It was, of course, too late; I was already hooked. But even as I
settled in to watch, resigned to my latest addiction, the thought
crossed my mind that perhaps reality television has finally gone
too far.
The latest phenomenon relied on months of hype (before the
actual first episode) to establish a solid, if somewhat skeptical
and reluctant, base of viewers. But despite the near-constant
viewer polling, Operation Iraqi Freedom is no mere “Married
by America.” The first-ever war to be televised live ““
as it happens, 24 hours a day ““ represents a new high-water
mark for the United States’ already unimaginably large
voyeuristic impulse.
From the moment the first Coalition troops crossed the
Iraq-Kuwait border, networks like FOX News, MSNBC and most of all
CNN have devoted themselves to constant coverage and analysis of
the conflict. The major difference from the coverage of previous
wars ““ most notably Desert Storm ““ is the pervasive
presence of so-called embedded media: journalists who live and move
with actual companies of Coalition troops, documenting movements
and skirmishes within minutes of their occurrence.
The result has been, for better or for worse, an unprecedented
look at what really goes on in the front lines. Viewers, myself
included, have spent hours in front of the TV, captivated by live
images of soldiers actually shooting at other soldiers, bombs
actually falling on real buildings, and sometimes by nothing more
than a stretch of land over which the network has received reports
of incoming air strikes. While I watched live, accompanied by my
constant companions ““ the CNN news team in Atlanta ““
the barren stretch stayed undisturbed for a tense two hours before
the strike finally came.
Proponents of this type of coverage maintain that it gives the
public greater access to accurate information than ever before and
that, by keeping constant tabs on military actions, it increases
the accountability of the Coalition forces, hopefully eliminating
the atrocities and gross blunders that were eventually revealed to
have taken place in Vietnam. Critics worry that we may be giving
opposing forces too much advance knowledge, enabling them to
prepare more thoroughly for imminent attacks, thus putting our own
troops in greater danger.
The truth, I believe, is far more sinister. It would be foolish
to think that Coalition commanders would allow anything to air that
would jeopardize military operations. It would be equally foolish
to assume that the public is getting an honest, unadulterated look
behind the scenes of the war. Really, the network coverage has
little, if anything, to do with accurate, documentary journalism.
What we are seeing every day is a carefully controlled piece of
meta-propaganda, directed at both American and Iraqi viewers.
One needs only to look at the language used to confirm this. The
initial air strike on Baghdad, as most know by now, was called
“Shock and Awe.” To Iraqi viewers, this moniker is
clearly intended to demoralize to the point of submission. But more
subtly, to American viewers the name sounds suspiciously like the
tagline to an $8 billion action film. I know it worked on me; from
the day the war began I waited with bated breath for the attack. Of
course it turned out to be neither shocking nor awesome, but just
rather sad.
The term is just one symptom of a massive effort to market a war
to a country, not as something terrible but necessary, but as
something bombastic and thrilling. I have found myself shocked
again and again by the images on TV. There is something wrong when
I find reporters in the field (on more than one occasion) dashing.
There is something wrong when I hear a general give a nostalgic
reference to “the greatest tank battle ever fought” and
lament that embedded media could not capture it.
What, after all, is left to a society that has managed to shape
even that most solemn pursuit ““ war ““ into a
mass-market commodity? Maybe nothing, but to sit back, relax, and
watch the bombs fall on what’s left of our dignity.