The Media Takes its Place

The Gulf War in the early 1990’s was the beginning of a new era of warfare and information; technology provided new means of battle, more efficient weaponry, and better ways to communicate with troops. The war was marked as a signal of change; women began participating in combat situations and it was the first “modern” war. There was a record amount of involvement in the Gulf War as well, and this spurred an unprecedented amount of media attention because everyone wanted to know what was happening in the Middle East. This involvement of the media brought about the most significant changes of all; the revolutionary involvement of the media in the Gulf War not only changed the public’s concept of warfare and what was considered acceptable behavior during wartime, but also the way the military would act during any hostile situations in the future.

As technology has grown in the last century it has affected every aspect of life, especially politics and war. Science invented television, radio, and the internet; but the invention with the most impact on daily life would have to be the idea of media. Media has changed the speed, manner, and intention of information communication.

The media did not play such a large role in wartimes until the Gulf War; actually, the government had been quite strict in controlling the level of access the media had to certain information. CNN and many other world media outlets sent men and machinery to the gulf to get the latest news updates. What they encountered was opposition; a resistance that had been learned through former experiences with the media in times of war. The behavior of the allies in dealing with the media is based on acknowledgement of the fact that war would not be sustainable if it became clear just how deadly it is. The US learned this in Vietnam. The belief that Vietnam was just a "battle against communism" began to buckle once reporters began to bring home pictures of gruesome violence and casualties.

In Vietnam the press refused to "join the team", as Presidents Kennedy and Johnson wanted. Breaking from the past relationship between themselves and the US Government, the press reported the side of war heretofore kept under wraps. No longer did war hold a glorious, honorable place in the public’s mind as it had in World War II. There were no battle lines, no mass troop movements, no distinct enemy, and no prepared battle plan. The confusion played from the jungles of Vietnam into the living rooms of United States citizens on evening news programs (Mordan). As the public became more and more incensed with its government’s actions in Asia, the protests of the war grew. The majority of the government and the military blamed the press for losing the war in Vietnam due to the ammunition the television broadcasts provided for the anti-war sentiment (Mordan).

The military entered the 1980’s viewing the press as something evil, as something that they needed to control or keep out of their way. 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 unit working in the checks and balances system of the government. The conflict between the press and the military played out in a few instances in the 80's, building up to the Gulf War. 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 military restricted the press 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: no mention could be made of the specific numbers of troops, planes, supplies, etc., only general terms could be used to describe the forces available; no mention could be made of future plans even if briefed on said plans; reporters could not mention the specific locations of units; the rules of engagements, the rules specifying under what conditions Coalition forces would use force, were off limits; intelligence gathering operations and collection activities could not be mentioned; no information on the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of enemy military measures could be speculated on or given out; identifying information on missing or downed aircraft or ships while search and rescue operations are underway was not allowed; special operations forces' methods, unique equipment, or tactics could not be reported on or even mentioned; and operating methods and tactics in general were to stay out of the news broadcasts (Kellner). But 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 and the government could use the press groupings as a way to control what information made it to the press along with what information the press what allowed to report (Mordan).

These practices were never referred to as censorship; the military euphemism for censorship in the gulf was the term "security review" (Kellner). The US Government and military took these measures to assure that sensitive information wouldn't become public knowledge. Damaging information could hamper public support at home and have negative effects on morale in the field.

This was not the outcome of the press coverage of the Gulf War though. The media took part in mobilizing public support for US involvement in the gulf. The media generated support for the war first by falsely representing U.S. successes and then by leading the American public to view the Iraqis as not only enemies but as terrorists. Initial support was won for the war effort through the media-generated euphoria that the war would be over quickly, with a decisive and easy victory for the U.S. (Kellner). Television showed US troops serving their country, putting themselves "in harm's way" for their country (Colleram, 631). The support brought on by the press for the popularization of the war was shown by the public in widespread displays such as yellow ribbons and waving flags in pro-war demonstrations.

Unfortunately this support was won through bias means; the media did not uphold the integrity and values it should have as a nonpartisan unit in the U.S. TV went to war and helped provide public sanction to the Bush administration war policies through its discriminate war reporting, which sacrificed its nonpartisan imperatives of providing an opportunity to question the leadership responsible for the aggression and precise information so that citizens could contribute their opinions to key issues. The massive amount of U.S. bombing in Iraq and its destructive effects on the Iraqi people and their surroundings, the fact that Iraq and much of the world wanted an end to the military action, and the hazards to the world’s economy and to the political atmosphere of the Middle East from a prolonged war should have generated a substantial debate in the United States, yet it was not allowed to.

Even worse than the voluntary bias of the nation’s media was the usage of the term propaganda any time footage was brought to U.S. attention depicting civilian casualties in Iraq. U.S. television began to show pictures of women, children, and full families that had died violent deaths due to the Air Force’s air raids, but each time such information was reported on it was at the same time discounted by U.S. reporters because they had not been the ones in the war zone reporting. The American media should have shown some uncertainty towards its own information from the front lines and had a little critical awareness instead of naiveté. They should have questioned the reports from the Bush administration and the military press pools and done a better job of classifying certain information as propaganda, or at least as given the Iraqi reporters some credit for actually being in the war zone reporting (Kellner). They also should have avoided the double standard of labeling everything that came out of Iraq as subject to government censorship when they rarely did this with reports coming out of U.S. military press pool reports, which were equally subject to censorship.

In any case, these effects of television and the mainstream media are incongruous and may have unintended consequences (Kellner). As the Gulf War ended as soldiers returned home with stories varying greatly from the reports and official statements of the government, many in the press and the public began to understand exactly how far from the truth the military press pool coverage was. Soon after the Gulf War, the press in America took up its old routine and once again became the proverbial thorn in the government’s side.

The media has stepped in and taken its role during Iraqi Freedom, and the press has been allowed more movement inside the war zone than ever. This has provided more accurate information and a first-person view that would have been previously unattainable, but it has also had its consequences (Kaufman, 124). While the American public received a more truthful recreation of the war’s events, the media has suffered from its new position in hostile territory. There have been an increasing number of civilian casualties consisting of media personnel due largely to the amount of reporters in Iraq as well as the new view Iraqi terrorists groups have taken of the American media. The media has become a way for these groups to voice their opinions and their demands, and ultimately, a way for them to be sure that their message is heard all over the world, not just by the coalition’s military forces and their leaders.

The only uncertainty now is where the press will take their role in war time during future conflicts, and how the press’ increasing influence will continue to shape the movement of the military. The press holds a tremendous amount of pull due to their business; information is the top commodity in today’s society. The media has changed the perceptions of how war is fought, how the government reacts during war, and ultimately changed the amount knowledge the public holds. Through reporting, the media will continue to change the foundation of war, and it all started with the Gulf War and the backlash of censorship.