by Ron Kaufman
Sometimes on television, what is not seen is as important as what is seen. The images to the right of this article where never shown on American television during the 2003 war in Iraq. Television coverage of the war showed many things, however, much was left off the air. The reason none of these images were shown on TV is not out of any great patriotism by TV networks or some conspiracy between TV and the US government. Television, at its core, is about ratings. Television producers are not concerned with what people want to watch or what people should watch, but with what people will watch. Eyeballs on the screen.
The images to the right of this article are both disturbing and emotional.
They show the effects of war and they show the truth. These pictures were taken
by media from around the world as well as respected American news agencies like
the Associated Press and Reuters. They were mostly found around the Internet
from independent websites, however many were found on Yahoo! Pictures. Many
of these images are hard to view. Many of them make me cry.
The reason pictures such as these were not shown on television was because of how they make people feel, not because they were obscure or because TV producers didn't have access to them. The images to the right show the effects of war in its bloodiest and heart-wrenching form. These pictures should make thinking people question war and question the politics that lead to armed conflict. To many people, these hurtful images will make them feel bad. These pictures are hard to look at and bring up hard questions.
Television is a simplistic medium. Television is not meant to bring up hard questions or make someone feel bad. If people feel bad while watching TV, they'll turn off the set. Producers of war coverage don't want the TV sets off -- they want them on! The only way to keep people watching is to make people feel good about war.
I watched many hours of ABC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox News and CNN during March and
April, 2003 after the United States and Great Britain invaded Iraq. What disturbed
me was the triumphant music, 3-D graphics and TV news hosts reading teleprompters.
None of the images disturbed me. Nothing that TV showed during the first two
months of war made me wince or cry. In fact, when watching American coverage
of the war in Iraq, I hardly felt anything at all. To be honest, much of the
time, I just felt bored.
Watching war on TV is not like watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger film. There wasn't really too much action. There was a lot of talking by news hosts and analysis by retired generals. The film TV played was usually of a blown up building or smoking oil field. There were explosions off in the distance and glass shattering. There was lots of talking. Some stations showed video tapes of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein walking around. There were "Live" shots of Baghdad and Kuwait City. White House correspondents talked about President George W. Bush and members of the U.S. Congress. Pentagon correspondents talked about the troops and military equipment. There were lots of graphics and animations. CNN had computer-rendered 3-D terrains of Iraq. There was lots of talk about Iraq's possible weapons of mass destruction (and how it could not be found) and how the military was wearing chemical weapons suits. Pictures of the troops training and video of aircraft carriers. And lots of video tape of President Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. And more talking.
Nothing disturbing or shocking would ever appear. News reports talked about
casualties (of US war dead -- with little or no mention of British or Iraqi
casualties) but did not show bodies or blood. There was talk about military
hospitals and interviews with medical personal, but no video of disfigured children.
The US media never talked about Ali Ismail Abbas, an Iraqi 12-year-old boy whose entire family (including pregnant mother) was killed by an American missile. Ali was left orphaned and crippled with terrible burns and no arms. His treatment at Kindi Hospital in Baghdad was covered by media from around the world. The case of Ali was discussed on the floor of the British Parliament. However, it never appeared on US television.
What the US media did show with great repetition was how the military rescued Jessica Lynch, a 19-year-old army private who was captured by Iraqi forces at the beginning of the war. Lynch was rescued by US special forces from an Iraqi military hospital.
What looks better on TV is the daring rescue of a cute blond-haired soldier, not a badly burned Iraqi boy with no arms.
The bottom line is that television networks wanted to make the war as bloodless as possible in order to boost ratings. And this tactic was a success. During the beginning of the war, viewership of CNN, Fox News and MSNBC tripled. In the first 19 days of the war, Fox averaged 3.3 million viewers, a 236% increase from the weeks preceding the war. CNN: 2.7 million, up 313%. MSNBC: 1.4 million, up 360%. By comparison, NBC Nightly News' war average during this same time period was 11.4 million viewers, ABC's World News Tonight was 9.9 million, and CBS got 7.5 million.
