Download issue (PDF) - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Words & Reflections percussions in fields of inquiry from biology to theology and equally long counter-traditions, none of which Hedges addresses directly. While he earned a divinity degree 20 years ago and esteems academic discourse, Hedges does not connect his observations to 2000 years of reflection on humanity’s darker side. Those who reach page 150 will read, “Illusions punctuate our lives, blinding us to our own inconsistencies and repeated moral failings.” It is a worthy discovery, but Hedges might have acknowledged that his readers have likely encountered this thought before. Despite the centrality of nationalist cant to war, Hedges reports that the myths vaporize in the face of actual battle. A Marine Corps lieutenant colonel strapping on his pistol belt just before crossing into Kuwait told him, “[N]one of these boys is fighting for home, for the flag, for all that crap that the politicians feed the public. They are fighting for each other, just for each other.” An enormous literature on the psychology of combat trauma reveals this point. The close fraternity of soldiers (and, one assumes, correspondents) sharing the transformative battlefield experience is the community crucial to one’s physical survival; ongoing contact within this community is key to psychological recovery. This may account for Hedges’ overwhelming sadness. Some of his best friends have been killed, and many of the rest are still in war’s addictive thrall. Yet the book leaves reason for gratitude. The author, a tough reporter who refused to participate in the Pentagon’s Gulf War pools, ably identified and sorted through the myths he encountered. For his principles, he found himself a prisoner of the Iraqi Republican Guard, who confiscated his M-65 jacket with the copies of “Antony and Cleopatra,” “The Iliad,” and Conrad’s “An Outcast of the Islands” in its pockets. You couldn’t invent a more cultured, conscientious war correspondent. The book makes one grateful that Hedges was the eyes and ears of his readers in the war zones of the late 20th century. One can regret his current pain and still praise his reporting career as the highest public service. There is poetry as well as wisdom in the title, “War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.” We can hope that Hedges will continue trying to answer more thoroughly the questions he has poignantly raised. ■ Nancy Bernhard is author of “U.S. Television News and Cold War Propaganda, 1947-1960” (Cambridge University Press, 1999). She teaches “Reporting From the Front” in the Expository Writing Program at Harvard University. Bernhard@fas.harvard.edu WATCHDOG The Vital Role of the Press in a Time of National Crisis ‘Watchdog journalism begins with a state of mind: accepting responsibility as a surrogate for the public.’ Bob Giles, Curator of the Nieman Foundation, addressed participants of the “Mapping the News” conference at American University on September 28, 2002. Giles underscored the essential role of watchdog journalism and described the difficulties being encountered by journalists because of government actions. He also suggested important questions that journalists should be asking. What follows are Giles’s remarks: In last Sunday’s New York Times, I came across a piece with the headline, “A Place to Find Out For Yourself About the War.” The story, by Eric Umansky, described a Web site for a military watchdog group called Globalsecurity.org that had published detailed satellite photographs of a United States military installation in Qatar, tracking changes that foretold a buildup for a possible attack on Iraq. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was said to have grumbled about it. But the site was clearly beyond the reach of the Pentagon and its intense efforts to control information. As I surfed the site and viewed several satellite images that had been posted, and then thought about Rumsfeld’s discomfort, this struck me as a powerful example of a free and independent press. A free and independent press is an important cornerstone of our democracy to keep alive in these days that are being described as a time of national crisis. I am not a student of mapping or satellite technology, but it was painfully clear to me from the background material sent to me by Chris Simpson [the American University professor who organized the conference] and from re-reading his revealing piece in Nieman Reports last winter, that the productive and informative use the global press has made of satellite images has been aggressively shut down by a government fearful that media access to this information would provide aide and comfort to our enemies. Elaborate new regulations have given the U.S. government what is being described as “shutter control” over U.S.-licensed satellites. Some experts are suggesting that these regulations ignore a core principal that has governed such circumstances in the past: that the government must make a compelling case of clear and present dan- 96 Nieman Reports / Winter 2002
