Allan and Zelizer explore issues such as censorship and propaganda, 24/7 news coverage, and managing dynamic tensions between objectivity, patriotism, and humanity. Although a range of locales is examined, the main focus of the book is the Iraq War.
The following points present an overview of the different opinions and conclusions of Reporting War: Journalism in Wartime. (Published by Routledge, 2004, ISBN - 0-415-33997-9)
Reporting War Part 1: War in the Twenty-First Century
- Oliver Boyd-Barrett provides examples of conflicts over the past half century to explain how the media's reporting of war has been almost guaranteed to misinform the public and deliberately confuse the issues.
- Richard Keeble analyses how US and UK out-of-control militarism is built on lies, misinformation, and myth
- Susan D. Moeller discusses how, in the aftermath of 9/11, challenging the terrorism frame is an act of moral imagination. She presents the Bush administration attitude as a new variant of "manifest destiny."
- Tamar Liebes and Zohar Kampf warn journalists about the internal contradictions inherent to the logic of fighting evil regimes to abolish terror.
- Piers Robinson presents evidence contrary to the prevailing viewpoint that the nature of war reporting is changing. He suggests that more focus is needed on the reasons why the discussion itself is inaccurate.
Reporting War Part 2: Bearing Witness
- Barbie Zelizer explains how the images of war produced by journalists are a strategically narrowed view of the battlefield.
- Douglas Kellner points to a total media and social environment as being responsible for mobilizing support for US war policies in Iraq in 1991. He claims that this environment was dominated by military images and discourses resulting in the militarization of consciousness.
- Susan L. Carruthers challenges the language of "intervention" as a barrier to understanding the complicated relationship between Africa and the West.
- Philip Hammond indicts the advocates of "human rights intervention" as being responsible for wrecking the UN system in Bosnia by placing the West's moral duty to intervene above the principle of sovereign equality.
- Howard Tumber predicts that governments and the military will strategize to increase the use of embedding and continue the usual policies of safety warnings, censorship, misinformation, and delay in confirmation of events for non-embedded journalists.
- Prasun Sonwalkar asks the question, "If acts of violence and terrorism were so irresistibly newsworthy...the host of insurgencies in northeast India should have resonated at least as much as...Kashmir." He argues that a conflict not only needs to be bloody, but consonant with the socio-cultural background of journalists to be deemed newsworthy.
- Michael Bromley argues that the symbolic aura of the Australian military, as shaped by war reporters of the past, may have been the decisive factor in the way Australian involvement in the invasion of Iraq is represented.
Reporting War Part 3: Reporting the Iraq War
- Stephen D. Reese uses transcripts from localized American reporting to show the narrow pro-invasion slant of protest coverage. However, as the global audience accesses a wider variety of media with differing viewpoints, it will become important to predict the implications for public support of military conflicts.
- Nick Couldry and John Downey explain the deep division of political discourse in elite media. Right-wing papers tended to look at perceived national interests, whereas left-of-centre papers questioned the morality of UK/USA position.
- Based on a content analysis of British news sources, Justin Lewis and Rod Brookes conclude that the overall weight of the coverage may have encouraged undecided people to support the war.
- Terhi Rantanen presents research results from 19 responding members of the European Alliance of News Agencies for the following questions: What measures did the agencies take to cover the war? What sources did they use in covering the war? How did the agencies evaluate their sources?
- Iskandar and El-Nawawy argue that Al-Jazeera's success indicates the necessity for meaningful analysis in war coverage and contextual objectivity as a barometer of fairness and balance in reporting around the world.
- Patricia Aufderheide introduces a research project that follows the informal journalistic sector. She explains why funding for public domain resources is a worthwhile investment in civil society.
- Stuart Allan focuses on the alternative spaces for witnessing opened up by online reporting and the potential to overcome the "culture of distance."
Reporting War: Final Thoughts
The book feels esoteric, and can be downright pretentious with use of words like pusillanimity (means cowardice). In some ways, the opinions and evidence echo conventional wisdom, whereas at other moments, conventional wisdom takes a beating, reminding the reader that nothing should be taken for granted. Also, paying attention to the way the chapters are written can serve as guidance for citing and researching essays that are both provocative and credible.
Conclusion: Long, exhausting, and academic.
For more J-school reading reviews, please see:
Compassion Fatigue, by Susan D. Moeller
Al-Jazeera, by El-Nawawy and Iskandar
The Global Journalist, by Philip Seib
The Universal Journalist, by David Randall
International News Reporting: Frontlines and Deadlines, edited by Owen and Purdey
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