Two natural adversaries,
bound together
By David Mazzarella
Stars and Stripes ombudsman
Men and women at war — mostly those who fought in World War II — have drawn
much media attention in recent weeks.
The movie "Pearl Harbor" opened with saturation coverage and TV specials. A
little earlier, "Enemy at the Gates" had come out about the siege of Stalingrad.
Several books were published, including "American Patriots," about black
soldiers in history, and "Ghost Soldiers," about U.S. POWs in the Pacific. Tom
Brokaw issued a sequel to his book "The Greatest Generation," which extolled the
men and women who fought both a depression and a world war.
Memorial Day, the anniversary of D-Day on June 6 and the Army’s birthday on June
14 offered more opportunity to evoke merited appreciations for those who put their lives
at risk to protect American democracy.
At the same time, there has been a fair amount of discussion about the media’s
relations with the military. "Secrets of War," another recent book, recounted
how the World War II Office of Censorship played cat and mouse with U.S. radio stations
and newspapers. In Arlington, Va., the Newseum, a storehouse of journalism information and
artifacts, opened an exhibit featuring war correspondents, called "War Stories."
A booklet written for the exhibit by former London Times editor Harold Evans noted that
there was ongoing tension between the press and the military. Last year, the retiring
commander in chief of the U.S. Central Command, Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, had warned in
an address that relations between the media and the military were woeful. The press had
its good and bad points, he said, but on the military side, "the message is clear:
‘avoid the media. … They are the enemy. Don’t be straight with them.’
And that is bad."
Later I talked at length with Gen. Zinni. He said he was convinced the media "just
wants the truth and access," but added he had had his problems with the press —
such things as incorrect headlines and shallow editorializing.
Participants in a panel that the Newseum put on to kick off its exhibit debated these
points. CBS correspondent Morley Safer said media coverage of Vietnam was free and open,
but now "the clamps have come down. The iron door has come down. The stake is through
the heart of any kind of openness in warfare." He referred to U.S. military
operations in such places as Granada and Panama, and to the Gulf War.
James Webb, former Navy secretary, countered that "the U.S. [military] is the most
open of the major nations with the media." (He added, however, that public affairs
officers in his former department were "quite frequently Doberman pinschers.")
When there are problems, he said, they likely stem from the fact that relatively few
reporters nowadays have been in the service, and from a feeling the military has of being
"disconnected" from the rest of society. How different this is from the days
when the entire country was behind the effort to defeat the Germans and Japanese in World
War II, and a reporter named Ernie Pyle became famous living, and eventually dying, among
the GIs whose wretched conditions he faithfully chronicled.
The press-military tension often comes from that nettlesome question of whether the
person with the proverbial pen is a citizen first or a journalist first. Some years ago,
there was a PBS television program that brought prominent citizens together to be
intellectually prodded by a host who threw hypothetical situations at them. In one of
these shows, the host asked TV anchor Peter Jennings what he would do if, while on patrol
with a guerrilla force fighting U.S. troops, he learned that the guerrillas were going to
ambush the Americans.
Jennings, visibly pained by such a prospect, said he wouldn’t be able to go on
with the guerrillas; he would flee and try to alert the Americans. The host put the same
question to Mike Wallace, known for his tough journalistic tactics. Wallace didn’t
hesitate. He was a journalist first, he said, there to cover the news however it was made.
I don’t think Wallace made many friends among Americans viewing that program. But
he made his case so forcefully that it swayed Jennings. On reflection, the anchor said, he
thought he would follow Wallace’s lead after all.
Although the circumstances were far different, a Stars and Stripes article last month
also brought to light the ambiguity that accompanies Americans in the media reporting on
Americans in the military. The article quoted some soldiers at a camp in Bosnia as saying
they were short on ammunition.
Three letters to the editor castigated the newspaper for, as one of them put it,
showing "a blatant disregard for the lives of the soldiers" by printing
information that could help hostile forces. That’s one argument. The other is that
if, in fact, the troops lacked sufficient ammunition, bringing that to light could have
rectified that situation and made them safer.
Stars and Stripes editor Bill Walker says that if the media had publicized the lack of
heavy U.S. armor in Somalia, perhaps the needed tanks would have been provided, and the
lives of U.S. Rangers would have been saved. President Kennedy once said that if the press
had printed what it knew beforehand about the Bay of Pigs invasion plans, that catastrophe
in Cuba could have been avoided.
I think it was proper to publish the ammunition story. The reporter did not rush into
print but talked with officials, uncovering a difference of opinion as to the ammunition
needed. Still, the danger remained of a tip-off to forces that would do the Americans
harm. For that reason, I agree with those who criticized the article’s too-precise
reporting of just what ammunition the soldiers said they had, down to rounds per weapon.
Those facts, and perhaps the identity of the camp, could have been disguised.
The tension between press and military will continue. The press feels it serves
democracy by questioning the military’s actions and reporting the facts. The military
sees secrecy as important, at times, to protect troops and its ability to fight an enemy.
As a wise man once said: "There can be few professions more ready to misunderstand
each other than journalists and soldiers."
Yet soldiers and journalists are bound together, if for no other reason, by the
difficulty and danger of their jobs. Stars and Stripes recently reported that 35
servicemembers lost their lives between Memorial Day 2000 and Memorial Day 2001 in the
European and Pacific theaters. Causes ranged from jet crashes to heart attacks while on
duty. The Freedom Forum, owner of the Newseum, said 26 journalists were killed while
covering news around the world last year. Demonstrating how the face of war has changed,
one of the victims, American Kurt Schork, was shot to death in Sierra Leone — far
from territory on which U.S. forces were engaged.
The press should remember, as William J. Small wrote in a book about the Gulf War, that
"the First Amendment does not guarantee the best sound bite, the best ratings share,
or a Pulitzer prize for every journalist who wants to cover a war."
On the other side, the military should realize that distortion, propaganda and undue
secrecy betray its charter. James Webb told the Newseum panel: "There’s a
natural tension … [but] the military needs the media to articulate itself to the
country."
To comment on this column or any issue you have as a reader, e-mail David
Mazzarella at: ombudsman@stripes.osd.mil or
fax him at (703) 761-0890, or phone at (703) 761- 0945.
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