Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T15:22:56.200Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Representing Contemporary War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 September 2012

David Campbell
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

“… Sontag not only challenges the compassion fatigue thesis; she questions the notion of the CNN effect. With regard to inaction in Bosnia despite the steady stream of images of ethnic cleansing that made their way out of Sarajevo, Sontag argues that people didn't turn off because they were either overwhelmed by their quantity or anaesthetized by their quality. Rather, they switched off because American and European leaders proclaimed it was an intractable and irresolvable situation. The political context into which the pictures were being inserted was already set, with military intervention not an option, and no amount of horrific photographs was going to change that….

… In the Iraq war of 2003 imagery was central to the conflict and often the subject of conflict itself. In this context, the Pentagon's strategy of “embedding” reporters and their camera crews with fighting units, and having them operate at the behest of that unit, continues the long-running tradition of a close relationship between the media and the military…. Given this, Sontag is perhaps surprisingly sanguine about the genuineness of war photography in the contemporary period. While recognizing that many of the now iconic combat images of the pre-Vietnam period were staged, she sees Vietnam as a watershed such that “the practice of inventing dramatic news pictures, staging them for the camera, seems on its way to becoming a lost art.” Insofar as Sontag is referring to the likelihood of individual photographers seeking to deceive, she may be right. There was, however, at least one notable instance in Iraq of digital manipulation. This resulted in the Los Angeles Times sacking award-winning staff photographer Brian Walski, whose altered image of a British soldier in Basra (he had combined two photos into one to improve marginally composition) was used on the paper's front page….

… What is most striking about the embedded journalists' coverage of the Iraq war is the way in which the images of the conflict produced by the allies' media was so relatively clean, being largely devoid of the dead bodies that mark a major conflict. In this outcome, the media is a willing accomplice….”

Type
Review Essays
Information
Ethics & International Affairs , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , September 2003 , pp. 99 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Sontag, SusanRegarding the Pain of Others (New YorkFarrar, Straus and Giroux 2003)p.104Google Scholar.

2 Sontag, SusanOn Photography (New YorkAnchor Books, 1990 17–18Google Scholar.

3 Moeller, Susan DCompassion Fatigue: How the Media Sell Disease, Famine, War and Death (New YorkRout-ledge 1999), p.117Google Scholar.

4 Taylor, JohnBody Horror: Photojournalism, Catastrophe and War ManchesterManchester University Press, 1998) p.46Google Scholar.

5 Sontag, On Photography p.17Google Scholar.

6 Ibid.18–19Google Scholar

7 Ibid., p.69Google Scholar.

8 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others p.76Google Scholar.

9 Ibid., p.102Google Scholar.

10 Ibid., p. 101. For an argument against the CNN effect in relation to images of Bosnian atrocity, see Campbell, DavidAtrocity, Memory, Photography: Imaging the Concentration Camps of Bosnia—The Case of ITN versus Living Marxism, Part II Journal of Human Rights 1 no. 2 (2002) 157–58Google Scholar; see also http://www.virtual-security.net/attrocity/atrocity2.htm.

11 Ibid., p.21Google Scholar.

12 Ibid., pp.38–39Google Scholar.

13 Ibid., p.58Google Scholar.

14 Campbell, DuncanWar in the Gulf: US war photographer sacked for altering image of British soldier GuardianApril 3, 2003p.5Google Scholar; and Stephen Bates, “Media: Faking it,”Guardian, May 5, 2003, pp. 2–3.

15 DeFoore, Jay Brian Walski Discusses His Doctored Photo “PDNewswire” May 7, 2003Google Scholar; available at http://www.pdn-pix.com/news/archive/2003/050703.html#4.

16 Kampfner, JohnWar Spin Correspondent BBC2 May 18, 2003Google Scholar. For critical accounts of the CMC operation, see Wolff, MichaelMedia: ‘You know less than when you arrived GuardianMarch 31, 2003p.2Google Scholar; and Wolff, MichaelMedia: I was only asking GuardianApril 14, 2003p.6Google Scholar.

17 Getler, MichaelReporting Private Lynch Washington PostApril 20, 2003p.B6Google Scholar.

18 Stanley, AlessandraIn Hoopla Over a P.O.W, A Mirror of U.S. Society New York TimesApril 18, 2003p.89Google Scholar; and Rutenberg, JimTo Interview Former P.O.W, CBS Offers Stardom New York TimesJune 16, 2003p.A1Google Scholar.

19 Kampfner, War Spin”; John Kampfner, “Features: The truth about Jessica GuardianMay 15, 2003 2–3Google Scholar Many of these features were confirmed by the Washington Post's reexamination of the story two months after its initial account See Priest, DanaBooth, WilliamSchmidt, SusanA Broken Body, a Broken Story, Pieced Together Washington PostJune 17, 2003p.A1Google Scholar.

