Searching for the word “war” in the Los Angeles
Times on Sunday, the top three results were a letter from a reader,
a story on a new book about tourist sites in Paris, and the
obituary of a former Nazi labor camp commander.
The war in Iraq is still a “conflict” to the Los
Angeles Times and other newspapers, despite over 1,200 soldiers
having been killed in Iraq ““ the most since Vietnam.
The media’s willingness to blindly follow the
government’s vernacular of choice is subtle ““ and
disturbing. While the nebulous “war on terror” is
acceptable terminology, the “war in Iraq” is not. And
most publications standardize their language, further reducing the
specificity of their reports.
The media is supposed to keep the president and other elected
officials accountable to society. By using euphemisms for the
coverage of war in Iraq, news sources ““ including the Daily
Bruin ““ have perpetuated the government’s spin.
The problem extends beyond the war in Iraq. Issues have taken on
euphemisms, diluting their meaning and effectively coloring popular
opinion. For example, when global warming is dubbed “climate
change,” it doesn’t seem as perilous. And when the
estate tax is referred to as the “death tax,” the
justifiable tax sounds inhumane.
The problems go beyond word choice, including everything from
story placement and decisions on which photographs should run.
A story reporting that the interim Iraqi government shut down Al
Jazeera’s Baghdad bureau ran on page 14 in The New York Times
in August. Though the story was followed up with prominently placed
opinion pieces, one would think a story on freedom of the press
would get more attention in this democracy.
And though many experts vocalized their opinions that the vast
majority of “insurgents” in Iraq were Iraqi fighters,
news reports took for granted the government’s assertion that
the insurgency was composed largely of foreign militants.
None of these examples measures up newspapers blindly accepting
government claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Many news outlets subsequently apologized for coverage of the
WMD issue. But one has to ask if those notes were enough,
considering The New York Times, apologizing for numerous front-page
stories, ran its apology on page 10.
The media’s job isn’t easy; reporters, editors and
publishers are not consciously trying to suppress information from
readers or even purposely disseminate a given perspective. The
government has become skilled at releasing information in sanitized
packets, many of which offer very little substance. Editors should
be careful not to let their publications be led around like a herd
of blind horses. Their choice of words and images have powerful
connotations in how these complex stories are perceived.
Likewise, consumers of news should be careful when they’re
reading or watching ““ what appears to be the whole story is
only part of the story, and even that part has an angle. In this
age of information, and information control, the real story is
often hard to find.