"We must remember that in time of war what is said on the enemy’s side of the front is always propaganda, and what is said on our side of the front is truth and righteousness, the cause of humanity and a crusade for peace." (Walter Lippmann, 1922) It is said that in almost every conflict there are at least two grounds, the battlefield and the thoughts that occupy people’s minds through propaganda. Both sides can be found guilty of misleading people with subjectivity, distortions, exaggerations and inaccuracy in order to receive their support. The United States’ Senator Hiram Johnson said that "the first casualty when war comes is truth." (1917) In this essay it will be explored and analysed where truth exists in times of war. Nation-states have economic and political interests, which are often solved through conflicts. Governments need to persuade the public about the rightness of this conflict; therefore governments depend on the public opinion. Conflicts are not solved only through economic pressure or military intervention, but also, as Edmund Burke described the, by the "Fourth Estate" (Chadwick A., 2006) i.e., the Media. The Media plays a major role in war period, as they can shape the public’s opinion. In other words, they can manipulate the public’s opinion and beliefs. At times of war or at times where a war is being prepared to begin, extreme messages of several emotions, such as hate or honor, interplay to supply powerful propaganda for a specific mean. Therefore, it can be argued that military, government and media propaganda can go hand in hand at war times.

Media and Government

To begin with, it is important to analyze the extreme dimensions that media plays in the 21st century. Before the era of the "Fourth Estate," intergovernmental issues were carried behind closed doors, where diplomacy and subterfuge were the only pieces of the political game. The mass of people remained in the dark and they were relatively unfamiliar with their government’s activities, where only a small portion of educated elites could read about the government’s news in newspapers. However, as the mass media have rapidly faced a progress and they have monadic expanded, shortening the gap between the event and the reportage, "the foreign policies of states are pursued in the full glare of publicity." (Brian McNair, 2004, p. 188) Governments have realized the role of the mass media and of their power to shape public’s opinion, so governments and other political actors "use the media to influence public opinion on foreign policy in their favor." (Brian McNair, 2004, p.188)

However, as Kumar Deepa argues, there are shared economic and political interests that connect media and governments in war propaganda. For example, as it derives through Deepa’s article, United States’ media conglomerates such as Disney, Time Warner and Viacom, rely on the U.S. government to continue to be profitable and extent their influence. Governments protect media conglomerates’ interests domestically, through policies such as the Telecommunication Act of 1996, and internationally, through several institutions such as the World Trade Organization. To be more specific, the Telecommunication Act of 1996 has allowed to the media conglomerates for a sublime media concentration. Furthermore, institutions like World Trade Organization have promoted U.S. media investments. For example, as it is argued by Kumar Deepa, in the case of the war in Iraq, "the conquest of that country and the strengthening of U.S. control in the region allow US based media conglomerates and telecommunication giants to be better positioned to dominate Middle East markets."(2006) In addition, this kind of partnership between media and government and other political actors which converge war propaganda, arises from the concentration of the media and the "structural limitations of the current media system." (Kumar Deepa, 2006) The pressure that it has been pulled out over to the journalists by giant media conglomerates to increase the profit, has led to the diminishing of journalist ethics. An example of this and how it works is the Fox Effect. "The Fox news channel emerged, over the course of the war on Iraq, as the most watched source of news on cable. Fox’s approach to the war was self-consciously biased in favor of war, and it sought to tap into a conservative niche market. Anchors and reporters openly hided antiwar voices and abandoned any pretence of neutrality and objectivity. Despite the obvious violations of journalistic integrity, Fox received high ratings, and disturbingly other channels took steps to emulate Fox." (Kumar Deepa, 2006)

Moreover, there is also more long-term structural defectiveness that permits the media to be manipulated. "Excessive reliance on government and corporate sources, professional journalism’s defence to official sources, the lack of funding for investigative journalism, the marginalization of dissenting voices, and mechanism that promote self – censorship," (Kumar Deep, 2006) are some weaknesses that permits the media to be manipulates. Over last 20 years, in order to increase profit and decrease the costs, giant media conglomerates have downsized and released journalists. As a result of this, journalists’ information has been based upon cheap or free sources. Therefore, enormous amounts of information reach news media through public relations departments and the government, as these sources offer cheap and free information. "The Pentagon alone employs thousands of people and spends millions of dollars on its public relations every year." (Kumar Deepa, 2006) It is clear how the media rely upon government information and how this dependency between government and the news allows the manipulation of the news, when a combination with the beat system is done and when reporters are sent to established locations, such as the Pentagon, the White House and the State Department.

