BLOOD JOURNALISM

BLOOD JOURNALISM

And the media’s ambitions for America’s demise

R.J. Godlewski

Anyone who’s ever watched the 1968 John Wayne classic The Green Berets remembers the initial hostility of the reporter George Beckworth (played by David Janssen) towards America’s involvement in Vietnam. How he and his editor didn’t believe that the United States should be aiding a country that didn’t even appear to be helping themselves. Later, Beckworth crossed the lines and understood that the true horror of the conflict came not from America’s intervention or the apparent unwillingness of the Vietnamese people to improve their society, but through the brutal atrocities of an enemy hell-bent on preventing democracy.

This fictional movie appeared during the crossroads of American perception regarding war and, much like Beckworth’s editor, the mass media began to see itself as something of a righteous caretaker sent to critique national aggression. The 1960’s marked this turning point; the cooperation between the press and the government and therefore by extension, between military operations and public approval ceased. No longer would the media openly support U.S. military action as it had done ever since the country first began.

This abandonment of the national cause by journalists represented a profound shift in what had been, to that point, a largely symbiotic relationship endured for the common good. What, exactly, initiated this fairly quick divorce is subject to much debate. However, the ingredients necessary for this hostility can be discussed with some certainty.

The first and most obvious problem resulted from technology. The Vietnam conflict was the first period in U.S. military history where visual depiction of combat could be brought into the public’s living room largely unedited and uncensored. From the Revolutionary War on through Korea, the public’s knowledge of battle had largely been delivered over time, through mail and print correspondence. The more visual aspects of journalism emerged with the Civil War photographer Matthew Brady and, later, Hollywood movies during the Second World War. Regardless of the tremendous gap in comparative technology between the two, the public still did not get to see the ‘raw’ data involved with the images.

Even with the existence of what is called today, embedded journalists, the public had to visit their local theater to see firsthand the horrors of the Second World War. By then, the image presented was known to be somewhat dated, edited, and frequently preceded a Hollywood production along the same format. The end result was that the public was primed to know what to expect in the newsreel spots and couldn’t tell the difference between the ‘real’ images and the studio fabrications. Add to this mix, a sound national patriotism for the effort involved and most went about their daily lives geared towards sacrifice in the name of victory.

Korea, following closely on the heels of the Second World War, offered much of the same. The public learned of the war through stories wired to the newspapers and pieced together in newsreel shorts. Neither could offer an overwhelming onslaught against the American public. Television changed all of that.

Vietnam worked its way into our living rooms through nightly television broadcasts instead of the more time-consuming newsreels and newspaper accounts. Furthermore, unlike any previous war in American history, the images presented to the public were largely uncensored and, eventually, in color. The combination of daily repetition and graphic images worked against the senses of the average person, but something else warrants mention. The Vietnam War was initiated during a period of strong economic stability for the nation as a whole and Americans traditionally only accept war when their livelihoods are threatened. In fact, I offer that had it not been for the war, the civil rights era may have been delayed somewhat as the ‘spark’ of resentment would have been contained without a foreign conflict with which to ignite civil unrest.

Regardless of its involvement, however, one cannot singularly blame the advent of technology for what is obviously a conscious decision of nearly an entire industry to sabotage national security intentions. The second factor that results in today’s slanted and politicized coverage of American combat operations deals with the end of the representative “Schramm Years” of 1945 to 1960.

Professor Wilbur Schramm was but one element of a national communications research program that grew after the Second World War to thwart communism and its threat against American society. I have singled him out, specifically, for how he is generally critiqued within modern journalism education and its implications for today. Writing of the professor in his 1994 book Science of Coercion: Communication Research & Psychological Warfare 1945-1960 (Oxford University Press) author Christopher Simpson states “His writings between 1945 and 1960 reveal a distinctly black and white, Manichean view of the world that pitted Schramm’s enthusiastic Americanism against ideological rivals abroad and at home.”

Simpson continues by quoting advocates of Schramm’s influence on journalism education as: “interpreting mass communication behavior in terms almost of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’”. Later on, he suggests that “Schramm’s schema lumped quite different societies together into “good” and “bad” categories…” and “Some important Schramm writings from the 1950’s concerning communication remain inaccessible today, because they were prepared in connection with CIA- and military-sponsored psychological warfare projects…” Hmmm.

I’ve always admitted to being somewhat of a strange character, but I think that most people alive today would agree with my assessment of things being more or less “black and white” or “good and bad” in nature. This is just the way that I am. If someone robs a bank, for example, I don’t care about whether his family was starving or not, what they did was wrong. Period. However, if journalists and other proponents of the media tend to visualize things in infinite shades of gray (or perhaps pastels) then I can assume that they will stretch this interpretation on ad infinitum. This being the case, where does it end?

If journalism education (and, by logic, future journalists) since the 1960’s has evolved under a perception (valid or not) that the United States government and/or military has “coerced” public understanding of key national security interests, then it can be assumed that they may divert wholeheartedly from this track by insinuating that everything the government and/or military does is wrong. Remove the traditional “good versus evil” and “right versus wrong” aspects away from their daily lives and our public is in deep trouble.

Overwhelmed by a twenty-four onslaught of uncensored, colorized war commentary and the average person will not be able to formulate any distinction as to what is really happening within their lives. Add to this, an uncontrolled media agenda and you will no longer have to worry about “good versus evil” or even “right versus wrong” for “truth versus lie” will be the ultimate casualty.

By evolving to assume that the U.S. military will resort to anything in order to deny the public knowledge about its actions, our national (and by extension, global) media organizations will automatically shift towards the opposing track and vehemently attack all military policies. Whether my critique is valid or not does not matter; the actions taken by the press have overwhelmingly assumed the role of anti-Americanism and even gone so far as to be sympathetic towards our enemies.

If this action is, as I suspect, intentional, then we have simply witnessed the development of “Blood Journalism” – falsified or otherwise slanted reporting intended to inflict damage or harm upon the United States and her military personnel – in retaliation for perceived injustices imposed by the government upon the journalism profession. I offer, in support of my view, the apparent hostility of the news media towards our efforts in both the global war on terror and against the insurgents in Iraq; the apparent fascination of the media with classifying the terrorists as ‘freedom fighters’ and their care under our military judicial system; and, last but not least, the media’s aversion to classifying anything in terms of “good versus evil” or “right versus wrong”.

How many civilians and soldiers will die throughout the world before the public wakes to the fact that the global press has formed an alliance with the devil in order to subjugate our national security? As I have said, I am a strange individual. Unlike the media, I believe in straightforward issues such as LIVING AMERICANS + DEAD TERRORISTS = ONE HELL OF A BRIGHT FUTURE. What about you?