPI):
  • Spread war fever.
  • Suppressed bad news.
  • Equated dissent with disloyalty.
  • Demonized the enemy.
• Having a German last name became dangerous.
• CPI chief George Creel: CPI material was "propagation of faith," not propaganda as defined by Germans.

World War I Reporting

• France and Britain barred most reporters from the front.
• George Seldes (United Press) accepted news reports as true, later regretting it.
• Government prohibited photos of American dead.
• Allied propaganda machine sustained morale and dragged America into the war.

$*$ No evidence of the claim is ever found.

• Reporters "more or less lied about the war."

Post-World War I and Censorship

• Seldes interviewed German Commander Paul von Hindenburg after the war.
• Pershing censored the interview and court-martialed Seldes for crossing into Germany.
• Germans blamed their defeat on socialists, communists, and Jews (the "stab in the back").
• Seldes believed uncensored interview could have prevented Hitler's rise to power.

World War II and Media

• Edward R. Murrow (CBS): Radio reports from London, risked his life on bomber runs.
• Murrow often wore a uniform.
• The Office of Censorship asked the media to follow a voluntary code to protect military operations, to which they agreed.

Embedded Journalists in World War II

• Ernie Pyle wrote columns on the ordeal and courage of troops.
• Pyle was killed by Japanese machine-gun fire and awarded a Purple Heart.
• The information was controlled; casualty figures were fudged.
• The White House controlled the story of the atomic bomb.
  • "The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold…"
  • "Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base…"
  • "It is an atomic bomb… a harnessing of the basic power of the universe."

The Atomic Bomb and Its Aftermath

• Hiroshima contained a military base, but the bomb was dropped in the city center.
• U.S. policy was to bomb Japanese civilian centers.
• The media printed official press releases in their entirety.
• William "Atomic Bill" Laurence (New York Times) was an A-bomb advocate on the Pentagon payroll.
• Laurence was on the plane that dropped the bomb on Nagasaki.
• Laurence won a Pulitzer Prize but downplayed radiation's lethal effects.

Post-Atomic Bomb Reporting

• Reporters barred from Hiroshima and Nagasaki but welcomed on the USS Missouri.
• Wilfred Burchett (Australian journalist) reported on radiation sickness in Hiroshima.
• Reports to the contrary were suppressed in the U.S. and Japan.
• In the New York Times, William Laurence dismissed Japanese claims.

Censorship and Memory

• George Weller (Chicago Daily News) reported from Nagasaki; dispatches were destroyed.
• All censored information is fundamentally propaganda.
• John Hersey's "Hiroshima" (The New Yorker) sold out within hours.
• The memory of Hiroshima has kept the world safe from the bomb.

Vietnam War and Media

• Journalists moved freely in Vietnam for much of the '60s.
• Media and military were united in a common cause.
• The narrative focused on brave boys fighting for the American way of life.
• TV reporters attended daily briefings but rarely showed actual gore.
• Morley Safer (CBS) reported on the burning of Cam Ne village.

The Tet Offensive

• January 1968: North Vietnamese launched a coordinated attack on the South.
• Many believed the Tet offensive soured America on the war and blamed the media for spinning the victory of Tet into political defeat.
• Walter Cronkite: "We are mired in stalemate…"
• Critics: Media distorted the truth and weakened America's will to defend itself.
• Ronald Reagan: The "Vietnam Syndrome" was created by North Vietnamese aggressors.

Vietnam Syndrome

• "VIETNAM SYNDROME" is one enduring phrase from the Vietnam War. "Credibility gap" is another.
• Reporters initially did not question war policy but dissented on tactics.
• The Five O'Clock Follies (daily briefings in Saigon) contradicted what reporters saw.
• Reporters rejected official progress reports and reported what they saw.
• Americans grew weary when the human cost of combat rises.
  • William Hammond: Every time the number of Americans killed and wounded increased by a factor of ten-from 1,000 to 10,000 to 100,000-public support dropped 15 points.
• Cronkite suggested that if an enemy can absorb defeat after defeat yet continue to grow in number, "winning" is meaningless.
• Hammond: Flawed strategy and bad intelligence alienated the American public.

The Gulf War and Media Control

• George Bush Senior sought support for military action against Iraq in 1991.
• Americans believed the U.S. fought in Vietnam with "one hand tied behind their back."
• The actual toll of nearly two million, shrank to a median guess was around 100,000.
• During the Gulf War, the media attended daily briefings with no assessment of civilian casualties.
• Selected reporters were escorted to the battlefield in "pools."
• Reports were reviewed by authorities and delayed.
• Television rang with ecstatic appraisals of the war.
• The more people watched TV, the less they knew about the history, politics, or the region.

The 2003 Iraq War and Embedded Journalists

• The Pentagon changed course: Reporters would be embedded with the troops.
• The goal was to build trust and admiration for the military.
• The embeds' narrative was of brave soldiers risking their lives.
• The rules were strict: Journalists who left their assigned units would not be allowed to return.
• Some information could not be reported, (e.g., where the missiles landed, only where they were launched).
• The U.S. military generated positive coverage of the Iraq invasion.

Experiences of Embedded Reporters

• NPR's John Burnett checked in weekly with "On the Media."
• Initial encouragement turned into frustration with the Pentagon routine.
• After leaving the unit, Burnett reported on a village bombed by the U.S. Air Force, Al-Taniya.

Reflections on War Reporting

• A war correspondent as hero.
• There will be no wars again, like World War Two, when there was a unanimity of the righteousness of the cause.

Michael Herr's Vietnam War Coverage

• Michael Herr covered Vietnam for Esquire in 1967.
• He published "Dispatches," a graphic depiction of the war.
• Reporters feared becoming one of those who had to have a war on all the time.
• You were as responsible for everything you saw as you were for everything you did.
• To report a war amidst official lies, commercial pressures, horror, trauma, principles, and patriotism is to be at war with oneself.
• Objectivity is essential, but impossible.