Words & ReflectionsTwo Kurdish friends walk through an alleyway in the Turkish town of Cizre near the border with northern Iraq. Photo by DavidTurnley.86 <strong>Nieman</strong> Reports / Winter 2003
Words & ReflectionsA Documentary Examines Cable News War CoverageWas objectivity a casualty?By Margie ReedyAs I began my fellowship at<strong>Harvard</strong>’s Kennedy School ofGovernment, the impending warwith Iraq dominated all discussions. Ihad come to the Joan Shorenstein Centeron the Press, Politics and PublicPolicy to produce their first documentary.As the former host of a newsinterview program, I had wanted togauge the effect that cable television’scontentious talk-radio-comes-to-televisioninterview shows had on politicaldiscussion in the United States. But thewar and its coverage became the storyin broadcast journalism.We witnessed several sea changesduring this conflict. The major broadcastnetworks had always been the gotoplaces in times of crisis, but duringthe Iraq War, the number of viewers forthe cable news networks shot up morethan 300 percent. The Fox News Channel(FNC) jumped from its usual onemillion plus audience to five and a halfmillion. CNN spiked to 3.3 million,while MSNBC more than doubled itsaudience to two million viewers.But the battle was not only for ratings.The war coverage was a microcosmof the fiercely competitive ongoingwar raging among the all-newscable networks over journalistic ethicsand allegations of political bias. Evenas the war was declared over, questionsstill lingered about whether objectivity—theattempt to give fair andequal treatment to all participants in astory without the influence of personalor political opinions—had been sidelinedin the struggle for ratings andpolitical supremacy.What Research RevealedTo research my documentary, I watchedendless days of live coverage duringthe war and ran through hours of tapesafter the fact. The three cable networksdifferentiated their presentations, inpart, through the word choice, toneand delivery of anchors and correspondents.This is also where the other bigchange in news coverage became apparent,in the amount of open rallyingfor the United States and the attempt tochill dissent. On Fox, U.S. soldiers weremore often referred to as “we,” troopswere “liberators,” and protesters werethe “great unwashed” or other negatives.The New York Times media writer,Jim Rutenberg, called the level of pro-America coverage on Fox “astoundingand completely unprecedented.” Hequoted Fox anchor Neil Cavuto telling“those who opposed the liberation ofIraq: ‘You were sickening then, you aresickening now.’”As for tone, the same pictures couldreceive very different treatment on thecable networks. While voicing over avideotape given to the networks by AlJazerra—with pictures of Arab men favorablygreeting U.S. soldiers—CNNanchor Aaron Brown commented, “Isuppose if you see American forcescoming in the force they’ve come in,you’d want to look friendly too, nomatter what you feel. … But they werewarmly greeted and in that part of Iraqthere’s no reason they wouldn’t be.”On Fox, anchor Shepard Smith said,“Check out the reaction of ordinaryIraqis to our liberating forces. Smilesand handshakes. … An Iraqi man hasliberation for himself, his family, andhis neighbors. So far the war is going asscripted.”Alex Jones, director of theShorenstein Center, who has closelymonitored the rise of Fox, commented,“If you watch Fox you’re going to get avery positive interpretation of what’sgoing on, who’s right, who’s wrong.There will be very little ambiguity.”Most Fox correspondents deliveredstraightforward, accurate reports. Butduring the evening on Fox, the analystswho usually host their opinion-driveninterview programs anchored their warcoverage. They offered blatant endorsementsof the decision to go to war andverbally attacked antiwar protesters,the United Nations, the French, anyonewho stood in the United States’sway. Fox’s “you’re with us or you’reagainst us” attitude mirrored that ofthe Bush administration in its challengeto other nations.It was “jingoism as journalism,” accordingto Tom Rosenstiel of the Projectfor Excellence in Journalism. Two ofthe cable channels, MSNBC and Fox,adopted the military’s name for thewar—Operation Iraqi Freedom—as thetitle of their coverage. This “psy-ops”term—short for psychological-operations—wascoined by the Pentagon toengender good feelings about the wareffort. Rosenstiel viewed its use as “aclear and financially driven decision topander to patriotic spirit as a way to getviewers.”Bill O’Reilly, who hosts the mostpopular show on Fox, told me, “Thereason we dominated in the ratingsand continue to do so isn’t because wewere rooting for the war, it was becausewe were accurate. Our assessmentwas it was a just war. We wouldwin the war quickly. Both proved to betrue.” The host of the “The O’ReillyFactor” went on to say, “If you’re goingto tell me we shaded the news or didanything other than report the truth,I’m going to tell you you’re flat-outwrong.”Fox failed to separate itself from theU.S. war effort, according to “60 MinutesII” executive producer, Jeff Fager.“Probably the hardest thing to detachfrom is your country. But you have to.That’s just something that is no longeras much of a priority in a place like Fox.It’s okay to say ‘we’ because you’resaying ‘we’ about a part of the audiencethat’s going to love you for it.” Rivalnetwork executives surmise that the<strong>Nieman</strong> Reports / Winter 2003 87
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