Troop safety
vs. right to know
By David Mazzarella, Stars and Stripes ombudsman
For the media, telling people what happened on Sept. 11, 2001, was the relatively less
complicated part. Newspapers and television created an outpouring of words and images that
brought the horror home to millions around the world. They described the conflagrations,
the deaths, the survivors, the eyewitnesses.
More complicated is the ongoing coverage of what is now universally being called the
War on Terrorism. There are two basic questions:
¶ How can reporting of the war’s preparations take place in a way that does not
compromise the safety of America’s servicemembers and civilians? How does a news
organization avoid giving valuable information to terrorists?
¶ How can the media gain access to the action so it can be reported back to the
American public? The media’s primary role, after all, is to give people the news and
information they need in order to make reasoned decisions in a democracy.
The first question is the more volatile one at the moment, involving strong views from
the public. Two columnists for The Washington Post last week derided their own newspaper
for printing information that could have been construed as potentially aiding terrorists.
One was a graphic showing the hypothetical path of a private plane over Washington,
D.C., and the wind direction needed to drop anthrax spores, killing millions. The other
was an interview with a crop duster pilot who described the most effective nozzle for
spraying chemical or biological weapons. Readers had complained about both items.
Stars and Stripes readers also complained, because this newspaper too published the
private-plane-wind-direction graphic. Even if a terrorist needed nothing of that graphic
to sow mayhem, its publication under the circumstances was unseemly.
One reader wrote: "With all the circulation of this paper around the globe, are
you not the least bit concerned about who may be reading this?"
Stars and Stripes is in fact concerned about publishing information that compromises
security.
Recently, Executive Editor Bill Walker issued a memorandum to the staff noting:
"We walk a fine line in balancing our newsgathering efforts against the concerns we
have for the safety of our readers, the U.S. military and their families." The memo
went on to urge caution in reporting ship and aircraft movements, as well as those of
individuals and units, and of threat condition levels at U.S. bases.
In the days before the policy was distributed, Stars and Stripes articles reported the
exact arrival plans of two fighter squadrons at their bases, and the approximate arrival
date of a missile cruiser at another base. One article identified five bases in Pakistan
that might be made available to U.S. troops [information about three of them were provided
by The Associated Press].
Is such information useful to sophisticated terrorists who have their own networks of
newsgathering agents? Probably not. Could it be useful to more amateurish terrorists
acting in free-lance mode? Maybe. Even in Vietnam, a war in which journalists had great
freedom, the movement of units was not written about until they had arrived at their
destinations, according to veteran CBS correspondent Morley Safer, who spent much time
there.
Many in the public are squarely on the side of more secrecy. One letter writer to Stars
and Stripes said: "The media lets the entire world know about our personnel,
movements and equipment, the same tools we use to destroy the enemy."
At the same time, for all the sensitivity it needs to show for such concerns, the press
cannot be paralyzed in its role of informing the public. And commanders cannot use the new
war footing to block legitimate newsgathering. Some have tried.
A reporter at a Pacific base was ordered off the grounds, not for anything he had
written, but because the commander evidently wanted NOTHING written. At another base, a
reporter was sat down by officials and told what he could and couldn’t report —
before he had reported anything. Such attempts should be fought strenuously.
There will be disagreements over what guidelines the military and the press should
adopt to avoid endangering the public. What makes sense is to decide the coverage
case-by-case. Some U.S. bases will be in more sensitive surroundings than others.
The second question — how can the media gain access to the action — is a
tough one, not the least because so far there hasn’t been much action at all. In
Vietnam journalists had more or less free rein. In the Gulf War, they were placed into
supervised groups and they complained of seeing little. What looms now is a conflict in
which much of the action will be by small commando-type units to which journalists would
not be invited. So be it. Issues of safety and security override the desire for
free-wheeling reporting in such situations.
But secrecy cannot become an end in itself. Many in the media fear this may result from
the tight-lipped mood evident from the White House on down through the ranks of
government. A corollary of that is the concern that a news blackout of many operations
could give rise to manipulation of information.
So far, thankfully, there has been no evidence of that, and Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld told a news conference recently, "I will never lie to you."
But newspeople are a skeptical lot, and they will be looking for signs of
disinformation from the military. Just as the military will be looking for signs of
irresponsibility from the newspeople.
To comment on this column or any issue you have as a reader, e-mail David
Mazzarella at ombudsman@stripes.osd.mil,
fax him at (202) 761-0890 or call him at (202) 761-0945.
Back to October stories
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