Voices
Big Brother News?
Why the Pentagon’s feed from Iraq is dangerous business
Since December, the Pentagon has been beaming a satellite feed from Iraq that can be picked up by television news organizations in the U.S. The idea, says the Pentagon, is simply to give TV stations and networks access to press briefings from Baghdad, and allow reporters in the U.S. to question the briefers. So far so good.
Potentially, however — and military spokespeople decline to rule it out — the new service also could become a full-fledged newsgathering and reporting entity with the mission of putting a “good news” spin on the bad news coming out of Iraq — casualties, insurrections, political upheaval, civil dissent. Such a news feed would bypass the regular news organizations, most of whom the administration doesn’t trust to report its version of what’s going on in Iraq.
“The American people need to hear good news from Iraq to supplement the bad news they get” from mainstream outlets, a senior administration official told The New York Times in December in explaining the new feed.
A crucial principle is involved here, namely that taxpayer money should never be spent on broadcasting “official” news (call it propaganda) to citizens within our borders. That’s why the Voice of America is barred from being heard in the United States. The same should apply to the feed from Baghdad and any comparable government initiative. Do we want the Departments of State, Homeland Security, and Interior to go on the air with similar self-serving, publicly funded broadcasts to the American public?
Maybe the Pentagon is sincere in saying it doesn’t aim to establish an alternative news channel as a corrective to regular TV news outlets. Nonetheless, “the camel’s nose is in the tent,” as Christopher Simpson, a professor of communication at American University in Washington, puts it. “In government, small programs grow into large programs,” he says, “as they advance an agency’s conception of its own interest.”
The administration’s desire, in a presidential election year, to put the best possible face on the Iraq adventure is understandable, but the job of reporting the crisis belongs to an independent press, not to the military.
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