Witness to War -- Episode Seven

"The problem is, in the world of CNN, the Sadam Husseins

of the future are going to have their television sets

turned on ..."

- General Norman Schwarzkopf

EPISODE SEVEN:

War at "Warp Speed"

Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo and beyond

            After the victory in the Gulf, the military and the media seemed to have made peace. 

            The "police action" in Somalia began as a friendly media circus.  The reporters, camera crews and technicians stormed ashore long before the troops.  The world watched as they waited with lights on for the triumphant onslaught.

            Anticipation was high.  Coming on the heels of victory in the Gulf, it was widely believed that this conflict could be quickly wrapped up, and the press would record the swift victory. 

            But when images of dead American soldiers being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu reached the States, public support for the campaign disappeared.

            The murderous warlords of Somalia found out that the American public couldn't stomach images of dead U.S. soldiers on TV.  The Marines were ordered home even though they were close to victory.  Some blamed the press for snatching victory out of the military's hands.

            These images from Somalia made American leaders reluctant to engage in Rwanda and Bosnia. 

            But scenes of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia stiffened the resolve of the country.  Satellite photos of mass grave sites brought the horrors home. When it became clear that this might be repeated in Kosovo, a military campaign to save the Kosovars was contemplated.

            Once the air war began, public support soared as the world's television screens were filled with images of suffering refugees.   In Serbia, Russia and China, where scenes of the refugee camps were nonexistent, the public opposed the war.

            The power of the media to influence public policy and form a consensus was never clearer.  But there are problems.

            Today, the internet, cable television and digital home satellite technology gives the public almost immediate access to news and information.  Journalists are forced to step up the pace to feed the information machine.  Fact checking sometimes falls by the wayside as reporters scramble to keep ahead of the information avalanche.  At the same time, military and government leaders use the internet to send information directly into people's homes.

            With the internet, the viewer or reader now sits behind the editor's desk, trolling for news.  As a result, the roles of the professional correspondents and their counterparts in the military are changing.  They're both being forced to satisfy this seemingly insatiable appetite for news. 

            As the information age accelerates, we are left to question how newsgatherers, the military and the public will navigate across this rapidly changing terrain.  Will technology be tamed, information barriers broken and the public interest served?  Or, will truth continue to be the first casualty of war as information moves at "warp speed?"