Thoughts on War Coverage and the Truth

As I've written before, one of my best friends has been covering the war in Iraq for the Chicago Tribune (here's a letter to the editor about a recent story he wrote [registration required]...you can search for the stories themselves if you like....his name is Mike Dorning). He's home safe again (thank God), so I don't feel I'm tempting fate anymore by writing about him. I suspect his girlfriend and family and friends will testify to have him committed if he agrees to return again, for what would be an obnoxiously overachieving 5th stint.

Mike has covered wars before and been kidnapped or carjacked more times than I care to remember. He doesn't always write stories about those parts of his job either, and he sees the fear and anger in our eyes when he tells us some of those adventures, so I wouldn't be surprised to learn he was often in more danger than he admits to.

In Iraq he saw some of the worst of it. From being blindfolded and led off to the secret hideaway of the PKK to travelling embeded with troops fighting in the cities who he'd get to know and like and then have to describe their deaths, Mike has gone, as best he can, where the harder story is. He's very smart, trained, and careful, but I've known him for 20 years and have been worried sick waiting for the KGB to release him in the Soviet Union when we went and, more harrowing perhaps, have been kicked out of Irish bars in New York with him (not an easy thing to achieve), so I know he's not invincible.

I was thinking about Mike and what he's seen in Iraq when I read this piece on photojournalists in the NYTimes today. The writer is arguing that the "defining photographic images of Iraq were taken by amateurs in the prison at Abu Ghraib" not the professional photojournalists (who in Vietnam captured the sort of images that inspired the belief that "all great war photography is essentially antiwar photography") and tries to explains why he believes this is:

There is no simple way to explain why such defining images have eluded today's professional war photographers. One explanation is simple: sheer luck. You must be there at the moment. If you're around the corner or stalled in traffic, or stopped by soldiers, the moment vanishes forever.

A more important reason might be the ferocious nature of Iraq itself - a ferocity that, I think, has something to do with the war's religious context. Visions of God were not a factor in Vietnam. Marx and Lenin, maybe. Nationalism, of course. But not God. Eddie Adams and all the others lived each day with the possibility of sudden death. Some were captured, held as prisoners, and later released. But they did not fear being kidnapped, held hostage, and then beheaded as "infidels." In the savage urban warfare of Iraq, the desire to stay alive creates understandable restraint. You cannot shout the Iraqi equivalent of "Bao chi!" [Vietnamese for "press"] at the insurgents and hope for the best. Some of them believe they are fighting in a holy contest between Islam and Christianity.

There are also several other factors: censorship and self-censorship. After Vietnam, the press in general, and photographers in particular, were never as free again to cover American wars. A rigid system of image control was imposed in Grenada, Panama and the Persian Gulf war. Though the Pentagon's experiment with embedding loosened some of those controls, there were still limits. No soldiers bleeding in the sand, please. No body bags. No coffins.

As the debate rages about whether or not criticizing the overly optimistic portrait of Iraq we're being fed by Bush and now Allawi is appropriate, it bears keeping in mind that it's probably even worse than we know. Sugar-coating is already happening, despite the best efforts of our bravest journalists. I can't listen to Mike's stories and not worry for his colleagues and our troops. Knowing the press at least are likely not even seeing (or telling) us the worst of it, well, it makes what Bush is doing seem down right farcical.

Comments

[Jordan]

The idea that photojournalism is always anti-war is a lot older than Vietnam: just look at the picture and the reception of Civil War photography. Matthew Brady and Tim O'Sullivan were not exactly anti-war, although there was a strong anti-war movement at the time. But the newborn art of photography brought home the carnage of the Civil War in a way that probably wouldn't have been possible with line art and newspaper reports alone. And these were not "action" photos, but, because of the state of the art at the time, were largely photos of corpses which obligingly sit still for 10-minute exposure times.

Basic truism: photography represents a threat on the domestic front in any war. This is because once people at home get a good look at war, they quite sensibly don't want a damn thing to do with it. So the Pentagon has become quite adept at managing the photomontage of its wars, and we're back in a situation where photojournalists are playing a role similar to the court-appointed painters of the Napoleonic era. Nowadays it's damn, that war looks good.

[hilzoy]

Is the PKK in Iraq? Last I heard they were not on good terms with the Iraqi Kurds, but I may be out of date here.

[felixrayman]

Completely, or at least mostly, off topic, but the best view into the mind of a war correspondent is Chris Hedges' book "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning".

It's easy to see what would make a journalist want to cover a war, but to understand what addiction would make a journalist want to cover war after war after war for decades on end, this book is a must read.

[Opus]

I second that recommendation for Chris Hedges book.

[Edward]

Is the PKK in Iraq?
Unless the took him across the border while blindfolded (which he didn't think had happened), they had a hideout in Iraq.

[hilzoy]

Actually, after I wrote I googled it (when will I learn to do this before I post?), and yes, they are. Poor Northern Iraq, is all I have to say.

[Tadhgin]

According to this Life picture (http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0309/lm02.html)Roosevelt wanted the American people to know just what the sacrifice of war was to harden their resolve.

War photography does not have to be anti-war photography particularly if it presents a picture of what will happen if the enemy arrives on your doorstep.