Media In The Gulf War
The Control of Media in the Gulf War
How much do you think you know about the world around you? What if everything you viewed was a lie?
During the Gulf War, the White House and the military seized and screened every news report, determining the images and information the media would relay to the public. The result was that the president and the military framed the debate, set the public agenda, supplied television with many of the defining images of the war, and enjoyed very favorable press coverage throughout the conflict .If you ask most Americans what they remember about the Gulf War, they will tell you they remember the super intelligent smart bombs, SCUD missiles, Patriot missiles, and Saddam Hussein is a very bad man, but that …show more content…
Security at the source is the policy. In event of hostilities, media products will be subject to security review prior to release. You must retain with your military escort at all times, until released, and follow instructions regarding your activities. These instructions are intended only to facilitate troop movement, ensure safety, and maintain operational security. In a departure from Pentagon assurances and from existing policy, the press would cover Desert Storm exclusively from pools. Pentagon used pools for the purpose of secrecy on the grounds of national security. The media expected to be able to roam battlefields, as a small number of reporters had in Vietnam, but in fact, the importance of secrecy made this unacceptable from the military’s stand point. The military developed this ad hoc system of combat pools controlled by the military in conjunction with media which were taken to particular areas of news coverage.(Yetiv, 131) As of January 12, plans called for 2 eighteen member pools, consisting of reporters from television, newspapers, news, magazines, and the wire services. One would cover the Army, one the Marines. No “unilateral” or independent coverage would be permitted. The military would detain and …show more content…
And if coverage was not that, it was a light show, the amazing colors in the sky, like fireworks of the bombs falling on the Iraqis. What we saw was images of our soldiers dedicated, cheerful, and confident. We saw the hardships of those loved ones at home waiting for their spouses and family members to return home heroes. We did not see Iraqi victims. The impression of a bloodless war was partly due to the emphasis placed upon so called smart weapons technology in Pentagon briefings and media coverage. While the performance of the smart weapons was apparently reliable and accurate as military reports indicated, their overall importance in the war (in terms of total tonnage of weapons dropped) was not nearly as great as their symbolic function in helping generate the facade of high tech warfare. We were not told that smart bombs constituted only 10 percent of the total bombs dropped in Iraq or that 70 percent of our bombs missed their targets. (Thrall,
How much do you think you know about the world around you? What if everything you viewed was a lie?
During the Gulf War, the White House and the military seized and screened every news report, determining the images and information the media would relay to the public. The result was that the president and the military framed the debate, set the public agenda, supplied television with many of the defining images of the war, and enjoyed very favorable press coverage throughout the conflict .If you ask most Americans what they remember about the Gulf War, they will tell you they remember the super intelligent smart bombs, SCUD missiles, Patriot missiles, and Saddam Hussein is a very bad man, but that …show more content…
Security at the source is the policy. In event of hostilities, media products will be subject to security review prior to release. You must retain with your military escort at all times, until released, and follow instructions regarding your activities. These instructions are intended only to facilitate troop movement, ensure safety, and maintain operational security. In a departure from Pentagon assurances and from existing policy, the press would cover Desert Storm exclusively from pools. Pentagon used pools for the purpose of secrecy on the grounds of national security. The media expected to be able to roam battlefields, as a small number of reporters had in Vietnam, but in fact, the importance of secrecy made this unacceptable from the military’s stand point. The military developed this ad hoc system of combat pools controlled by the military in conjunction with media which were taken to particular areas of news coverage.(Yetiv, 131) As of January 12, plans called for 2 eighteen member pools, consisting of reporters from television, newspapers, news, magazines, and the wire services. One would cover the Army, one the Marines. No “unilateral” or independent coverage would be permitted. The military would detain and …show more content…
And if coverage was not that, it was a light show, the amazing colors in the sky, like fireworks of the bombs falling on the Iraqis. What we saw was images of our soldiers dedicated, cheerful, and confident. We saw the hardships of those loved ones at home waiting for their spouses and family members to return home heroes. We did not see Iraqi victims. The impression of a bloodless war was partly due to the emphasis placed upon so called smart weapons technology in Pentagon briefings and media coverage. While the performance of the smart weapons was apparently reliable and accurate as military reports indicated, their overall importance in the war (in terms of total tonnage of weapons dropped) was not nearly as great as their symbolic function in helping generate the facade of high tech warfare. We were not told that smart bombs constituted only 10 percent of the total bombs dropped in Iraq or that 70 percent of our bombs missed their targets. (Thrall,