Posted on 05/17/2003 9:03:38 PM PDT by jwalburg
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP) -
California newspapers devoted considerable resources to the war in Iraq, sending reporters and photographers into harm's way and trying to provide balanced, accurate and comprehensive coverage of battlefield and homefront developments.
But even some of the largest newspapers struggled to make sense of rapidly changing events and conflicting information, their editors acknowledged Saturday during the Associated Press News Executives Council's annual meeting.
"I don't think any of us were prepared to handle the deluge of fragmentary images that dominated the first two days," said David Yarnold, editor of the San Jose Mercury News.
Yarnold also remains troubled by coverage of the war's second week, when U.S. forces paused outside Baghdad, prompting criticism that military planners had underestimated the Iraqi resistance.
"I think what it really was, was the fog of war," he said. "I think we were very quick to criticize the military, and I'm not sure we had sufficient expertise to be doing that."
Like other Americans, newsroom staffers were divided in their opinions about the war. Editors reminded journalists to avoid actions that would raise an appearance of bias.
Still, even in San Diego, where one in five families have some connection to the military and coverage of the armed forces is a high priority, some staffers of The San Diego Union-Tribune participated in an anti-war protest, said Todd Merriman, the paper's senior editor for news.
"Fortunately, they were not directly involved in covering the war," Merriman said.
The paper's ethics policy says staffers "are free to discuss their views in ways that don't create perceptions of bias," Merriman said, "and since in this case most were not creating or handling content about the war, that gave us an out."
The San Francisco Chronicle's staff was given no such leeway, managing editor Robert Rosenthal said.
"Before the war started, we had a meeting and basically made clear to everyone that every part of the paper was going to cover the war, particularly because in Northern California, with Silicon Valley here, technology has played such a big role and we're the heart of the anti-war movement."
Some staffers objected, and a business writer was disciplined for claiming a sick day while getting arrested during an anti-war protest.
"I was stunned personally that anyone would think they could participate in the anti-war movement," Rosenthal said.
The Los Angeles Times also wrestled with perceptions of bias after an art critic included a denunciation of President Bush while reviewing an exhibit of anti-war art.
"I think he used the word 'imbecilic,' editor John Carroll said. "We wrote an editorial saying this should not have appeared in the paper."
"Our paper is perceived because of some things in the past as being politically correct and having a liberal bias, and we are moving heaven and Earth to play the facts and truth right down the middle," Carroll said. "We're really trying to get that in the past."
Carroll said the Times and other media failed to examine closely enough the underlying assumptions about the war and its aftermath.
"Reprehensively missing from everybody's work is the ability to put a broader spotlight on the questions surrounding the war, like how the neoconservatives came to have such control in our government, where they came from and how they succeeded in changing the direction of policy, really overnight," he said.
Carroll also questioned "this whole idea of a democratic domino theory in which we whip Iraq into a democracy and the rest of the world will follow suit. I would say the chances of that happening are minuscule."
Editors said they were concerned that Washington sources managed to "spin" the news. At times, this resulted in conflicting reports.
Certain cable TV news networks were "nothing but an echo chamber for the White House," Yarnold said. "I think the major papers did write intelligently and critically, but we all get swept up in it."
What's needed is a healthy skepticism, especially when it comes to stories using anonymous sources, they said.
AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, who led the panel discussion, noted the risks taken by the many embedded reporters and others who traveled on their own through Iraq to report on the war. Several editors said they anguished over sending colleagues into danger.
"We tell our reporters, 'live to file,'" she said.
Still, some journalists were among those killed and injured in the war. Others were beaten by mobs and narrowly escaped death. They took these risks to present readers with an accurate picture of what was going on, their editors said.
This created another dilemma for editors, who had to decide whether to publish gruesome photographs.
"I felt it was important to show the reality of the war. We had dead and wounded Iraqis on our front page," Rosenthal said.
But there, too, the paper had its limits, Rosenthal said, recalling one powerful image of an Iraqi man holding his wounded daughter, her feet sheared off and hanging by ligaments. It prompted a newsroom debate, but Rosenthal ultimately ordered the girl's severed legs cropped out.
Other newsroom debates followed when images of captured U.S. soldiers, appearing terrified, were shown on Arab television. The Pentagon and the White House asked that the media not show the images.
Several papers published them, anyway.
Despite concerns that embedded reporters would have a pro-military bias, the editors said none felt constrained about reporting what they saw. All said they would send more staffers along with U.S. troops if the nation goes to war again, and hire journalists with military expertise.
"The stories that were most important for our readers were the stories that really put you there and made it real," Rosenthal said.
Still have a ways to go
Yeah right Rosenthal...then why did your reporters that bothered to interview us FReepers wear bright orange press passes that said "NO WAR IRAQ"?
Yeah. An "out"...
But it never occurred to you, Mr. Merriman, that an anti-war posture was part & parcel of a whole load of other equally pernicious liberal biases? And that whatever it was these reporters were writing on was being twisted and distorted to conform to a liberal agenda?
Nah, probably didn't...
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