Media and the Cold War

Let’s examine some examples of wars over the years, and how government, media and propaganda existed and created their own images about the truth of war. One of the most age-long wars was the one of the Cold War, between the two ideologies, communism and capitalism. A mutual hostility was established between the superpowers, until Gorbachev became the new leader of the Soviet Union. In the years of the East – West conflicts, the capitalistic governments engaged diplomatic and economic sanctions against the Soviet Russia, followed by an intense campaign of propaganda. The aim was to lead their populations against communist and prevent them being harmonized with the communist ideology or socialism. The propaganda that started right after the revolution in 1918, was argued by historian Murray Levin, that was "initiated by a coalition of corporate, media and government interests," (McNair, 2004, p. 190) and he continues to say that it was organized "a nationwide public relations campaign to create the stereotype of rampant Bolshevism in the steel industry." (McNair, 2004, p.190) Levin continued to say, that the public relation campaign against the Soviet Union and communism was tendentious and scold and he reports that "newspapers portrayed the revolution as an orgy of mass murder, individual assassination, rape, pillage and slaughter. Bolshevik rule was described as a compound of slaughter, confiscation, anarchy and universal disorder." (McNair, 2004, p.191) As it was proved later, this unchecked rumors, atrocity stories and mouth to mouth gossips, created a conditions of political hysteria. For Levin, "the hysteria was an attempt to reaffirm the legitimacy of power elite capitalism and to further weaken workers’ class consciousness." (McNair, 2004, p.191) The importance of propaganda and its effectiveness successive results were shown, since by 1923 "one million workers had left the American trade unions movements," and by 1920 "the American Communist Party’s membership fallen from 70,000 to 16,000." (McNair, 2004, p. 191) It is also important to mention, how giant conglomerates media participated in this war propaganda. Hollywood was not unconcerned about the propaganda that was magically developed in the West. Many films, such as Comrade X and Ninotchka, outlined the message that the US elite wanted to give to the public, the Soviet Russia as an economically, politically and morally inferior. The American actors who played Bolshevik roles were presented as cold and austere ideologues, where when a beautiful woman came along, such as Greta Garbo, then they were relaxed and they desired to joy the American capitalism. "These films complemented journalistic accounts of Bolshevik atrocities and contributed to the consolidation of anti-Bolshevik, anti-Left ideology at the heart of American culture and politics" (McNair, 2004, p. 192)

The Cold War is a period of time where thankfully it did not involve direct military intervention between the two Poles. However, there were times that a Hot War was ready to start or even some proxy wars were fought in that period where the Superpowers were involved, for example, in the Angola Civil war, in Chile, in El Salvador, in Guatemala, in Nicaragua, in Cuba and in Grenada. In such military conflicts, one factor that cannot be ignored is that of the public opinion. It is so important that governments get into all that trouble to estimate all the best options of how to present an event. For example, the war in Vietnam became the first television war. By 1964 a larger scale involvements was required, and Johnsons’ Administration created the "Gulf Tonkin incident." They claimed that an American destroyer called Maddox was fired at by the Communism Vietnamese in an unprovoked incident. This was proved to be untrue. However, it gave US government the congressional resolution he needed to prosecute the Vietnam War. Moreover, with this incident the US achieved to win a heightened role in this conflict with domestic and international consent. "The media were willing partners in this deception." (kumar Deepa, 2006)

