April 15, 2003
“Kalb Report” Targets War Coverage, Technology
By Greg
Licamele
With a battle between US coalition forces and Iraqi troops raging a
half of a world away, “The Kalb Report” explored the work
of journalists, who, like military personnel, are playing a major role
in the conflict.
With 600 journalists embedded among the troops on land, air, and sea,
Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke said the news media are providing
information to the public, just as the Founding Fathers envisioned.
“The preamble of the Constitution calls for the common defense
and the First Amendment is about the freedom of press,” Clarke
said. “I don’t think it’s an accident they’re priorities
in those two documents. We think it’s the right thing to do. We
think the best way to maintain public support over the long haul is
for people to have as much information as possible about what the military
is doing.”
“I applaud the idea (of embedding journalists),” said CBS
News White House correspondent Bill Plante. “But I don’t think
we’ve yet seen how it will work when we really get to the crunch.”
Clarke noted in the war planning that began “last summer and last
fall,” one of the things the Department of Defense leadership recognized
in the embedding idea was the importance of reporting positive and negative
information.
“One of the realities is that given technology, it is quite possible
that people could see someone badly hurt or killed on live television,”
Clarke told the overflow crowd of 500 people at the National Press Club
and live audiences on C-SPAN and WMAL-AM on March 31. “Bad things
happen in wars. People get killed, people get injured. That’s why
we try so hard to avoid wars.”
Moderator Marvin Kalb asked how technology is helping to report the
large volumes of information that are coming from the embedded journalists
and hundreds of other reporters around the world.
Tom Wolzien, senior media analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and Company,
said the key is to balance the snippets of news from one particular
reporter with the larger context of events and reactions, especially
out of Baghdad, where only a handful of journalists are stationed.
Technology also works for the Iraqis, Clarke said.
“The Iraqi regime spends hundreds of millions of dollars on its
disinformation,” she said. “Take the lies and deception, couple
it with technology, and that’s a real advantage for liars.”
The news media also are spending hundreds of millions of dollars reporting
on this war, but Wolzien says investors are more concerned about the
long-term effects of the war on the world economy than the costs of
covering the conflict.
“In my clientele, which are analysts and portfolio managers of
large mutual and pension funds, I have not gotten one call from anybody
saying, ‘Oh my God, what’s going to happen to Viacom with
what CBS is doing? The institutional investor base is not having an
issue with (coverage).”
In this post-Sept. 11 world, Kalb inquired if the news industry should
work closer with the US government and instead of being naturally skeptical,
reporters might consider being more accepting of information to advance
the nation’s interests.
To that, David Sanger, White House correspondent for The New York
Times, replied, “I don’t think so because it would require
us to make a decision about what’s in the nation’s best interests.
As a journalist, you have to distinguish what your role is.”
“The Kalb Report,” which is underwritten by a grant from the
John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, is co-sponsored by The George
Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, The Joan Shorenstein
Center on Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University and
the National Press Club. GW and the National Press Club have produced
33 programs in the “The Kalb Report” series since 1994. Forums
have covered issues at the intersection of public policy and the press,
including talk show democracy and covering the private lives of public
officials.
Send feedback to: bygeorge@gwu.edu
