[Media-watch] War as a media spectacle

[Julie-ann Davies]

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/NewsStory.aspx?section=Opinion&OID=47971

      Monday, March 29, 2004 12:14 AM

      War as a media spectacle

      By BENJIE PINEDA
      Special to TODAY 

      Benjie Pineda is the executive director of the Service Group for  National Legislation, or Signal. 


      That the use of overwhelming force by the US-led coalition in the invasion of Iraq on March 20 last year would lead to the fall of Baghdad was from the very start a foregone conclusion. Any form of resistance expected from the Iraqi military, no matter how valiant or barbaric (like the use chemical and biological weapons), was simply to be no match to the superiority of the invading forces' weaponry. It was destined to be a lopsided war. 


      The "shock and awe" operations launched by the invading forces quickly unfolded, not to have instantly shocked Saddam's forces but was so presented by the Western media to inspire "awe" among everyone else around the globe at the military might of the world's lone superpower. Before any single Iraqi soldier got shocked by the monstrous and unrelenting bombardment of Baghdad and various other places in Iraq, thousands of Iraqi civilians were sent scampering for safety, trembling with fear and probably forever shaken. 


      The preparations for war coverage of the giant international television networks had long been made. The minute the first bombs were dropped on Iraq, the broadcast programs that immediately followed, including the studio props used, were all well in place. Competition was expected. What was troubling was that journalistic competition was shaped around a militarist-sensationalist presentation of the war. This was apparently the lesson drawn from the same nature of coverage of the earlier Gulf War by the Cable News Network or CNN -- with the network profiting heavily both financially and strategically in terms of global positioning. Thus, in the Iraq War, studio anchors and field reporters, assisted by a phalanx of so-called military and defense experts, all joined in the broadcast of an o-going war in a mood and tempo not quite different from the coverage of a sports or entertainment event. 

      Because the US-based networks and the US-led coalition command fed the international media with what were obviously sanitized reports on developments regarding the war, mass viewers all over the world were somehow spared a little trauma while being treated to a spectacular gala of weaponry by the invading forces. 


      Selective screening of facts, however, presents a different problem altogether. 


      Since its debacle in the Vietnam War, the United States has come to effectively use the mass media as an extension of the battlefield, where psywar operations are to be conducted with equal ferocity. Not only the mass audience but the media people as well have become unwitting tools in a nasty propaganda war. 


      Many journalists like Tom Brokaw, who are understandably patriotic American citizens first, can be blatant in their role as purveyors of US war propaganda. Still, others desperately tried to hide their bias, only to be later betrayed by their body language, facial expression, choice of words, and "slip-of-the-tongues." Was it not revealing of this verity that only the independent Arabic Al Jazeera network gave an invasionist spin to the raising of the American flag in the city of Umm Qsr by the American marines? That flag was later ordered pulled down precisely to avoid an invasionist image of the coalition forces. 


      The mainstream Western media indeed chose to see things differently. Television news was replete with reporters putting every bit of qualifications and questions regarding the various pronouncements by the Iraqi military, while shamelessly taking the words of the Pentagon hook, line and sinker, as the official interpretation of the events unfolding. 

      In this particular war, confusion seemed to be the order of the day -- but confusion only as defined by the invading coalition forces. The tack of the US-led coalition, in practical alliance with the mainstream Western media, was to deluge the international audience with unverified information, only to much later clarify the truth amid further overload of more disinformation. Therefore the truth is, in print media parlance, "buried on page five." 


      But this war involved not only the military protagonists but also the other forces outside of the military confrontation. At the other side of the war was the international movement against it. The two main contending forces, from a larger perspective, were the actual war versus the peace movement. Thus, the peace marches and other forms of action waged in various parts of the world against the invasion should have been given equal attention by the media. 


      Only token attention was given to developments in the international peace efforts because the latter only served to dampen the war atmosphere. Peace efforts are very seldom sensationalist and therefore not good material for sustained news coverage like a war. Hundreds of thousands of people marching in protest of military aggression present a still tame image, compared to the bombardment of a country with the latest weaponry and munitions that technology can offer. Truly, the war as a spectacle never fails in the world of journalistic enterprise and competition that is dictated no less by the quest for profit. 







      Please send your comments or feedback to newsfeedback at abs-cbn.com 




      BENJIE PINEDA/TODAY



     
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