Media Musings: Balanced reporting key to freedom
There should never be a litmus test for truth or opinion but there is now one at play in the coverage of the war. This isn’t the first time a newspaper or a network or a movie meets a firestorm of anger from its readers or viewers. In many ways, it’s part of great journalism or social commentary.
Richard Nixon tried to destroy The Washington Post by attacking its television stations’ licenses, which had to be renewed by the Federal Communications Commission, for its revelations of Watergate.
A Kentucky newspaper’s expose of corruption in the University of Kentucky basketball program years ago led to a backlash of canceled subscriptions, angry telephone calls, and threats on the lives of sports writers. I’ll bet there were ads that were dropped as well. Demands for boycotts filled the air. The series was true.
The difference this time is that the cable news networks, broadcast networks, and many newspapers are corporate. Corporate ownership alone doesn’t mean a newspaper is immediately concerned only with profit. But in most cases, there can’t be any doubt that all of them are afraid of you, the reader and the listener.
They’re so afraid, in fact, that they are stumbling over themselves to prove how patriotic they are. And if one of their correspondents missteps or crosses a line that appears to be unpatriotic, the price is immediate dismissal.
That’s the obvious unstated reason behind the firing of veteran reporter Peter Arnett by NBC News and National Geographic. Granted, Arnett’s willingness to appear on Iraqi TV at a time of war was uncommon and ill-advised. But what Arnett said has been said by many great reporters and commentators within the past few days: American war planners had underestimated the determination of Iraqi troops to fight U.S. and British troops and the Pentagon appeared to be changing its original strategy.
Arnett told NBC’s “Today Show” he shouldn’t have appeared on the Iraqi network and apologized for his decision but it was noteworthy he didn’t change his opinions. But it’s also obvious that pressure was placed on NBC and National Geographic by the Pentagon and the White House to dump him. Arnett made one statement that was very troubling, in that he was asked to appear on Iraqi TV because he has taken a neutral stance on the war and knows many Iraqi journalists as colleagues.
Good reporting requires a certain degree of neutrality and a great degree of honesty. The British Broadcasting Company openly acknowledges it’s more comfortable with a balanced kind of reporting that contains criticism or concern about the war effort because the British people – 75 per cent in the last poll I read – don’t support the war.
Thus when the United States complained about violations of the Geneva Convention, the BBC reported the United States had violated the same rule of international law by the handling of prisoners at Guantamo Bay.
At this point, the problem of balancing coverage – fear of public rejection – is plaguing television more than it is the print media. The Washington Post and the New York Times, along with the the gifted in-depth reporting of Sy Hersh for The New Yorker, are reporting the confusion, power struggles, and concerns surrounding the prosecution of the war by the coalition forces.
Our democracy can only live in a vibrant and effective way on the basis of concerned, cautious, but unflinching, journalism. It’s difficult to believe the fine reporters and photographers who are embedded with the troops cannot move without fearing a betrayal of the very men and women with whom they sleep, eat, and suffer. They do their best, without question.
So, too, is it true that our troops are doing their very best.
But if the truth is lost out of fear of government power and ultra-conservative media hammering the bottom line of corporation-owned broadcasters – some with huge defense contracts – something very vital to us as a people is deeply damaged: a free and independent press that believes strong opinion and balanced reportage are what freedom is about.
(Ed Kimbrell is a professor in MTSU’s School of Journalism.)