Words & Reflections ger in disallowing satellite images to be sold commercially for news and, perhaps, other uses. I noted this morning in your sessions the contrast between the desire of the policymakers for secrecy and the impulse to get information out that was expressed by the representatives from the Census Bureau, the Department of Agriculture, and the United States Geological Survey. The Bush administration’s determined efforts to control information to which the public is entitled and should have is part of a larger pattern of restrictions in the name of security that is affecting civil liberties and the treatment of noncitizens from Arab countries. Government Information Is More Difficult to Get Last October, the month following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued guidelines for how government agencies were to handle information requests under the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The FOIA, which first became law in the 1960’s, enables journalists and the public to access papers, documents and memoranda from various government agencies. There has never been an easy relationship between the public and the press and the officials in government offices responsible for responding in a timely way to FOIA requests. But the meaning of the Ashcroft memo signals even more difficult times ahead. He directed federal agencies to consider national security, enhancing the effectiveness of our law enforcement agencies, protecting sensitive business information and, not least, preserving personal privacy in determining whether to release information under FOIA. It did not escape notice that informing the public or serving the public’s right to know was not among the priorities Ashcroft instructed government officials to consider. He promised the Justice Department would stand behind any agency official whose decision to deny FOIA access was based on any of the new priorities. The American Society of Newspaper Editors met with senior officials responsible for administering FOIA and were reassured that this was not a major policy change but simply a “natural shift” under a new administration and should not result in significant change in how requests for information are handled. The reality, as we’ve observed over the past year, is quite different. These comments from a recent article in the American Journalism Review emphasize this reality. John Dean, the famous Watergate figure, has called the Bush administration “startlingly Nixonian” in its passion for secrecy. William Powers of the National Journal has written, “This administration keeps secrets like nobody in Washington has kept secrets—maybe ever.” And journalist Bill Moyers said recently, “Not only has George W. Bush eviscerated the Presidential Records Act and FOIA, but has clamped a lid on public access across the board.” We’re familiar with the demonstrated evidence, well reported in the press, of how executive powers are being employed in wartime climate in Washington. • Tracking down, holding for questioning, and refusing to identify publicly immigrants, mostly from Middle Eastern countries. • Monitoring conversations between some people in federal custody and their lawyers. • Establishing military tribunals to try foreigners accused of terrorism. Initially the tribunals were to be secret, but the administration relented under pressure from the public, the press, and Congress. • Closing deportation hearings. The President recently signed legislation that jails or fines journalists who publish sensitive leaks—a decision that essentially revives the Official Secrets Act that President Clinton vetoed as being “well intentioned” but over-broad and so it might “unnecessarily chill legitimate activities that are at the heart of a democracy.” The Homeland Security Act [signed into law by President Bush on November 25, 2002] has serious implications for access by the press and public. It would create an exemption from FOIA for any information voluntarily submitted to the government. It would provide corporate immunity from civil procedures when information is voluntarily submitted to the government, and it would preempt state and local openness laws when the federal government gives states information. And in connection with the establishment of the White House Office of Homeland