Media Hoping to Lure Lynch Into Limelight

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 8, 2003

Byline: Woody West, INSIGHT

Pfc. Jessica Lynch, the 20-year-old Army supply clerk who was taken prisoner by Iraqis after her convoy took a wrong turn and was ambushed, is being pursued during her rehabilitation by the television boys and girls with rare fervor. Their questionable tactics illustrate the voracious appetite of the conglomerate media for the momentary sensation, by any means at their rich and glittering disposal. This sort of gambit illustrates the dismal mutation of news and information into a beast that neither is the one nor the other. This is a fairly recent phenomenon, and a growing one. In a "celebrity society" all experiences, events and personalities are for sale, of course, and bidding for the "celebrity" of the moment is portrayed piously as intended to be "inspiring" or "cautionary" or even "educational."

It is instructive, if that's the word, to examine the lures the media are trolling to get Lynch. Katie Couric, the sweetheart of NBC, sent her a bundle of patriotic books. ABC News' Diane Sawyer was more imaginative, dispatching a locket with a photo of Lynch's family home in Palestine, W.Va. CBS correspondent Jane Clayson tried a girlish approach, writing to the young woman and noting that they share the astrological sign of Taurus. "I hope you have a great day," gushed the reporter, referring to Lynch's birthday.

All this comes, by the way, from the New York Times. Since the turbulent regime change there, the newspaper may be reverting to harder news reporting or so one would hope after the Jayson Blair debacle. CBS has beckoned most beguilingly to the injured soldier so far. It dangled the possibility of a two-hour documentary of her lraqi capture, and additional come-hithers by other divisions within its parent corporation, Viacom. Mentioned also was a special on the soft-porn, raunchy-pop MTV to tell "this dramatic coming-of-age story," as well as an hour on MTV2 to be hosted by Lynch and her friends, plus a Country Music Television special in her hometown "featuring Country-Western artists."

Wait, Jessica, there's more! How does a made-for-TV film, with CBS producers working with the U.S. military, sound? And certainly a package like this wouldn't be complete without discussions about a book. An extensive public-relations campaign would get this rocket into orbit, cooed CBS. But heaven forfend, protested a CBS flack-catcher there was no promise of any of these goodies, "only the expression of interest in her story from other Viacom divisions."

An official at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington who has helped the Lynch family sort through the avalanche of media requests wasn't so sure: "Someone might think, 'Well, you're going to pay me for this, that and the other.'" (CBS also is making fervid overtures to Aron Ralston, the hiker in Utah who amputated his arm to free himself from entrapment by a boulder; the TV newsmagazine 60 Minutes asked to film Ralston's rehabilitation and offered to help him contact other Viacom divisions books, movies, the works.)

The workings are impressive: The Walt Disney Co. bought ABC in 1998, so there are intimate connections both to film and publishing. Ditto with CBS, since Viacom is the parent of Simon & Schuster, Paramount Studios and cable TV networks. NBC is in the big tent with General Electric. Even the least-skeptical soul couldn't but reckon that something very close to a promise is implicit in the CBS "expression of interest."

Lynch's appeal is immense a female GI from a small town who becomes a prisoner of war, suffers severe injuries and is rescued by Special Ops troops. The script, of course, will emphasize the liberals' beloved women-in-combat theme (11 soldiers from Lynch's convoy were killed, including another woman, and five others were captured and later freed). In short, the media that offer the most seductive package will use the young woman to make an ideological statement.

That Lynch has no memory of the events after the ambush, according to the Army, won't inhibit the media scripters. There were, you recall, initial reports that she fought the bad guys until running out of ammunition and suffering gunshot and bayonet wounds (a Washington Post "scoop" with anonymous sources). Though that and similar early versions were discredited Army doctors said at one point that she suffered no gunshot or stab wounds the various media portrayals will make her involvement in combat the context.

Let's be clear: Lynch and her fellow GIs, male and female, behaved bravely in the fight. Other women in the Iraqi campaign did their duty capably under often dangerous circumstances as well. That's not the point. Neither is the media scramble to get Lynch into the limelight. That may be understandable, but it is not at all dignified though the press in all its forms rarely is described as dignified. What we have here is a variant of "checkbook journalism" a ploy presumably more subtle than cash on the barrelhead, which reputable news enterprises condemn and usually avoid. The galaxy of possibilities CBS is dangling before Lynch would give the network the chance of a news/information minuet and big ratings.