Misunderestimating the public: Press gatekeepers may fret about information, but the average Joe is swimming in it

Reason, Feb, 2002 by Sam MacDonald

The first forum, called "Lessons of Wars Past," featured megastars Ted Koppel, Peter Arnett, and Daniel Schorr. (Schorr got his start as a foreign correspondent in 1946; he's now at National Public Radio and still working.) It was full of musings about the proper way to cover a war and the government's stubborn refusal to hand out information.

Schorr reminisced that in World War II--unlike today--front-line correspondents wore standard military uniforms. "They were a part of something called the war effort," he said. "They would go and ask, 'Would it be harmful if I reported this?'...That got lost somewhere." Schorr argued that such close cooperation between the military and the press began to deteriorate in Korea and Vietnam as the government tried to more closely "manage" what journalists reported. He said that press relations with the military have "been going very rapidly downhill" ever since.

For his part, Koppel railed at the current administration's attempts to strong-arm broadcasters into keeping Osama bin Laden's video releases off the air, because they might contain secret messages. "I thought at the time, what a totally stupid argument," he said, noting quite sensibly that people who really wanted to see it could find the footage online.

The best exchange of the series probably came at the November 8 forum, when someone asked Army Col. Bill Darley if the military would ever allow reporters to "embed" with Army Rangers on special operations missions. "The short answer, under current circumstances, no," Darley said. After discussing it momentarily, his long answer turned out to be even more emphatic: "At the present time, embedding is out of the question. That's the bottom line."

In some ways, discussions like these are essential. The media must provide people with the information they need to assess the war effort, its aims, and its progress. In other ways, however, the debate is pointless.

While it is appropriate to praise the courage and determination of a frontline press corps operating under very tough conditions, it is far too early to offer more than cursory judgment of the coverage. Weekly panels notwithstanding, this really is first-draft history, and we may have reason tomorrow to revise our view of the stories that we are reading and watching today. We simply have no idea of the full context of the war, much less the stories that reporters may be missing or possibly misunderstanding.

Anyway, the real media story isn't potential cutbacks in coverage; it's the vastly greater opportunities to follow this war than have ever existed. Americans can turn to traditional local and national coverage, both in print and online. But they can also call up digital coverage by a staggering number of sources near and far, including accounts by the British press, the Pakistani press, and even Al Jazeera.

A major complaint at media forums both before and after the attacks has been that the public "forced" journalists to cover such unseemly issues as the Condit affair. CNN'S Aaron Brown recently had something useful to say about that. Shortly after the attacks, Brown reported an update in O.J. Simpson's road rage trial. He paused after the report, then looked into the camera. "Oh, for the days," he said, when O.J.'s problems seemed important.