Here's an interesting rundown of claims and counter-claims about incidents in the war. Predictable result: no one really knows what's going on, and every report should be regarded with skepticism. Many see this as a "bias" issue (that is, it enables people focus on the news items which coincide with their expectations or agenda and ignore contradictory information) and there may be something in that. But all in all, I prefer the current situation (a surfeit of instantaneous reports, relatively unvetted, some of which end up verified, some of which do not) to some imaginary alternative where nothing is reported without iron-clad verification. Sifting through it all is tough and time consuming, and skepticism is well-advised, but the public ends up better-informed rather than worse.
One of the items mentioned in the Guardian piece is the Camp Penn. "fragging" incident, which was first reported as a "traditional" attack by Arab terrorists, but turned out to be the work of a disgruntled American Muslim convert. Would the interests of an informed public have been better served if the correspondent had failed to file the first report, or held back the sketchy details, or if news agencies hadn't picked it up and commentators hadn't speculated upon it? I don't think so. For one thing, the fact that the process is transparent enough to enable media critics to write articles like this is a good in itself. But more importantly, it's an unavoidable and essential part of on-the-ground real-time "embedded" war reporting, which, despite its flaws is a vast improvement on previous models (as to data, at any rate.) I'd guess the fragging incident would never have come out as a major story if there hadn't been a reporter there to report the first sign of it, or if the TV news had been reticent about talking it up. The army would have tried to downplay it, certainly; the subsequent details about the soldier's background would have been less salient and unremarked upon if they hadn't come out as part of the correction of the previous inaccurate details. It's messy, to be sure, and the fear is that inaccurate reports might linger in the public consciousness uncorrected, as they always have done, yet more worrisome owing to their vastly increased volume and speed. Like it or not, though, we're in a situation where the news-gathering and transmission process is itself an inextricable part of the story itself, something we as news consumers are obliged to consider seriously to an unprecedented degree. I say that's good.
Posted by Dr. Frank at March 28, 2003 08:00 AM | TrackBack