|
|||
  
 
 |
By Anna Brunson
A dozen years later, the second Gulf War has thus far proven to be as quick and successful as the first one, but this time, the media coverage has left USU with a much different experience. News coverage today has replaced sanitized releases with live reports and images from the front lines of battle. "When I was little, I remember the Gulf War seemed like a video game," says USU senior Bart Liechty. "But now, with footage coming from all the cities and the battles, it all seems a lot more real." "The coverage of the first Gulf War just wasn't as good as it is now," says USU senior Lara Louder. "We can see so much more of it now." USU students' perceived differences of coverage are not just a product of age, but of marked differences in the way the new war is covered, says war journalism expert Carol Brightman in the Los Angeles Times. Much of that is due to the new practice of embedding journalists in the military, which allows them to live and travel with a specific military unit and report directly on the activities of the soldiers. During the first Gulf War, only a few reporters were able to provide first-hand account of the conflict, and they provided dispatches to everyone else, and even then, all material sent back from the front was censored by the military, says Brightman. "[During the first Gulf War], not a single pool reporter produced an eyewitness account of the clash between allied troops," she says. "Nor did many images of dead bodies find their way into the American media. By the time the press was taken to the scene of a battle, the Iraqi bodies were gone; buried, on one occasion, by giant plows mounted on tanks, followed by armored earth movers that leveled the ground." Today's picture of war reporting is much different. For the first time ever, armed with laptop computers, digital cameras and satellite phones, 662 embedded journalists have brought the war to the world in real-time. CNN, Fox News, and nearly every other news network updates their stories on the web multiple times an hour from updates sent in by embedded journalists. Also, a new form of reporting, warblogs, provides a more personal view of the war. "Their reports from Uhm Qasr early in the war revealed a gritty and chaotic scene, soldiers scrambling to the top of sandy berms and firing mercilessly on Iraqi positions," says writer Justin Ewers in U.S. News & World Report. They have also shown hundreds of grateful Iraqis topple giant statues and slash massive portraits of Saddam Hussein. The coverage has shown everything from the intense to the mundane of the military's offense, including a U.S. soldier from the 101st Airborne Division attacking his comrades with a grenade. "If it weren't for the embedding program," says Robert Wiener, a veteran war correspondent who covered the first Gulf War, in U.S. News, "I doubt the American public would have heard about that fragging incident for a long, long time--maybe even years." The second Gulf War has changed the face of journalism worldwide, but it has also had a local effect on USU students. "Once again, I'm glued to the TV," says Liechty. "I watch the same news coverage 24/7 just in case is another new detail I don't already know about. It was like this after September 11, and it's that way again. I just have to know what"s going on." "Now the most wanted seats in the hub are the ones by the TVs, so that people can watch the news while they eat," says USU freshman Emily Brunson. "For some people, it seems almost like an obsession." "The coverage definitely brings the war closer to home," says USU senior Tara Oldroyd. "For something that's so far away, the news really helps us see what's going on over there almost right after it happens." The coverage is also palatable for a highly conservative student population. In a recent poll by USU student newspaper The Utah Statesman, 76 percent of students supported the war. The media reflects that same point of view. "The coverage of the war really is patriotic," says Eric Alterman, author of What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News in Newsday. "September 11 changed a lot of people's attitudes, and sort of made the whole reporting of foreign affairs a less objective enterprise. [And, if you are an "embedded" reporter, traveling with the military] you don't want to criticize the people who are protecting your life." Alterman specifically singles out USU's news medium of choice, Fox News Network. "Fox News is nakedly patriotic. I was watching it a little while yesterday, and it was all about "good news for our side" - as if you were in a locker room of the military itself. There was no separation whatsoever. And Fox has had an enormous impact on the rest of the media because it's been so successful," he says. Perhaps more important than what USU students see is what they don't see in the news coverage. Many USU students aren't aware of the regulations and code journalists have to abide by when covering the news. According to The Washington Post, each journalist is required to sign a 50-point set of Pentagon rules, which prohibits them from covering information that the military believes would endanger troops. The "dos" and "don'ts" of coverage keep reporters still far away from the free days of Vietnam journalism. The second Gulf War has played out much like the first, in the sense that it has been militarily as quick and successful. The news coverage this time, however, has been far superior, say USU students. "Despite the limitations of coverage," says Liechty, "I still think the press and the military are doing a great job. This is so much better than the spotty coverage I remember from the Gulf War."
NW |
||