War and the Media

Paper Summary:

The paper discusses criticisms of the Iraqi war coverage as discussed by reporter Jon Sawyer and author Susan Carruthers ("The Media at War.") It argues that this "fog of war" amplifies problems in reporting that occur in peacetime, giving the public distorted information on well-known events such as the Jessica Lynch incident. Further, it argues that in the early stages of war, the media is sometimes too complicit in agreeing to government censorship, a problem that is now exacerbated by the prevalence of "embedded reporting" from the field.

From the Paper:

"In a strong critique of the role played by both the military and journalism in the recent war in Iraq, Jon Sawyer of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch argues that the media failed to provide accurate coverage of the conflict in proper context, leaving news audiences with an incomplete and sometimes downright inaccurate picture of the hostilities taking place. Certainly, war coverage is one of the most fundamentally daunting tasks for the media to report on. There is a fundamental disconnect between the goals of the military, which seeks to operate with as much secrecy as possible, and the media, which thrives on openness and public access to information."

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