Christie LaBarca
Myths & Images in the Media
December 2008
Term Paper
The War in Iraq has now been going on for over five years. The conflict is full of an infinite amount of social problems, such as human rights, war crimes, and others that have often been discussed and researched. There is one aspect, however, that is overlooked by people. While our soldiers remain in this gruesome war that has no clear end in sight, the American people and media just don’t seem to be paying attention. Media coverage of the war for the past two years has declined significantly. We are also failing to pay adequate attention to the soldiers returning home, many of whom end up suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and have also been mistreated by military administrative officials. While most people may not initially see this, I believe this is a social problem in itself. What does it say about America when people are not aware of what is going on? Shouldn’t people be asking questions? How can a war that is responsible for the death of thousands upon thousands of people (analysts estimate Iraqi deaths to be in the hundreds of thousands) not receive attention and media coverage? And how can we allow the soldiers fighting for our country to come home and receive inadequate treatment? I’m going to be analyzing how media outlets and Americans have recognized, or failed to recognize, the decline of attention to the Iraq War, and the way they have illustrated soldiers returning home from the war.
The Iraq War received a considerable amount of media coverage and public attention for the first few years up until 2007. According to the Project for Excellence in Journalism, the decline started slowly in January of 2007 and dropped significantly in September 2007 after General Petraeus announced the “success” of the Surge in Iraq and also when election coverage began. I remember being in a media and politics class in December of 2007 and discussing how the networks were beginning to act as if there was no war to even talk about. On June 17, 2008, CBS Chief Foreign Correspondent, Lara Logan made an appearance on “The Daily Show” with John Stewart and spoke about the difficulties she faces when attempting to get air time about the war. In one situation, she spent six months pleading to officials to position her embedded with the Navy Seals. She came out with a story, but her superior told her, “One guy in a uniform, looks like any other guy in a uniform.” She continued on saying, “I [was] on high value target raids taking some of the most high value fighters in Afghanistan, and I’m told, ‘unless it’s Osama Bin Laden, who cares about Mula, bens hag, whatever.’” Towards the end of the segment, after describing some of the horrific events she witnessed, John Stewart looked at her and said, “There were fifty-one people killed today….are we just numb? Have we lost our humanity with this entire situation?” She responded, “Yeah, we have.”
Logan’s interview with John Stewart triggered a strong response from the blogosphere, but with the exception of the New York Times, it wasn’t picked up by many major news outlets. On June 23, 2008, Brian Stelter wrote the article for the Times titled, “Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner.” Stelter wrote about several reporters who agreed with Logan saying they too find themselves frustrated trying to get their stories published. ABC News correspondent Terry McCarthy told the Times, “I’ve never met a journalist who hasn’t been frustrated about getting his or her stories on the air.” The Times says Logan has “echoed the comments of other journalists when she said that many Americans seem uninterested in the wars now. Mr. McCarthy said that when he is in the United States, bringing up Baghdad at a dinner party ‘is a conversation killer.’”
Soldiers coming home from Iraq are also having a hard time receiving attention, particularly, those whom are injured. On February 18, 2007 the Washington Post published the first of a series of articles written by Dana Priest, Anne Hull and Dana Milbank describing the inadequate care and administrative complications faced by Iraq Veterans at the Walter Reed Army Medical center in Washington D.C. A simple quote from the article demonstrates the problems at the VA hospital, “Disengaged clerks, unqualified platoon sergeants and overworked case managers fumble with simple needs: feeding soldiers’ families who are close to poverty, replacing a uniform ripped off by medics in the desert sand or helping a brain-damaged soldier remember his next appointment.” In addition many rooms the patients were placed in had unsatisfactory living conditions, “Signs of neglect are everywhere: mouse droppings, belly-up cockroaches, stained carpets, cheap mattresses.” Unlike Logan’s outcry, the articles about the VA hospital resulted in the panicking of military officials, an influx of media inquiries and a response from President Bush urging army officials to immediately “fix the problem.”
What do people think about the lack of attention we are giving to the war and our soldiers? For this paper, I conducted a brief survey and sent it around on the Internet to get an idea of how people viewed the media coverage of War in Iraq and its affect on returning soldiers. A total of twenty-eight people responded anonymously. When asked whether they believe there is enough media coverage of the war, 70% said no, 20% said yes and 10% said “I don’t know.” However, when asked what has gotten the most media coverage in 2008, 92.9% said the election, 14.3% said celebrities, 25% said financial crisis, and only 3.6% said the Iraq War. Respondents were allowed to pick more than one answer, and still only three picked the Iraq War. I asked why they think there is a lack of coverage, 48% said “Iraq War is not changing, there is nothing new happening.” The other two most popular answers, each receiving 24% were that the networks are only interested in making money, and people think it does not affect them. I found this interesting because all three of these responses tie in together and go along with what journalists and people on message boards are saying to explain the lack of coverage.
