Tell Me Something I Don't Know

When Mr. Weiss wanted to watch the news, he watched Fox News.

It was a predictable action for my then-boyfriend’s father. Mr. Weiss, a 1st Class Staff Sergeant, had retired from the U.S. Army after 25 years of service. He then got a job testing weapons and other gadgets for a group that contracted with the military. He would spend several weekends a year reporting to military groups in Washington D.C. about the findings of the tests.

Mr. Weiss’ oldest son had spent a tour in Afghanistan and Iraq as a member of the Marine Corps. He was sent home after sustaining minor injuries from a land mine.

The Iraq War was personal to the Weiss family.

Because I spent so much time at his home and was studying to be a part of the “damned liberal media,” I became the representative scapegoat Mr. Weiss would voice the complaints he had against all reporters who didn’t work for Fox News.

I can debate with the best of them. Even if I don’t know what I am talking about, I can usually put up a good front and make you mad as hell. But when it came to Mr. Weiss and media coverage, my very own specialty, I was cowed.

He was right.

CNN and the newspapers never report the positive things going on in the Middle East, he would say. What about the schools and the water treatment plants the soldiers are building? What about the children? What about….

At the time, I just took it all in and battled where I could. After all, the J-School was telling me Fox was nearly the Antichrist. Surely I couldn’t side with that news organization.

The Iraq War is one of the hottest and most unpopular topics in America right now and it is largely under reported. Dozens of media outlets cite safety as the No. 1 reason for lack of information; it is simply too dangerous to send reporters to the country and expect them to get accurate information. “The media’s vital role as eyewitness has been severely limited; the intimate narrative of victims, survivors and their persecutors is sorely lacking in places like Anbar Province, where the insurgency continues to inflict havoc” (Ricchiardi, 28).

A sorely lacking, intimate narrative in just Anbar Province? I have yet to see an intimate narrative about the goings-on of the Iraq War on anything, anywhere. Maybe you have. But I haven’t.

The journalists that are embedded and reporting for the world public are focusing on the life of the country, or rather the death. The American Journalism Review complains that while journalists are left to sift through the propaganda and challenges, “…Americans are left without a complete account of a prolonged, bloody war that is devouring billions of taxpayers’ dollars.”

I believe the American public has a pretty good idea about the length and bloodiness of the war. Unfortunately, that’s the only picture they have.

In a March 2006 PBS program through the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer called “The Media and the Message,” the moderator discussed the issue of good news vs. bad news with two reputable sources. Robert Lichter, a journalism professor and president for the Center for Media and Public Affairs, and Michael Massing, the former executive editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, both agreed that what the media reports, is what the public sees.

The public doesn’t know anything but what we as journalists show them. If all we show them is death and destruction in Iraq, then that is of course what they are going to know and believe. President Bush even spoke about the terrorist manipulation of essentially distracting the media by blowing things up and wreaking havoc.

“If it’s a disservice to the American public, using the traditional criteria for news, to miss other things that are happening; I can’t be sure they are happening because I don't see them in the media,” Lichter said.

Granted, no place in Iraq is going to be a safe place for a journalist. But there are 18 total provinces in Iraq, and I know some of them have been designated as more secure than others.

There are stories to be told in Iraq; and they are tellable.

So children are scared to go to school? It’s interesting that one of the jobs of Americans in Iraq is to build schools where there were none at all.

So Americans in the Middle East are building water treatment facilities? Those had to come before plumbing and pipes could be installed — where there were none at all.

So there are heroes in this war? We wouldn’t know it if we had to rely on the media.

What about the mothers? What about the children? What about the soldiers? What about Baghdad, a former cultural hotspot of the world? Think of the troves of art that are lost. What about Hussein’s coffers of treasures? Are they gone? Looted?

And how about one of Yahoo’s latest Iraq stories? Buried at the bottom was the announcement of thousands of gallons of nitric acid found in a hidden weapons stockpile. It may not be WMDs, but ask Mr. Weiss what else the soldiers have found that the media doesn’t talk about.

Mr. Weiss could share stories that would make your heart truly ache. The stories were of soldiers doing their duty in a foreign country to a population of foreign people. He worked alongside the parents of currently deployed soldiers and among the soldiers themselves.

Those are the stories I want to hear. And if Mr. Weiss can know about them all the way here in Missouri, then I don’t understand why our reporters can’t find them, as well.

Sources:
PBS program transcript:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june06/iraq_3-22.html#

Ricchiardi, Sherry. American Journalism Review. “Obstructed View.” April/May 2007, p. 26-33.