20 Swain, JonWar doesn't belong to the generals British Journalism Review 14 no. 1 (2003) pp.23–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also available at http://www.bjr.org.uk/data/2003/no1_swain.htm. In a similar vein, while Australian reporters are at some distance from their country's forces, Australian Department of Defence training videos have been supplied and used by the media to provide both still and moving images said to be Australian forces in action in Iraq. See Margo Kingston, “In Howard we trust, but why?”Sydney Morning Herald, March 26, 2003; available at http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/26/1048653740850.html.

21 Laforet, VincentPhotographer Worried about ‘Glorifying War Editor & PublisherApril 23, 2003; available athttp://www.editorandpublisher.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_1d=1871177Google Scholar.

22 Bernhard, NancyEmbedding Reporters on the Frontline Nieman Reports 57 no. 2 (2003) 87–89Google Scholar.

23 For a U.K. perspective, see Greenslade, RoyMedia: Fighting talk GuardianJune 30, 2003p.6Google Scholar.

24 Carr, DavidRutenberg, JimSteinberg, JacquesBringing Combat Home: Telling War's Deadly Story at Just Enough Distance New York TimesApril 7, 2003p.B13Google Scholar.

25 Rasmussen, Randy LArriving at Judgments in Selecting Photos Nieman Reports 2002 56 no. 367–70Google Scholar; and Larkin, MichaelDeciding on an Emotion-Laden Photography for Page One Nieman Reports 2002 55 no. 3p.77Google Scholar.

26 Lawson, AnnieEditors show restraint with war images MediaGuardian.co.ukMarch 31, 2003available athttp://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/story/0,12823,924949,00.htmlGoogle Scholar.

27 Both reporters and cameramen in a series of U.K. documentaries discuss this conundrum openly on the media and Iraq. See Jon Snow, “The True Face of War,”The War We Never Saw, Channel 4, June 5, 2003; and Fergal Keane, “Iraq: The Cameramen's Story,” BBC4, June 30, 2003. For the view of three U.K. television news editors that reveal the restraints, see “Media: What can you show?”Guardian, March 31, 2003, p. 7Google Scholar.

28 Barrett, MicheleReview: Shell-shocked GuardianApril 19, 2003p.34Google Scholar.

29 Sloyan, Patrick J What Bodies?Digital Journalist November 2002available athttp://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0211/sloyan.htmlGoogle Scholar.

30 Carter, BillPerlez, JaneThe Networks: Channels Struggle on Images of Captured and Slain Soldiers New York TimesMarch 24, 2003p.B6Google Scholar. Subsequent broadcast of a seven-second clip of the bodies of two U.K. soldiers, filmed by al-Jazeera but used in a BBC documentary, drew criticism from their relatives, the Ministry of Defence, and the British prime minister, but the BBC was not deterred from its use. Wilson, JamieBlair fails to get BBC to remove Gulf bodies footage GuardianMay 29, 2003p.6Google Scholar.

31 Dworkin, AnthonyThe Geneva Conventions and Prisoners of War Crimes of War Project 24 March 2003Google Scholar; available at http://www.crimesofwar.org/special/Iraq/brief-pow.html.

32 Quoted in Snow, “The True Face of War.”Google Scholar

33 Jason, Deans “BBC's war coverage was ‘too conservative”Google Scholarhttp://MediaGuardian.co.uk, June 25, 2003; available at http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,984976,00.html.

34 Ciar Byrne, “US TV networks <kissed ass>, says Wolff,”http://MediaGuardian.co.uk, June 25, 2003; available at http://media.guardian.co.uk/iraqandthemedia/story/0,12823,984899,00.html. Jayson Blair was the New York Times reporter whose fabrications resulted in upheaval at the newspaper.

35 Truscott, Lucian K IVIn This War, News Is A Weapon New York TimesMarch 25, 2003p.A1/Google ScholarThe weaponization of the media also preceded the conflict, especially when it came to the issue of weapons of mass destruction. One of the underreported elements of the Blair crisis at the New York Times was that “the paper's bioterrorism expert, Judith Miller, admitted her main source on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme had been the Pentagon's favored Iraqi, Ahmad Chalabi. That in turn suggested that the Pentagon and Mr. Chalabi had used the paper to help create justification for war.” Suzanne Goldenberg, “US paper gripped by new crisis of ethics,”Guardian, May 30, 2003, p. 19.

36 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others p.117Google Scholar.

37 Ibid., p.115Google Scholar.

38 “The Pity of War: It is right to confront images of death GuardianFebruary 14, 2003p.23Google Scholar.

39 Guardian (G2)February 14, 2003 1–17Google Scholar

40 Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others p.114Google Scholar.