The networks are unfortunately businesses, before they are watchdogs and informers, therefore they respond to what they believe the consumer will be interested in. If the Iraq War is not changing, there is no “new” news to report, and people believe it does not affect them, the networks see no reason to report a story over the latest “news” concerning a celebrity entering rehab. This is how people are making sense of the lack of media coverage. As John Stewart put it, we have become numb. After viewing a message board on digg.com about the topic, one user responded by saying, “Paris Hilton is ‘Easy news.’ It’s not morally divisive, it’s not complicated, it’s a simple bite sized chunk of news for the everyman to banter over.”
The primary advocates of more media coverage have been the journalist themselves. Journalists, such as Logan, are the ones who are complaining about the lack of attention paid to the war. “Tell me the last time you saw the body of a dead American soldier, what does that look like? Who in America knows what that looks like? Because I know what that looks like, and I feel responsible for the fact that no one else does…..No one really understands,” she said on the Daily Show. She is very successful here in conveying the ignorance of Americans (which may not even be our fault). When she says no one understands, she makes you ask yourself, “Okay so I know this war has been going on for five years, people are dying, but did I ever stop and think about them?” “The soldiers feel forgotten.” The word forgotten is an effective word to use because it conveys a sense of emptiness; I do not see how one cannot feel empathy for the soldiers with that statement. She also gave her reason of why she doesn’t watch American news, which imposes feelings of embarrassment and almost stupidity upon Americans, “If I were to watch the news that you watch in the United States … I would just blow my brains out, because it would drive me nuts.” I watched this clip with one of my friends who came to a realization by saying, “She’s right. All I hear about is Britney Spears and I’m wondering whether people are still dying in Iraq.” The clip is here:
It was also journalists in the Walter Reed scandal who spent several months at the hospital observing conditions and talking with patients. According to Kelly Kennedy, who appeared on MSNBC on March 1, 2007, the conditions at the VA hospital were actually already known by the government as they were reported in the Government Accountability Reports of March 2006. Additionally, “The Nation” reported that journalist Mark Benjamin has reported about the VA conditions in lower-level publications several times in the past, none receiving widespread attention. So what was the difference? Why did it take a year for action to finally be taken? The Washington Post is obviously more prominent; it reached a lot more people, and created more of a public response. When taking into account what Logan said about the difficulties of getting your story run, it’s safe to say the same is true for newspapers. The journalists might have had the story for awhile, just waiting and struggling for publication.
The journalists (and I as well) believe these are serious social problems because these people are fighting in our name, sacrificing their lives, and we don’t even have a realistic idea of what they are going through. It is understandable that the media does not want to upset Americans with the atrocities of war. However, many argue, if we do not get the information that we need from correspondents such as Logan, how do we know whether we should even be in the war? I have to believe that if there was more public attention to this war, it would be closer to being over. An interesting user comment to the daily show video as it was posted on the website “Think Progress:”
“I suspect that one of the reasons why the Vietnam War received so much protest (besides the fact that the draft was alive and well at the time) was that it was delivered, unfiltered for the most part, directly to America’s living rooms. In the era before cable news, networks cared more about providing news than they did about following political marching orders.”
Another user agreed with this comment:
“Tom Clancy said it best, “The control of information is something the elite always does, particularly in a despotic form of government. Information, knowledge, is power. If you can control information, you can control people.” That’s what this Administration’s been doing since day one.”
These comments also convey the idea that the “villains” are viewed as the federal government, the military, and the media outlets. Society thinks it is the federal government and military that is filtering the news so that we don’t see the horrors of war that would cause protest the way it did in Vietnam. It partly is, but to what extent we can’t be entirely sure. The embedded journalist approach to journalism on war that the government has implemented for Iraq has received mixed responses. It is constructive that journalists can witness events first hand, but this also gives the government the ability to limit what the journalists write about. Additionally, after the Washington Post’s investigation, the military told soldiers not to talk to the press and started imposing strict regulations that only soldiers who are deployed or in training must follow. When Dana Milbank wrote in Washington’s Post about a hearing at the House Armed Services subcommittee over a year after their investigative articles, she depicted the military leaders as anxious, but guilty. “The anxiety, even for men with two or three stars on each shoulder, was to be expected.” After acting imprudently towards the conditions they knew existed in Walter Reed, they were culpable for their carelessness.
The media outlets are seen as villains as well because of how hard investigative journalists have to compete and fight to get their worthy stories published or aired. The New York Times spoke to journalists at three American television networks who “expressed worries that their news organizations would withdraw from the Iraqi capital after the November presidential election. They spoke only on the condition of anonymity in order to avoid offending their employees.”
