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The Public Diplomacy Blog is intended to stimulate dialog among scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals from around the world in the public diplomacy sphere. The opinions represented here are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy at the Annenberg School.
THE FOG OF WAR (ON CABLE TV)
JUL 21, 2006 - 1:00AM PDT
Posted by Lawrence Pintak
All posts by this author
Napa Valley, CA -- As someone who lives and breathes Middle East politics and media, I have had the strange -- and frustrating -- experience of watching the current conflict play out on U.S. cable television. I am reminded again why Americans have such a limited -- and distorted -- view of the world.
I run a center for television and new media at The American University in Cairo, which puts me at the crossroads of journalism in the Arab world. Normally, monitoring a crisis like this would involve the voracious consumption of Arab and U.S. media -- television, newspapers, websites and all the rest.
But for the first week of this war, I was on vacation in California with my family. That has meant catching glimpses of the conflict in bite-sized snatches on cable television between forays into Disneyland, trips to the beach and aquarium tours, much, I suspect, like many other Americans this summer.
At times, the coverage has seemed as much a fantasy as Disney's Space Mountain and the level of Middle East knowledge on the part of some of the anchors only a few notches higher than that of the tattooed biker couple in the Pirates of the Caribbean line.
Take for example, a CNN interview with an American high school student who had been visiting his father's relatives in Lebanon when the conflict broke out. With his tearful American mother in the studio, he was asked by phone whether he was frightened. No big deal, he replied, explaining that he was north of the Christian port of Jounieh, far from the fighting. Betraying her woeful ignorance of Lebanon's geography and politics, the anchor replied that he sounded like a typical "macho" young man who didn't want to worry his mother. The anchor might have looked at a map before going on air.
Hype abounded. "This could be World War Three," more than one reporter was heard to say. The same dramatic images were repeated endlessly, as if on a loop. Rumor was elevated to fact -- and the networks seemed proud of it. One CNN promo showed an unedited sequence in which a nameless photographer told Anderson Cooper, in northern Israel, that there was a rumor of rockets on the way. Cooper then turned to the camera and authoritatively reported, "The police say more rockets are coming." So much for checking sources.
There was plenty of solid, balanced reporting. Nic Robertson in Beirut, Matthew Chance in Gaza and Christiane Amanpour on the Israeli border; CNN anchor and Beirut veteran Jim Clancy, NBC's Martin Fletcher on MSNBC and the handful of others who are based in, or have spent significant time in the region have done yeoman work. The problem comes with those parachuted into the Middle East with little grounding in the region and the anchors back in the studios in London and the U.S. The errors of the uninitiated embeds in Iraq were endlessly repeated.
One example: CBS refugee John Roberts, now CNN's senior correspondent, eruditely pointed to pro-Hezbollah demonstrations in Syria as evidence of a Sunni-Shiite split. The only weakness in that analysis is that Syria is a Sunni nation, so the demonstrations point to exactly the opposite. Over on MSNBC's Hardball, NBC correspondent Dawn Fratangelo's discussion of potential dangers to American evacuees quickly disintegrated into confused talk of Hezbollah rockets in northern Israel. That's the other direction, Dawn.
There was little effort to identify the politics of many of the pseudo-experts who were trotted into the studios. Right-wing Lebanese Christians and representatives of Israeli-backed think tanks were offered up as independent analysts. Anchors and reporters, meanwhile, frequently wore their politics on their sleeve. When an American woman trapped in southern Lebanon decried Washington's failure to stop what she said was Israel's brutal killing of civilians, CNN anchor Tony Harris snapped back, "That's not the view over here" and cut her off, saying he didn't have time to debate the issue.
As is so often the case these days, celebrity reporters themselves frequently became the story. Anderson Cooper spent more time on-camera than the protagonists to the conflict, and MSNBC endlessly looped an outtake of Richard Engel repeatedly blowing his on-camera standup as Israeli bombs fell behind him -- much, I suspect, to his embarrassment. A failure to remain cool under fire is not something to be proud of. NBC anchor Brian Williams made much of the fact that when he went on a helicopter flight with an Israeli officer to take a look at the fighting, "We got closer than we intended." Turns out that some shells landed in the distance. War is Hell, Brian.
Even more troubling was the fact that the Williams segment, along with reports by several other NBC correspondents, ran on Scarborough Country, an overtly politicized MSNBC talk show, further blurring the line between news and opinion that is muddying the waters of cable journalism. Amid segments from such stalwart NBC correspondents as Martin Fletcher, there was Scarborough describing Hezbollah as an "Iran-backed terror group" and throwing former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak softballs like, "Why is it the more Israel is willing to give up to the Palestinians, the more your country comes under attack?" Meanwhile, conservative iconoclast Tucker Carlson, sans bowtie, has been out there "reporting" from the Israeli border, asking real NBC correspondents such loaded questions as, "Do we have any idea whether this city was targeted by Hezbollah because of its Christian population?"
