As CPJ marks its 25th anniversary, our early board members and former directors look ahead to the emerging challenges facing the international press. Moderator John Carroll, Knight visiting lecturer at the Shorenstein Center at Harvard, leads the panel in a two-week discussion about Iraq, national security, Internet censorship, and the new threats to press freedom.
| Other Topics Iraq Stringers and Fixers United States Standards Reporting from Censored Countries China and the Internet Emerging Threats |
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Your comments and reactions are welcome. Write to cpj@cpj.org |
ISRAEL-LEBANON CONFLICT
Posted July 20, 2006
From John Carroll: Earlier this week we talked about the severe limits on press coverage in Iraq. Now, as conflict arises in Israel and Lebanon, CPJ has found that news organizations are readily deploying journalists there. Why the greater access? Is it truly safer? What parts of the story are we not seeing? What does this tell us about the nature of this conflict and the role of the press in covering it?
An eye on Lebanon, underlying politics
From Anthony Lewis: Is it safer to cover the Israeli-Lebanese conflict than the insurgency in Iraq? Immensely much safer, I should think. In Iraq, Western journalists have to take extreme precautions simply to emerge from their guarded places of work or residence. John Burns of The New York Times told the Nieman Fellows in a recent appearance that he only goes out in an armored car, accompanied by heavily-armed protectors. The nature of the Israeli bombing in Lebanon puts anyone, local citizen or foreign journalist, at risk of being in the wrong place at the wrong time—e.g., in a neighborhood that may conceal a Hezbollah rocket-launcher or that Israeli so suspects. But you don’t have to worry about passersby kidnapping you or planting roadside explosive devices.
It hardly needs to be said that press access is part of life in Israel, always. I cannot imagine Israeli officials barring Steve Erlanger or Greg Myre of NYT from visiting far northern Israel to cover the war. (Ordering them not to publish a secret is another matter, or punishing them if they do so.) Lebanon is not as news-crazy a country as Israel, but access is pretty easy. My son was there last year and met Hezbollah figures in filming a TV documentary.
I do not have a sense of what the American press is doing generally. But the NYT has sent two Arabic-speaking reporters to Lebanon: Jad Mouawad, who usually works on business news in New York, and Hassan Fattah, a contract reporter who is usually in the Gulf. The ability to speak Arabic seems to me crucial. American audiences naturally relate to Israelis, who more often than not speak English and may even have emigrated from the United States. But the reaction of the Lebanese—various kinds of Lebanese—is at the heart of this conflict.
Which brings me to a final point. This conflict is about politics, more immediately and directly than most. Israel is betting that it can erase the Hezbollah threat physically and persuade other Lebanese to turn against it for the trouble it has caused. Will that succeed? Or will this affair turn out like past Israeli campaigns to smash Arab groups, perhaps quelling terrorism in the short run but increasing humiliation and resentment in the long run? That is the underlying big story, and the press should not lose sight of it in the present, necessary concentration on the horrors of katyushas and bombs.
Greater access but elements unseen
From Peter Arnett: Once again the world watches as tens of thousands of desperate people flee a brutal battlefield— this time in Lebanon and Northern Israel—while the international media rushes to get in. I understand the siren call of war coverage: I responded to it enthusiastically for 40 years, and still harbor some longings for the action story. Which brings me to one of the questions of the day: Is covering this new outbreak of battle in the Middle East truly safe? The answer is no. Every journalist who ventures to northern Israel and Lebanon today faces at least the same risks from bombing and rocket fire that has so far killed 230 Lebanese and 25 Israelis. And this seems to be just the beginning. Simply being present in a war environment reduces the chances of survival, which is why so many thousands of visitors are heading to the aircraft and rescue ships, and the Lebanese are heading to the hills. The ante for reporters is upped considerably by the competitive nature of our business, particularly in gathering TV video and still photos. The appetite for information has become so huge in this multimedia world that the temptation exists for risk-taking that approaches the foolhardy. Come to think of it, I guess that aspect of war reporting hasn’t changed much over the years. I would hope, though, that media managements and journalists themselves harbor no illusions about the real risks of a war zone and prepare for the worst. Having said all that, I would add that modern news organizations have assembled competent staffs honed particularly by the past three decades of competitive coverage in the many war zones around the world. There is a visible confidence in much of today’s war reporting that belies the dangers in the field.
Why is there greater access for reporters on this battlefield? The main reason is that it has been a media focal point for years. The capitals of both countries—Tel Aviv and Beirut – are home to international news bureaus. The host governments are familiar with and generally supportive of the role the media plays. Visas are usually not a problem for visiting journalists, unlike other countries in the Middle East and in trouble spots elsewhere in the world. The media also knows the battlefield intimately from its coverage experiences of the past 30 years, which saw a civil war rake through Beirut, and an Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon. We should also remember that all sides in this conflict are extremely media aware, and in these initial days are anxious to promote their own points of view to an anxious world. Israel’s opponents in this struggle—Hamas and Hezbollah—are both semi-states with a degree of political legitimacy they did not enjoy in previous conflicts, a development that has so far benefited reporters anxious to get both sides of the story.
What parts of the story are we not seeing? A lot of what we ARE seeing is the element of the conflict that cannot be concealed, such as the results of the artillery and aerial bombardments by the Israeli forces, and the rocket counterattacks by Hezbollah. The flow of refugees from the southern Lebanese villages and the exodus of foreigners from Beirut are also very visible, and all these aspects, including interviews with officials and victims, have made up the coverage so far. Reporters remain only at the edge of an important element, and that is what we are NOT seeing, the significant struggle on the ground in southern Lebanon between attacking Israeli Special Forces and the Hezbollah militia firing the rockets hitting Israel’s northern cities. This southern region is the hottest part of the war zone and the most sensitive for both sides. If history is a guide, I would think that neither side would welcome reporters at this point. This does not mean that a private video doesn’t show up somewhere with an inside look at what’s going on. I would surmise that if the conflict deepens, both sides will start considering controls on the media, remembering that the Israelis introduced a form of censorship during its invasion of the early 1980s, and that Hezbollah itself and other Islamic groups took journalists and other foreigners hostage in an attempt to achieve their political goals.
What does this tell us about the nature of conflict and the role of the press in covering it? It tells us we should listen more to people who understand what is happening in the world. We are learning again that if left to its own devices, without the constant care and feeding of international diplomacy, the Middle East is a powder keg that can explode at any time. This is a message that media coverage has clearly spelled out over the years, in interviews with experts and from the facts repeatedly gathered on the ground. The eruption of renewed conflict should come as no surprise to anyone who follows the news. But the media remains just the messenger, to be influential or ignored by those powerful enough to really change our world. In this modern era of conflicts, from Vietnam through to Iraq, the media has done its best to portray wars as they really are, and has paid a heavy price in blood and bullion to tell the stories, along with the slings and arrows from critics. And so it goes again, in northern Israel and Lebanon. I’m glad we still have the enthusiasm to do so.