The Persian Gulf War was my first televised war. In January 17, 1991, CNN launched reporting from the Gulf. Meanwhile I was 12 years old and first time in my life I was witnessing the term of “Live War”. Every single day we were watching Peter Arnett and Bernard Shaw as others in all around the world. It was quite influential war for my generation because we had never seen the war before this much transparently.
Nearly 10 years later I wrote my graduation thesis on “The War on Journalism“. How about that? I always think that this is most crucial and uneasy part of journalism. Besides difficulties to gather information under the war conditions you put your life at risk to cover the story. What motives encourage journalist for doing this?
In the collage during my journalism classes what I was thought that there is no particularly Journalist for “War” because Journalists can not be part of the war.
They can’t support wars in order to get more “FAME” or “RATING“. They just report what they have seen and witnessed. However it is always hard to determine fine line between “Doing your job” and “Helping wounded people”.
Reporting America at War is a documentary where we can find chronological development of war reporting and also how the way of reporting has changed in the years. Moreover we can remind what were the most essential rules and characteristics of journalism in the era of war.
16 years after first heavily-televised war, how much media changed? A lot…Technology has emerged incredibly and now we are not satisfied with televised war anymore. We need to know more and more because we have a power to do that. Altough we have real-time reporting now it isn’t enough because this time we want to get different opinions from different sources. How about real-sources such as real Iraqis? What does it mean real Iraqis? Only Iraqis can pursue us what is really going on there. Isn’t that transformation of news to reality shows? Do we have any expectations like that? If answer is yes why we need a journalist? Did Journalists lose their credibilities?
Journalism essentially requires seeking truth and public enlightenment. In order to do that journalists have to keep neutrality, objectivity, newsworthiness, and minimize harm as much as possible.
If we assume that everything meets with these conditions listed above “Why War on the Web” is so controversial as a new reporting way. Kevin Sites and Blogging Controversy is a key case on that issue. He is long-time experienced veteran war correspondent but he was told to shut down his popular site because he was not legitimate enough.
If we want professional journalist in the field what disturbs us? I think this is not completely related with his journalism skills. The reason of controversy is BLOGGING. Blogging is still suspicious and illegitimate among the majority of journalists and journalism scholars. Paul Grabowicz, the new media program director of Graduate School of Journalism in Berkeley criticizes unedited war blogs and adds: “We are getting into some treacherous water here. If there is not an editor reading before it goes up, it is taking away a safeguard that’s sensible one in journalism-to make sure you get it right before it’s published”. MEDIA: Web logs offer stream of consciousness from the front
Moreover blogging on war not just done by experienced journalist but also students, soldiers, individuals (Iraqis, Americans) as a nature of blogging. You can find wide list of Iraq War Blogs here. Iraq Today
Some war bloggers says that “Only two things we need to have are laptop and satellite phone. We don’t need an editor”. I think this is the point what we really need to consider it. That is why we can’t count on any bloggers as a journalist. Bloggers also tends to use more casual style of writing. How we can evaluate facts? Is this is a real story or just make up?
In the sum of these conceptions the answer of “Is seeing and reading about war good thing or bad thing?” question would be “Good Thing” without any doubt. This is amazingly important for public enlightenment; encouraging freedom of speech and press. People can express their feelings and opinions as an opponent of war or supporter of war. We should not have any problem with this part of the contention.
On the other hand if we are considering every-war related blogs like an example of journalism the answer will be big “NO”. We do have already enough disinformation in today’s world. People can be deceived through propaganda channels, defemations and inaccurate information. I think how much we are reading or seeing on war is not critical issue at this point. On the contrary I believe we need to determine whether every writings or videos on war has a journalistic value.