There is plenty of room on cable television for politicized talk shows of all stripes. But by allowing -- or rather ordering -- its respected news correspondents to appear on such shows, the networks are trading credibility for ratings and cementing their transition from purveyors of news to citadels of infotainment.
Lost in the fog of hype and self-aggrandizement on the cable segments I saw was much of the subtle complexity of the conflict, reducing it too often to the black-and-white that has characterized U.S. policy toward the region. My view was one slice of the coverage. I did not see the main network evening newscasts or the morning shows. I grazed cable news -- like so many other Americans do these days -- and came up hungry.
Lawrence Pintak is the director of the Adham Center for Electronic Journalism at The American University in Cairo. A former CBS News Middle East correspondent, his most recent book is Reflections in a Bloodshot Lens: America, Islam & the War of Ideas. He can be reached at lpintak@aucegypt.edu.
Read Comments (3) | Add Your Own
 Read Comments:
Alan Simpson on July 22, 2006 @ 2:32 pm:
An Excellent piece. Few viewers realize how much "Stage Managing" occurs with US TV News. Around the world I have seen paid demonstrators and police cued up for the cameras, and activities which would be outlawed by the BBC used to get a "Made for TV" story. CNN and Fox are by far the worst offenders.
And the News Anchors? Wolf Blitzer, Ex-Jerusalem Post and AIPAC should declare his affiliation before interviewing, along the lines of CNBC which declares GE ownership before it discusses their stock, or activities.
And geographical expertise? I did a survey for the ill advised attack on Iraq. The vast majority demanded we invade Iraq and "Kick Saddam's Butt", yet over 80% could not identify Iraq on a map. Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, even Algeria were the target of their anger.
The problem is that the US is no longer the global production powerhouse it once was, and we have to begin to realize that we need the global marketplace to buy our goods and services. That corrupted international image, whilst it gives a short term fix to TV audiences, will cost jobs, and begin the erosion of the economic strength of the United States. People buy on emotion, and if they begin to hate the US enough, we will be staring Depression, soup kitchens and poverty straight in the face. And don't think the Chinese, our base of production won't sell direct to the end user. We are losing the global media war!
cjd on July 25, 2006 @ 9:28 am:
Hezbollah is an Arabic, Shiite organization that arose after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The Hezbollah has often been accused of terrorism and radicalism. But in that part of the Earth, every entity has been accused of terrorism and radicalism. Almost all of them live up to it.
Hezbollah appears to be a nation. It is a tightly-knit group of people which share a common culture or ideology.
Hezbollah is not a State, (1) that is to say a self-governing political entity. Its hierarchy and self-determination is not clear. (2) It has no space or territory which has internationally recognized boundaries. In fact the headquarters of Hezbollah may not be in Lebanon at all. (3) Hezbollah does not have people who live in any particular country on an ongoing basis, nor does it make the claim. (4) Hezbollah does not have an economic activity or an organized economy. A country would regulate foreign and domestic trade and most likely issue money.
Hezbollah is not a nation-state, as it does not have the same borders as a State, that is to say that Hezbollah is not confined within the boundaries of Lebanon.
No nation could ever become a nation-state if outside forces (1) prohibit it from achieving self-governance, (2) prohibit it from occupying space or territory which has internationally recognized boundaries, or forcing it to move its headquarters out of the space or territory of its choice, (3) make it impossible for people to live in any particular country on an ongoing basis, or (4) make it impossible to have an economic activity or an organized economy.
If Hezbollah fit the bill for a nation-state, our government would have to deal with it in the same way it deals with Israel.
Outside forces cannot prohibit a tightly-knit group of people from sharing a common culture or ideology, short of total analyzation. If Israel and G. W. Bush have their way, this may happen.
I wish the U.S. would quit telling people in the Middle East what to think and do. Strangely, the Hezbollah and capitol of the state of Missouri may have a common link. The capitol of the state of Missouri was moved to Marshall, Texas during the Civil War. At the end of the war it moved back to Missouri. I suppose the Hezbollah would be happy to move completely into Lebanon if the war would ever end, but judging from the hell-raising over the last half century or so after the U.S. got involved I do not expect that to happen for at least another 50 years.
Condoleezza Rice, President G. W. Bush’s puppet, refuses to address WHY Hezbollah exist in the first place; the occupation of Lebanon by Israel, prisoners held by Israel, and bombs and missiles dropped on Lebanon by Israel. Change the technology and it might sound like American Revolution.
Paul on March 7, 2008 @ 1:55 pm:
Excellent article and comments.
However, I think cable television is becoming extinct. It will eventually be replaced by satellite TV which is becoming the norm, especially in locales outside the United States.
More information about satellite TV is at http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com
Lawrence on May 21, 2008 @ 3:49 pm:
Cable television is slowly fading away as satellite TV is replacing it because of better technology.
http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com/Direct-TV.html
http://www.1-satellite-tv-facts.com/Dish-Network.html
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