Page 28 - The CNN Effect in Action - How the News Media Pushed the West toward War ini Kosovo

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CHAP TE R 1
The CNN Effect
At 2:38 am, on January 17, 1991, the residents of Baghdad were
woken by the launch of the first Gulf War. Initial sounds of dogs bark-
ing were superseded by bright lights and thundering shots from antiair-
craft volleys that were eventually drowned out by the explosive sounds
of smart bombs destroying Iraqi infrastructure sites. For an awestruck
international audience watching events unfold on television screens in
their homes, the live images of the first night of bombing over Baghdad
were unprecedented. For the first time, moving images of war were
transmitted instantaneously and simultaneously around the world to
millions of viewers as events unfolded. According to one analyst, the
Gulf War made other recent conflicts over Grenada and the Falklands,
less than a decade before, look like nineteenth-century wars. 1
Later that same night, a senior officer at the Pentagon Command
Center checked his watch while speaking to those planning the air
attack and stated, while watching one broadcast, “If the cruise missile
is on target . . . the reporter will go off the air about . . . Now!” He
was right. At that moment, the American Broadcasting Company
(ABC) and the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) reports from
Baghdad stopped broadcasting. These networks were relying on the
Iraqi communications network, which had just been destroyed. Cable
News Network (CNN), which was transmitted over a dedicated circuit
set up before the war, however, remained on air. 2
For the next two weeks, CNN was the only American television
network broadcasting from Iraq. As a result, this relatively new
and renegade organization that promised to be different by delivering
24-hour news surged in recognition and prestige. Its subscription
3
base, in fact, grew substantially over the period of the Gulf War. Its
name also became synonymous with rapid image and information
transmission from the scene of action and, more importantly, the
implication of this phenomenon on politics and foreign policy. Even
George H.W. Bush, the U.S. president at that time, seemed