Introduction - Weekly Paper #3

As a former BBC journalist and film documenter, Steve Connors, once said, “History is the lie agreed upon.” In the following selections of text, we will see how the media aids in the telling of history, be it lies or the truth. From the very beginning of life, there was always some sort of media form that would take place to reinterpret what happened. Whether it was cave drawings of men fighting animals with sticks, or photographs of dead men on the fields of early America in the Civil War. These images depicted messages from the “front lines” of action back to the people who couldn’t be there. Today, we also rely on the mediators, or the media, to tell us what is going on in the far reaches of the world so that we too can be somewhat involved or informed. We are dependent on them to tell us the truth and to rely non-subjugated messages back to us so that we can process what is to become our very own history.
In the old days very romanticized images were produced through the eyes of artists who weren’t even present at the time or place that the event occurred. Often times, these paintings or other works were commissioned by the protagonists in the war or event to honor or pay some sort of tribute to it. This propaganda played a huge part in the creation of and stabilizing of patriotism. Although, today we are influenced more by the moving images that we see on news programs on channels such as NBC, CNN, and ABC. These images are censored on our behalf so as not to loose us as viewers and to shield us from the harsh realities of war. This suppression of images and context is increasingly leading us to believe that the war, like the current war in Iraq, is not as intense and severe as it truly is. Our history is being formed by the misrepresentation of censorship.
The news media have a frightening control over the way we perceive our world to be. By reporting instances such as the violent crime “spree” in the mid 1980’s and early 1990’s, the increased amount of reporting on such issues led the community to believe that by being young and ethnic you somehow posed a violent threat to society. Is this true? By relating news stories to the public, the media has an overwhelming authority over the average viewer. It isn’t very often that someone would question John Doe the reporter on the six o’clock news when he reports night after night of gang involvement or robberies committed by 18year old Hispanics. The more we are exposed to stories like this that take precedence on the nightly news, the more likely it is that we associate the image of the 18year old Hispanic with the image of crime and violence.
Should we as a united people be concerned with the government’s censorship of images in war, hiding the horrors of combat and showing the softer side of fighting? The military has control over where the press can and can not go. Is this a safety issue, or is this a way to shield the press from potentially damaging photos of the harsh realities of war on the battlefront? The Gulf War was the war that ultimately changed the way that wars would be and have been reported. This was the first “real time war” that was reported by hundreds of journalists on the field of battle live with wires and cameras reporting back to the US and the World. Although all of this reporting was done with a lot of misinformation from officials and sometimes disinformation intended to mislead the enemy and not to inform the public.
The news media is something that benefits us, the people, in all sorts of ways. It allows us to see events and happenings all over the globe from our living room, a café, and today, even our cars. This advance in technology is beneficiary because it protects our right to question. Our jobs as a democratic people are to watch, listen, and question. If we never question the news media we will never know for certain what is truly going on. Is the media deceiving us by censoring the coverage of the war or is it protecting us?