Media and the Pool System – Falklands, Grenada and Panama Conflicts

The next major governmental attempt to control the media and the material that they are able to achieve to have in their hands, is what it is called Pool System. This Pool System was put into practice by the next major invasion by the US in Panama in 1989. During this War the Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, created a "Washington – based pool". (Kumar Deepa, 2006) Because at the time there were not any satellite facilities, this pool based system was achievable. Therefore, it gave the ability to Washington to choose the reporters that would participate and report war news. In the case of Panama, Cheney insisted that "the most knowledgeable reporters, those with some experience and knowledge of Panama, would not be in the region." (Kumar Deepa, 2006) Furthermore, taking the successful case of Grenada, Cheney decided to do not inform the reporters about the beginning of the war until the war would be i progress and it would be too late to capture the information and pictures they would want to have. As Kumar Deepa outlines, "journalists found that they had little information and no pictures other than what the Pentagon had provided them and this is what they reporter." (2006) The same Pool system was used with the conflicts in Falklands. Robert Harris study of the media and government relations during the war in the Falklands noted that "the special circumstances of the Falklands campaign ensured that the government had unique control over how war appeared on television." (Brian McNair, 2004) Ultimately, governments and military planners had finally invented a system of media control. They managed to restrict the access to the battlefield and as a result to decrease the coverage of true pictures of cruelty and casualties. Moreover, the pictures of war that the media will manage to captivate will be strictly military approved. Furthermore, they have achieve to create a "pool" of subjective and loyal to the government’s thesis journalists, who they could obviously rely upon them, as those journalists will drum up the government’s and military planners thesis and views. This Pool System of journalists allowed the military to control the media and to inspect and restrict where they went and what they saw, as journalists were taken to specific selected areas, where the military wanted them to go and see, and they were allowed to interview soldiers only with the presence of a military minder. In addition, as it is written by Kumar Deepa, reporters were not allowed to publish a story until a military planner inspected it and approved it to be published.

Media and the Gulf War I & II

The victory of the Falklands provided important lessons in how to manage public opinion in times of military conflict, as journalists were almost excluded from covering the fighting. Media’s exclusion from the scenery of war was an example of this victory, as in contrast with the inclusion of media coverage and organization access to the battlefield in Vietnam. This victory of the Falklands rescued the government of Thatcher and allowed her to be re-elected in 1983. The victory in Grenada, following the same pool system strategy as Thatcher’s government, allowed Reagan’s government to be elected in 1984 with great success. These facts, seems to confirm the value of the Pool System, and maintain restrictions towards the journalists in areas were fighting is going on, to control the media and do not allow the journalist to freely wander around the battlefield, seeing and reporting whatever they want. Therefore, the same approach was used for the Gulf War military crisis. The involved countries in this War, United States, United Kingdom, Iraq and Kuwait used enormous media campaigns. For the United States and United Kingdom the means that were used was influenced by the experiences of the conflicts mentioned above. As a result, the policy that was used was a reduction to the access of journalists to the battlefield, while increasing the control of those figures which did emerge. Arthur Humphries quoted in Macarthur, "the news media can be a useful tool or even a weapon in prosecuting a war psychologically, so that the operators don’t have to use their more severe weapons." (1992, p. 145) However, the objectives of the police were not only military as it is mentioned above, but also political, as the governments of the United States and United Kingdom had to convince their population that the war was just, and avoid any unwanted reactions from the unpredictable and potentially vast consequences. This kind of mission was complicated, having in mind that Saddam Houssein, Iraq’s leader, had been partner and strict cooperator with the West in the 1980s and he had also been a receiver of military equipment from the United Kingdom and other Western countries during the war with Iran. Furthermore, as it is proved by Kellner Douglas Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a receiver of "chemical and biological weapons during the 1980s" (2004) Kellner Douglas continued to argue that, "the media seemed to ignored the historical connections between the US and Iraq and developed collective historical amnesia on this issue." (2004) However, Iraq was the enemy now and people had to be pursued about the rightness of the war. As John Macarthur writes during the War, "on August 2, when Hussein grabbed Kuwait, he stepped beyond the imaginings of the practitioners of real-politik. Convincing Americans to fight a war to liberate a tiny Arab sheikdom ruled by a family oligarchy would require the demonization of Hussein in ways never contemplated by human rights groups. It called for a frontal assault on public opinion such as had not been seen since the Spanish – American War. The war had to be sold." (1992, p.42)