The biggest winner was Fox
News, whose pro-war stance boosted their ratings. The Fox & Friends
morning show was averaging around 3 million viewers a day for its 2 hour broadcast
with glowing reports of the war and gushing approval for all Bush administration
decisions. (Although, all these numbers appear small when you consider that
the singing contest American Idol's viewership in May, 2003 was 38.1
million viewers and an average primetime repeat of the comedy Friends
gets around 12 million viewers.)
One study, noted that although viewership of television news increased during the war, readership of newspapers did not (study released by the Readership Institute in April, 2003). "By a large margin, TV won in Iraq -- even in areas that papers expected to win," said RI Director John Lavine.
Nobody who watches TV wants to feel bad. The focus of American TV war coverage
was to make people feel good about the war and feel good about being an American.
While TV reports boasted "live coverage" of the conflict, the video
was sharply edited.
One of the most telling analyses focusing on TV networks' war coverage was done by the Project for Excellence In Journalism (PEJ). Their report, released in March, 2003 entitled "Embedded Reporters: What Are Americans Getting?", looked at the practice of allowing a TV reporter to travel with the combat troops. These "embeds" were filmed side-by-side with the soldiers. During the beginning of the war in Iraq, nearly 600 reporters were embedded with the military forces. These "live action" reports were detailed and rich in imagery. The embeds gave a sense of "being with the troops" and "moving into combat."
The PEJ report analyzed embedded reports from all the major US networks. The
report showed that 61 percent of the reports were live, the rest were taped.
Most embed reports lasted for about 100 seconds at the beginning of the war,
and over time the reports dropped to 5 or 10 second sound bites.
On camera action focused mostly on the reporters themselves speaking in front of military equipment or personnel and usually talking about combat or pre-combat activities. Although 21% of the action involved the firing of weapons, 10% of that showed non-human impact (impact on a building or vehicle), 11% just showed a weapon firing with no result filmed, and zero percent showed human impact.
"None of the embedded stories studied showed footage of people, either US soldiers or Iraqis, being struck, injured or killed by weapons fired," stated the PEJ report. "In other words, while 41% of stories concerned combat, half as many (21%) depicted that combat visually."
"In addition, the pictures were not graphic. Indeed, our subjective impression is that still photos published in newspapers were often more graphic, as were pictures on foreign television."
The PEJ report concludes that "watching the embedded reporting so far, it is becoming clear that the war is less like reality television than reality itself -- confusing, incomplete, sometimes numbing, sometimes intense, and not given to simple story lines.
"Reality television works because the producers who stage the shows together
wait until they have hours of tape, then cull through the footage to find the
plot, the critical turning points, the compelling characters. Such luxuries,
and such manipulations, are missing with war.
"The embedded coverage has made the war coverage richer, but also more difficult to absorb. It may be leading to more snap judgments . . . The battle has become more complex than computer generated maps that ex-generals can walk across."
At the war's end, television showed statues of Saddam Hussein being toppled
by US soldiers and video of troops giving out food and water to grateful Iraqis.
TV news spoke of the American war dead (which numbered around 100 in April,
2003), however almost nothing was said concerning Iraqi civilians killed, which
numbered more than 1,000. 
War should be tough and war should be harsh. Yet, American television reduced dead people to numbers on the screen and military movements to something out of a child's video game. TV shows what it wants to show and nothing more. TV shows the truth, but not the whole truth. An 8-year-old child with a burned face is the truth about war -- not Tom Brokaw's smile or Peter Jennings' hair.
Tonight at 9 PM don't miss The Bachelor! He's handsome, he's single, he's heir to a fortune. What lucky girl will he choose? And at 10, it's an ABC News Special Report: The Battle For Baghdad! This was ABC's Wednesday night lineup on April 9, 2003. I watched this "Special Report" and, as I guess you would suspect, no dead bodies or caskets got screentime following The Bachelor.
In the world of television, War is just another program -- it fits between Everybody Loves Raymond and CSI: Miami and is interrupted by commercials for Crest toothpaste, Volkswagen cars and Levi's jeans. War gets ratings -- and when it doesn't, it will get cancelled.
© 2003 by Ron Kaufman
"What does it matter to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
"Permanent good can never be the outcome of untruth and violence."
-- Mahatma Gandhi
