The Dysfunctional Relationship Between The Military And The Media
This week, the Army announced that it would open a new investigation into a possible cover-up in the death of former pro football player Pat Tillman in Afghanistan. The embarrassing announcement comes after other instances in which the military has come under fire for misleading or withholding information from the press and public, most notably in the cases of the rescue of Jessica Lynch and allegations of prisoner abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. I spoke to reporters and military analysts about what kind of impact these revelations have had on the relationship between the military and the press, and how each party views the other.
"There's an irony here, because when you had embedding, there was a sense that the reporting was better than ever," says Dan Goure, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute. "But since the end of major combat operations, the relationship has really gone to hell. There is a strongly held perception in the military – particularly the Army – that the media is doing the enemy's work. You guys are seen as the Jane Fondas of the Iraq war. And so the military attitude is, 'why should we level with you, because you're going to screw us.'"
That attitude apparently goes all the way to the top: Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that "the steady stream of errors [by the media] all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq."
Goure says the relationship between the press and military has been bad since the time of the Vietnam War. In World War II and the Korean War, he says, the military had a sense that the press was on their side. But today, he argues, "both the military and the media have unrealistic expectations of each other," as they have for the past 40 years. "The military expects the media to be a kind of public affairs arm, and the media expects the military to move faster and more agilely on these kinds of issues than they can. When the military is dealing with a problem, it has to go through the chain of command, there are reviews – it's a very laborious process."
"There's an irony here, because when you had embedding, there was a sense that the reporting was better than ever," says Dan Goure, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute. "But since the end of major combat operations, the relationship has really gone to hell. There is a strongly held perception in the military – particularly the Army – that the media is doing the enemy's work. You guys are seen as the Jane Fondas of the Iraq war. And so the military attitude is, 'why should we level with you, because you're going to screw us.'"
That attitude apparently goes all the way to the top: Yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said that "the steady stream of errors [by the media] all seem to be of a nature to inflame the situation and to give heart to the terrorists and to discourage those who hope for success in Iraq."
Goure says the relationship between the press and military has been bad since the time of the Vietnam War. In World War II and the Korean War, he says, the military had a sense that the press was on their side. But today, he argues, "both the military and the media have unrealistic expectations of each other," as they have for the past 40 years. "The military expects the media to be a kind of public affairs arm, and the media expects the military to move faster and more agilely on these kinds of issues than they can. When the military is dealing with a problem, it has to go through the chain of command, there are reviews – it's a very laborious process."
