War Propaganda

Recently I posted a blog about an interview with CNN Chief International Correspondent, Christiane Amanpour I saw on tv. It seemed that she somehow felt that bloggers and citizen journalists were doing news telling a disfavor by their mere presence in the media landscape.

While this may be true in some aspects, let us not forget one thing: Being on the spot when news occurs does not automatically mean that the reporting is good, let alone objective. Last week I watched a movie in one of my classes that dealt with how the United States government has used propaganda in, before, and after, times of war ever since the Vietnam War. The film is called “War Made Easy” and I can recommend it to anyone interested in propaganda in politics.

Interestingly, in this movie Amanpour admitted that mainstream media basically were fooled by the government before and during the invasion of Iraq. “We were intimidated by the administration, she said.” At the time it seemed that most news media were afraid of being critical towards the war. Like most American people they were afraid of being viewed as un-American.

And why was that you might ask. I think that a lot of it has to do with an administration that is very skilled at spreading propaganda. In fact, what was supposed to be independent news outlets turned in to propaganda machines for the administration at this time and those reporters who dared to be critical had their shows cancelled.

During the course of the Iraq war we have seen journalists reporting directly from the battle field. Journalists are now closer to the action than ever before. This trend of having journalists embedded with American troops first occurred during the Vietnam War. The problem with this kind of reporting is that although the journalist might be close to the line of action he or she is only telling one side of the story. How impartial do you think a journalist who is stationed with a bunch a American soldiers in a war is? Not very, is the correct answer.

So I guess what I am getting at is that we shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that supporting American troops means turning a blind eye to the other side of the story. Especially when the other side is right. Nor should journalists who spend weeks with American soldiers in Iraq automatically be considered impartial to the conflict. Many of them are just instruments for the propaganda that all governments try to spread during a war.