The 9/11 events gave the opportunity to the neoconservatives and Bush’s administration to develop their campaign for their vision of world politics. This vision is well described in the documents of the Project for a New American Century (1997) by many high positioned individuals in Bush’s administration, such as "Vice President Dick Cheney, his chief of staff Lewis Libby, Chief of Pentagon adviser Richard Perle, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsheld and his deputy Paul Wolfwitz" (Kellner Douglas, 2004) In these documents there was the argument that the USA "should use overwhelming military force to take control of the gulf region," (Kellner Douglas, 2004) and it continued to say that it was necessary to have "some catastrophic event like a new Pearl Harbor." (Kellner Douglas, 2004) Paradoxically, this desirable event happened one year later in the form of 9/11 and the Bush’s administration grabs the opportunity to use this event as its propaganda campaign to win the public’s support for the impeding war in Iraq. The 9/11 event terror attack occupied the programming on TV for the next days, without any commercial breaks, as all the networks were focused on the attack and what it is ought to happen next. "For several days US television suspended broadcasting of advertising and TV entertainment and focused solely on the momentous events of September 11," (Kellner Douglas, 2004) as the opportunity to campaign US vision of world politics had come. The Pool System was again in use as journalists Russel Mokhiber and Robert Weissman noted, "White House press passes are hard to come by if you are known to be a reporter who asks tough questions." Kumar Deepa argued that on the 6th, March, at Bush’s prime time news conference, "the press conference was so tightly controlled that even compliant White House journalists were irate. Bush called only on reporters he wanted from a pre-determined list, while following a tight script, emphasizing 9/11 and repeating the same points again and again." (2004) This kind of attitude towards the journalists gave out the message that either the journalists should censor their selves, or otherwise they would face discipline. Having in mind this, I the time of the war media provided images that were desired by the Pentagon and Bush Administration. For example, the destruction of Saddam Hussein’s statue on live global television with significant images of Iraqis celebrating the casualty of Hussein, were aiming to provide material for significant victory. However, a further analysis of this event, revealed that there were just few people attacking Hussein’s statue, while most of the square was vacuumed. As it is argued by Kellner Douglas, "Those attacking the statue were largely members of the US supported Iraqi National Congress." (2004)

Conclusion

To conclude, as Kellner Douglas argued, the media have become "the arms of conservative and corporate interests" (2004) because of the concentration of ownership. Therefore, instead of the media to become the arms of the people and act in their interest, they promote the interests of political and economical elites. Furthermore, the abundance or research shows that "the mainstream media have a long history of supporting the efforts of the government during war." (Kellner Douglas, 2004) An example of this can be the war in Iraq in 2003, where the media seemed to ignore the historical connections between the Western countries and Iraq, where "Saddam Houssein was an ally of the US" (Kellner Douglas, 2004) It is important to mention that in some part this evolution and cooperation between the media and military industrial propaganda system is done consciously and voluntarily. For instance, as it is described by Kumar Deepa, "Bush advisers Karl Rove and Mark McKinnon met with the heads of Viacom, MGM and others after 9/11 to discuss how the media could ‘help’ the government’s efforts." (2004) Furthermore, Boyt – Barrett insisted that CIA covert extensive penetration of the media and this was exposed by an investigation done by the Senate Church Committee and House Pike Committee in the mid – 1970s. Boyt – Barrett in particular said that the "CIA had published hundreds of books whose purpose was to undermine the Soviet Union and communism. The agency owned dozens of newspapers and magazines worldwide." (2004) Carl Bernstein revealed in 1977 that "over 400 US journalists over 25 years had been employed by the CIA officers working under deep cover" and he continued to say that "nearly every major US news organization had been penetrated usually with the cooperation of top management." (Boyt – Barrett, 2004) Specifically, he mentioned that CIA penetrated media included "Associated Press, ABC, CBS, Hearst Newspapers, Miami Herald, Mutual Broadcasting System, NBC, New York Herald Tribune, The New York Times, Newsweek, Reuters, Saturday Evening Post, Scripps-Howard, Time/Life and United Press International," (Boyt – Barrett, 2004) and many notable journalists, publishers and editors were involved, such as "William Paley, Henry Luce, Arthur Hays Sulzberger, Barry Bingham, James Copley." (Boyt – Barrett, 2004) Therefore, we know the truth that political and economical elites want us to know.

The truth is depended upon what political and economical elites, and how they allow the media to investigate and publish their investigation; and how deep is the manipulation done to the media that what they publish is the truth or not. However, we should not consider that things are so disappointing. If individuals nourish their critical thought before taking into granted was it is served by the media, they could very easily reach the truth of the goings-on. Besides, the humanity is exposed to the information that history derives, where objective information could be found. Karl Marx said that history repeats itself. If we take that for granted, the individuals may exercise criticism of the current news and events by taking a glance to the history and compare with what is being shown in the news. There is always a way to find the truth, as long as we have our eyes, ears and mind opened, and we are not being just an apathetic tool in the hands of the Ruling Elites.

Article name: The Media And Government Media essay, research paper, dissertation

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