Triumph of the Image: The Media's War in the Persian Gulf, a Global Perspective by Hamid Mowlana

Author:Hamid Mowlana [Mowlana, Hamid]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, World, Middle Eastern, Social Science, Regional Studies
ISBN: 9780429983078
Google: PPZKDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-02-07T05:09:13+00:00

Between Two Evils

The work of the censors was made easier by the fact that journalists had to take into account the home audience and many pressure groups. For example, CNN was reprimanded for helping the enemy because it aired the weather forecast for the battlefield. CNN had to assure its viewers that Iraq already had the information. Many politicians and organizations scrutinized the media for possible traces of defeatism, breaches of security, or "understanding" of the enemy.

After the war many journalists, especially those from the United States, described being caught between two evils: the Pentagon and the enthusiastic home front (Boot 1991). At the Gulf, censors usually had little work. Most journalists there identified with the army spirit and goals, were eager to take part in the training and fitness tests provided by the army, started to wear uniforms, and adopted army slang (Millar 1991).

In Finland many journalists identified themselves with Western interests and efforts. But because no Finnish troops were taking part in the fighting, the atmosphere was more calm than, for instance, in Britain or in Czechoslovakia. Because Finland is far from the Gulf but near the Soviet Union, during the war the Soviet crisis, not the Gulf, was often the leading story.

Finland was a bystander. The war was quite generally accepted by the press and the public, but without any real enthusiasm and with no pressure against opposition voices. The mainstream press was mainly pro-U.S., but it allowed other opinions to be published.

Only a few journalists were enthusiastic advocates of the war. One of them was the editor of Helsingin Sanomat, the leading Finnish prestige newspaper, who described the war as "a classical victory of Good against the Bad" (January 3, 1991). But it is illuminating of the Finnish debate that this sentence was ridiculed more than taken seriously.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.