Security, the Office of Management and Budget has been instructed to create a new classification for information. Something called “sensitive but unclassified.” The idea is to keep information away from the public and the press without formally classifying it as secret. There is no definition for “sensitive” nor is there any information about who would have the responsibility for declaring information “sensitive but unclassified.” Indeed, the idea of keeping unclassified information away from the public is not new. A recent article in a publication called Secrecy News reported that there are “at least a dozen distinct systems of unclassified information control, including various provisions implementing the International Traffic in Arms Regulation and the Export Administration Act,” to name two. The article notes that some of these provisions impose penalties for disclosure of unclassified information that are more severe than for disclosure of classified information. A new set of regulations to further hide unclassified information would create an additional layer of public information intended to be kept out of reach of Americans. This pattern of secrecy recalls the work of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, chaired by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, which reported in the mid- 1990’s that the federal government’s secrecy system urgently needed reform, that millions of documents had been classified as “secret” and had remained “secret” long after the requirement of Nieman Reports / Winter 2002 97
Page 1 and 2:
NIEMAN REPORTS THE NIEMAN FOUNDATIO
Page 3 and 4:
Vol. 56 No. 4 Winter 2002 NIEMAN RE
Page 5 and 6:
Creating a New Web of Connections T
Page 7 and 8:
Investigating What Happens to Refug
Page 9 and 10:
INS Coverage ‘Freedom of the Pres
Page 11 and 12:
The People’s Right to Know vs. Go
Page 13 and 14:
INS Coverage An immigration attorne
Page 15 and 16:
Why Reporters Should Want to Cover
Page 17 and 18:
INS Coverage tion that lit up the p
Page 19 and 20:
INS Coverage foreign-born populatio
Page 21 and 22:
INS Coverage gone to school here, a
Page 23 and 24:
INS Coverage Phoutone Chanthabouala
Page 25 and 26:
INS Coverage Juan Belalcazar, a 23-
Page 27 and 28:
INS Coverage be interviewed. (Permi
Page 29 and 30:
By Richard Read INS Coverage WATCHD
Page 31 and 32:
tor job, as standing by while a cow
Page 33 and 34:
focused on salmon, wildlife and cul
Page 35 and 36:
Environment Reporting beat might eb
Page 37 and 38:
Environment Reporting safeguard the
Page 39 and 40:
Environment Reporting ing a scienti
Page 41 and 42:
Environment Reporting • It incorp
Page 43 and 44:
Environment Reporting for many an i
Page 45 and 46:
Environment Reporting China polluti
Page 47 and 48: Environment Reporting Missing the
Page 49 and 50: Environment Reporting Scientists ag
Page 51 and 52: Environment Reporting Writing about
Page 53 and 54: Environment Reporting Journalists C
Page 55 and 56: After September 11, Headlines About
Page 57 and 58: Environment Reporting videotapes de
Page 59 and 60: Environment Reporting A male quetza
Page 61 and 62: Environment Reporting Earth Allianc
Page 63 and 64: Connecting Scientific Data to Real
Page 65 and 66: Environment Reporting A fire tug fi
Page 67 and 68: Environment Reporting cult today. E
Page 69 and 70: Environment Reporting before becomi
Page 71 and 72: Environment Reporting Networks Aren
Page 73 and 74: Environment Reporting other medium.
Page 75 and 76: A Beat About Business and the Envir
Page 77 and 78: Environment Reporting threatening t
Page 79 and 80: Environment Reporting Antarctica Fr
Page 81 and 82: Glaciers and Sea Level Change Envir
Page 83 and 84: Environment Reporting The U.N. home
Page 85 and 86: Environment Reporting Reporting on
Page 87 and 88: Environment Reporting Reluctance to
Page 89 and 90: Environment Reporting Types of Sate
Page 91 and 92: Environment Reporting Wildfires bur
Page 93 and 94: Words & Reflections The Consequence
Page 95 and 96: Words & Reflections buying newspape
Page 97: Words & Reflections A War Correspon
Page 101 and 102: Words & Reflections ness and the da
Page 103 and 104: The Worthiness of Bollinger’s Cha
Page 105 and 106: Journalism Education require the Ph
Page 107 and 108: Journalism Education nalism school.
Page 109 and 110: Journalism’s Road to Becoming a P
Page 111 and 112: Journalism Education perament—see
Page 113 and 114: Nieman Notes Nieman Notes Compiled
Page 115 and 116: Nieman Notes opment Program to fill
Page 117 and 118: Nieman Notes background information
Page 119: Nieman Notes Zimbabwe Journalist Ma
show all

Download issue (PDF) - Nieman Foundation - Harvard University

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?