Embedded Files
War sells news. It is undeniable that news, whether print, broadcast, or web-based, war reporting will always bring in an audience. The Gulf War made CNN a staple of cable news, and wars prior had produced some of the most iconic covers of print media. While in itself, this isn't an issue, it's important to see how reporting surrounding war can often be deceitful and is often a tool for certain outlooks to be spread to the public.
Pre Broadcast
War has always been a staple of the American press. Even before the formation of the U.S., newspapers such as the New York Gazette were reporting on the Seven Years' War and other conflicts of the time. In the lead-up to the revolution, newspapers proved invaluable to both Loyalists and Patriots. The Boston Massacre serves as a recognizable example of this media war that was ongoing up until the revolution ended. The Boston Gazzete, most famously, published their story with an engraving of the event done by Paul Revere. This publication would go on to fuel the flames of war and, alongside many other pro-patriot publications, would continue to quell support up until the end of the war.
Throughout the era of American imperialism, newspapers would continue to push the American agenda. The term “Manifest Destiny” was coined by John O’Sullivan in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. The publication was a partisan paper that pushed the ideas of the Democratic party of the time. This term was meant to justify the annexation of Texas from Mexico and was a rallying cry for the U.S. to break away from the Impositions of European powers. It would grow in popularity after He used the term again in the New York Morning News. After this second publication, it became a slogan for the Democratic Party’s ideology behind expansionism and would act as a justification for the Mexican American War.
(The Boston Massacre, Boston Gazette)
(The USS Maine, New York Journal)
By 1890, The U.S. was in the midst of transforming into a global superpower. Tension had begun to arise with the flailing Spanish empire over their territories in Cuba and The Philippines. Two media moguls, William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, began to capitalize on this tension by publishing false information about Spanish activity in Cuba, mobilizing the public into a fury and making them keen on American intervention. This came to a head when the USS Maine, an American warship docked in the Havana harbor, exploded and sunk on the night of February 15th, 1898. Hearst and Pulitzer began to publish that there was a plot to blow up the American vessel by the Spanish, which sparked outrage across the country and swelled support for a war, which did occur months later in April of that year.
The 20th Century would go on to host some of the most devastating conflicts in global history, and publications were there to report on all fronts. During the World Wars, the American press was heavily restricted on what they could and could not report on (See the Sedition Acts of 1917 and 1918). News began to be seen as an extension of the Homefront, a tool to continue the fight against the enemy. This is reflected in the stories of the time. The New York Tribune published the story of “The Rape of Belgium” in regard to the German invasion of Belgium. While there certainly were atrocities committed by the German army during this advance, many of the stories published in the American press were echoes of the British propagandist's unreliable stories fueling the Homefront. This practice would follow through the inter-war period and throughout the Second World War. Well before the Attack on Pearl Harbor, newspapers such as the Seattle Star were pushing for Exclusionary policies against Japanese immigration into the U.S. Headlines of the time read “Exclusion! The solution that means peace.” Once war broke out between The U.S. and Japan, a massive wave of anti-Japanese sentiment fueled the war and efforts for Japanese internment. Magazines such as Fortune began to publish anti-Japanese sentiments accompanied by racist depictions. The stereotypes that would become widespread through these articles remain in the public consciousness to this day and continue to reverberate.
The Broadcast Era
As the American hegemonic order began to globalize its power and clash with the Soviet Union, A new type of war came to the forefront. Proxy wars between the two clashing powers arose across the globe. Broadcast television development coincided with this shift in global conflict. The first war that can be seen as a “Television War” was, of course, the war in Vietnam. American viewers were given constant coverage of every facet of the war in gruesome detail in images. The press was also not censored in their coverage by the Military, leading to the heinous crimes committed by the military being reported on and known by average Americans. Media was a main factor in American dissolution from the war, and the military would remember that in future conflicts.
After the Vietnam War, the military took a new approach toward the media. Through constant debriefings and planned interactions by the military, they were able to transform the media into a walking propaganda machine. Coverage of the Nato intervention in Kosovo and the Gulf War exemplifies this premise. Both were quick operations on the Cold War's tail ends. In order for the military to maintain popularity amongst the populace, they took journalists to the conflicts and fed them Information directly from the military rather than allowing them to report on the real stories of the conflicts, This approach coincided with the 24-hour news cycle taking full effect on the American consumer market. CNN built its entire consumer base around constant coverage of the Gulf War, and unintentionally because of that, also on awful journalism.
(The initial strike on Baghdad during the Gulf War, CNN)
The war on terror is one of the longest conflicts in American history, spanning multiple countries and many different objectives. The conflict arose in the aftermath of 9/11, and instantly the label of “Islamic Terrorist” was pushed onto the masses. Nearly 25 years after the outbreak of this conflict, Islamophobia has remained a staple in both News and public discourse. After the attacks on the Twin Towers, hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S. Spiked by 1617%. Looking at the media coverage of the time, they failed to separate the religion of Islam from the attackers. They created mass fear of a group that had nothing to do with the extremist group that planned the attack. Islamophobic representation of Muslims has never left the headlines since that attack and the War On Terror began.
The War in Ukraine is the most recent conflict to be widely covered by American news agencies, and unlike the previous examples, is occurring in the Internet age. In the early stages of the conflict, most news that was being reported on were videos from Twitter and other similar social media sites. This was due to a lack of journalists in the region and broadcast stations opting to capitalize with constant coverage of these videos without fact-checking whether they were real. This quickly became an issue as it became apparent that an information war between both sides of the conflict had begun. Both Russian and Ukrainian-backed sources consistently falsified videos that would support their side and show that they were winning the conflict. Media sources actively chose to uphold the idea of constant coverage rather than wait for verified sources and videos to report on.
(Islamophobic Headline, New York Post, 2014)
Remedy
News outlets seem to fail to realize what role they can play in our nation's support for a conflict and believe they are bystanders just as the average citizen does. This mindset leads to lazy journalism and causes American news to become a pawn for the government's propaganda machine. There needs to be a change in how war is being reported on, and it starts with journalists and publications realizing that they are a cog in how the homefront operates at that time. Journalists must realize that the Military briefings they are given paint the picture that the U.S. wants to paint, not that of the real war. There also needs to be an understanding of demonization. Many of the continued stereotypes that exist about certain groups, whether it be Muslims, Hispanics, or East Asians, have come from times of conflict with those groups. Journalists must separate the ethnic groups from those engaged in conflict. Measuring this shift cannot be done in the moment of the reporting; only with retrospection and evaluation of the conflict's long-term effect can we see if acknowledging and learning from past failures have given journalists and publications a stronger ability to report war properly.
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