Page 88 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

78 Chapter 4

part of a long and sad tradition."' Nearly indistinguishable in their message, the
excerpts from the Washington Post's editorial and President Bush's speech
above reveal a great deal about the comfortable relationship between the Arneri-
can media and the Bush administration at the onset of the invasion of Iraq. For
those who critically followed media reporting of the Iraq war, the similarity be-
tween government statements and news editorials is of no surprise. Rather than
serving as hostile medium, challenging government statements about the war,
reporters interpreted their commitment to "objectivity" as excluding or limiting
critical approaches to evaluating the Iraq war.
This chapter provides a comprehensive background to the mainstream me-
dia's framing of the Iraq war, before the 2003 invasion, and throughout the ini-
tial and extended phases of the occupation. The efforts to assist in furthering the
war's progress are covered at length. Reporting of the war is well characterized
by the media's pragmatic efforts to reinforce wartime objectives at the expense
of questioning official government statements. As a result, objections to the
war's validity and legality are discounted in favor of pro-war coverage.
This chapter refers to the media's commitment strengthening the war effort
as "pro-war pragmatism." Along the same lines, the vast majority of the media's
criticisms of the war effort are deemed here as "pragmatic criticisms," since
these challenges are designed to strengthen, rather than question, the US.-led
occupation's legitimacy.

Constructing a Democratic Iraq

The mass media became increasingly blunt in its support for the US. presence
in Iraq at the beginning of the war. Perspectives in favor of the Bush administra-
tion and the occupation were not limited to editorial pages, but permeated many
levels of reporting. Pro-occupation headlines and reports were the mainstay of
American media coverage. A review of some of the most prestigious corporate
papers and news networks provides a better portrait of these assessments of the
Iraq war.
Over the last few years it has become popular to refer to the establishment
of self-rule and self-determination in Iraq as a guiding principle motivating US.
foreign policy,2 particularly after the creation of the interim Iraqi government in
June 2004 and the "democratic" election in 2005. This positive framing is in-
tended to create the impression that the Iraqi government is a sovereign body
and a legitimate representative of the Iraqi people. The New York Times, for
example, accepted at face value the Bush administration's promise of installing
democracy in Iraq, defending what it claims were "democratic elections" in
January 2005.~ In its reporting, the New York Times characterized "the American
experiment in 1raq9' as an attempt to bring "self-rule,"5 and "[promote] democ-
racy by giving Iraqis practice in the give and take of local government.'" The
paper's editors also spoke of "post-election democratic maneuvering," among
other developments in Iraq, claiming "the Bush administration is entitled to
claim a health share of credit for many of these advance^."^