Media in Wartime

This book is the first about military-media relations to argue for a fundamental restructuring of national journalism and the first to document the failure of American journalism in the national security field for the past thirty years. Press complaints of excessive control by the military during the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91 were the inevitable result of the failure of American journalism to train competent specialists in military reporting and to provide an organizational structure that would assure continuing, comprehensive coverage of national defense in peace and war. This, in turn, is the result of retaining the "city-room" concept as the basic organizational feature of the press, with continuing reliance on the generalist in an age that demands increasingly well-trained specialists. So long as the press fails to modernize its basic methods of training to assure well-trained defense specialists, the military will be required to closely control reporters, as in the Persian Gulf War, as a basic requirement of security for armed forces members and the national interests. Permitting the military to control how the military itself is reported is a grave danger to the democratic process. Yet, so long as the press refuses to accept responsibility for large-scale reform, the public will continue to support close military control as an essential element of safety for its sons and daughters in the armed forces, and out of concern for the success of U.S. military operations. This book will be of interest to students of the press, of the military, and of the media at large.

In the two centuries from the ratification of the First Amendment in 1791 through the Gulf War in 1991, the American press lacked an adequate right to analyze and report on the nation's armed conflicts. When restrictions were challenged as violations of the Constitution, military regulations and federal laws were justified as necessary under the "higher law" of survival Is there law more important than the Constitution which allows prerogative powers to be used in a time of war or national crisis? This groundbreaking and provocative study, examining law and history over these two hundred years, argues that press freedom cannot and should not be suspended during armed conflict.

This thorough work focuses on the processes and effects of the media, both leading up to and during the "mother of all battles" in 1990 and 1991. Broad in scope and varied in methodologies, the chapters span the media of television, radio, print, and film. Chapters discuss such specific topics as the relationship between the press and the censoring military, CNN's and C-SPAN's coverage, how talk radio and television covered the war, the media's depiction of women in the military, the Gulf War as a referent in advertising, and how popular culture legitimized the war.

America's attention focused on the Gulf War as briefings and bombings filled the airwaves and pictures and stories filled the print media. But did the American people receive the information that a free press should guarantee?

Fought when radio was first introduced, the Press-Radio war was an attempt on the part of print journalists to block the emergence of radio news. For nearly a decade, the newspapers of America fought to keep broadcast journalism off the air, exerting various forms of economic, regulatory, and legal pressure against new competitors. This study traces the stages and forms of institutional self-defense utilized by the press. Far more than mere battles to protect profits, media wars are fights to preserve the institutional power that derives from controlling the channels of communication.