Page 298 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

288 Chapter 1 I

and British governments, carefully weighing evidence in favor of a fair portrayal
of the conflict, were in for a disappointment. As the propaganda model predicts,
the American mass media are quick to demonize the actions of official "ene-
mies," while exonerating the U.S. or allied governments for any blame. In no
uncertain terms, Max Hastings argued in the New York Times that "Iran repre-
sents a menace to the security of us while the Washington Post editors
railed against the "illegal attacks against a major Western power," despite the
fact that there was still uncertainty at the time over whether the British troops
had been in Iranian waters or not. Of the four editorials initially run by the
Washington Post and Los Angeles Times on the detainment incident, all con-
demned Iranian leaders for utilizing propaganda in pursuit of selfish motives.
The Los Angeles Times editors labeled the sailors and marines "innocent" vic-
tims of Iranian "e~calation.'*~
As with major editorials, American reporting on the conflict also tended to
heavily promote official Western frames. Of the forty-nine major stories run by
the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post (found through a
comprehensive search of the Lexis Nexis database), 54 percent of all sources
quoted were British, as opposed to 30 percent that were Iranian. Western sources
(including British and American) dominated media narratives even more thor-
oughly, comprising on average 70 percent of all sources quoted by the three
papers. Such sources tended more often to promote antagonistic views of Iranian
leaders, while presenting heroic and resolute images of U.S. and British leaders,
under siege as a result of Iranian aggression and coercion. Of course, there is
nothing inevitable about the fact that most sources were pro-Western in nature.
There were, after all, reporters in Iran fiom Reuters and the Associated Press
amongst other reporting agencies and organizations operating in Tehran, who
filed reports based upon the statements of Iranian leaders, military officials, me-
dia, dissidents, and specialists. If American media outlets really wanted to pur-
sue a more balanced approach to reporting the standoff, equally citing British
and Iranian sources, they could have done so. Pursuing a more balanced ap-
proach, however, would require that American reporters and editors not pursue
(as one of their major objectives) the uncritical transmission of official propa-
ganda at the expense of alternative views.