The soldiers are (legitimately) portrayed as the victims, who have been advocated to “fight for their country” by joining the military, with the government promising to take care of them. They are depicted as feeling unappreciated as Logan insinuated when she said they “feel forgotten.” The Walter Reed scandal uses imagery and significant language to enhance the victim status:
“Soldiers discharged from the psychiatric ward are often assigned to Building 18. Buses and ambulances blare all night. While injured soldiers pull guard duty in the foyer, a broken garage door allows unmonitored entry from the rear. Struggling with schizophrenia, PTSD, paranoid delusional disorder and traumatic brain injury, soldiers feel especially vulnerable in that setting, just outside the post gates, on a street where drug dealers work the corner at night.”
This description inflicts sympathy upon the reader for the soldier patients as well as disgust for whoever is responsible, which of course, is the intention. “On the worst days, soldiers say they feel like they are living a chapter of ‘Catch 22.’ The wounded manage other wounded. Soldiers dealing with psychological disorders of their own have been put in charge of others at risk of suicide,” writes Priest and Hull in their Walter Reed article. The words clearly place the soldiers in the victim category, “worst,” “dealing with,” and “risk.” In the following video is Arthur, an Iraq Veteran who suffers from PTSD and has just been released from an impatient program for combat vets:
Arthur has been released from the impatient program, but it clear that he is still severely suffering. This clip is from the MTV Program, True Life: “I have PTSD.” The returning soldiers from Iraq lately have been getting more media attention. After five years, the issue begins hits close to home, with broadcasts such as these. This reaffirms the idea that Americans tend to forget things that happen “over there” (as in Iraq, thousands of miles away).
There are several support groups for Iraq War Veterans, such as the Yellow Ribbon Fund and the Wounded Warrior Project which provide mostly monetary or physical support. There are organizations such as the Community of Veterans that exist primarily to help veterans with mental health problems, such as Arthur who we just saw. These groups are beneficial, and have good intentions for Iraq Veterans, but they fail to push media coverage to the level it should be. This program shown on MTV is certainly progress, but unless you happen to catch the show, it was not covered by other news outlets. I did a Google news search with the term, “mtv ptsd,” only three results were shown. PTSD has been covered slightly by the media, but that is a whole issue in itself, and it still has not been brought to widespread public attention.
After doing a thorough search, I found that the interest groups that aim to be media watchdogs have not given much attention to the declining media coverage on the Iraq War. Most of their web sites referenced me to the articles I have previously mentioned. There is no interest group advocating for media coverage in Iraq, although there definitely should be. As I stated before, it is individuals, usually journalists.
The soldiers returning home from Iraq have been receiving more attention from the media thanks to journalism, such as the Washington Post’s investigation, that has brought the issue to a higher level. However it is still nowhere where it needs to be. Everyone is still not aware of the conditions and traumas they have experienced. Moreover, the war has not received enough media coverage, or attention from Americans. People do not seem to be listening to the Iraq War Veterans when they return home. If we listened, maybe we would be more opposed to the war, maybe we would be more prone to fight against it, and protest it. Maybe, if we listened, the veterans wouldn’t be experiencing so many emotional problems.
So whose fault is it that the media coverage has declined? Is it ours? I personally would have to say partially no. The Iraq War does not hit home for people because they don’t know what is going on. If the networks tomorrow were to start broadcasting the specifics of what was going on in Iraq, you can guarantee there would be a public uproar. The social problem here is not the Iraq War though; it is the media coverage itself, or perhaps ultimately, the politics that govern the major networks in the country. How do you advocate something through media, when media is part of the problem? It is next to impossible. However through investigative journalism, blogs, and other forms of new media, we can only hope to go in the right direction. To end, I’d like to show this video where author Jeremy Scahill speaks about the problems of the media in the United States. He thinks if we can find the compassion we have felt for “local” issues such as the Virginia Tech shooting, towards the Iraq War, the Iraqi citizens and our soldiers, the war would likely be over.
Works Cited
“I have PTSD.” True Life. MTV. 25 Nov. 2008. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0POxbds4do>.
Frick, Ali . “Tell me the last time you saw….” Think Progress. 18 Jun. 2008.<http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/18/cbss-lara-loga>.
Logan, Lara. Interview with Jon Stewart. You Tube. 17 Jun. 2008. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT-Hq117w8s>.
Milbank, Dana “Oops! We Did It Again..” Washington Post 23 Jun. 2008. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic>.
Milbank, Dana “Painting Over the Problems at Walter Reed’s Building 18.” Washington Post 23 Feb. 2007. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic>.
Priest, Dana, and Anne Hull “Soldiers Face Neglect, Frustration at Army’s Top Medical Facility.” Washington Post 18 Feb. 2007. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/artic>.
Ricchiardi, Sherry “Whatever happened to Iraq?.” American Journalism Review Jun. 2008. <http://www.ajr.org/Article.asp?id=4515>.
Scahill, Jeremy. You Tube. 26 Mar. 2007. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3kQXs-KMIQ>.
Stetler, Brian “Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Backburner.” New York Times 23 Jun. 2008. <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/business/media/2>.
