WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN TO SAVE THE PRESS BUT LOSE HIS NATION? :

The Mideast Press Process : War, unlike politics, can go on without
reporters. (P.J. O'ROURKE, April 16, 2002, Wall Street Journal)

[W]ithout reporters, how do we get the eyewitness, objective news that's necessary to shape public opinion in an open, democratic society? Good question and I'm glad the Israeli government had to answer it, because I couldn't. Yet that question raises other questions. How valuable is eyewitness war reporting for anything other than exciting shaky-cam lead-ins to Mylanta commercials? It's always hard to see the forest for the trees, especially when you're hiding behind one, scared silly.

And where did the idea of Olympian objectivity in journalism come from? Not from the good liberal-arts majors that journalists are supposed to be. Olympus had its finger in every pie in "The Iliad." The great war correspondents of more recent history were strangers to neutrality. Richard Harding Davis seemed willing to fight the Spaniards in Cuba by himself. Ernest Hemingway styled his World War II press contingent "Hem Force" and liberated several French towns, or at least the wine cellars thereof.

As for shaping public opinion, the media's record is spotty. We practically caused that ignominious war with Spain and then, ignominiously, almost kept America out of the war against the Nazis. Maybe we ended the Vietnam War, but it took us long enough.

Then there is the matter of plain, brilliant war reporting. The best example in years is "Black Hawk Down." But Mark Bowden wasn't there. His book wouldn't be as good if he'd been dead since 1993.

These things don't excuse Israel's interference with the news media. They make it worse. Those of us in journalism who support Israel for being open and democratic were left with a lot of explaining to do, but we also learned a lot. The media learned that war, unlike politics, does not depend upon the media to exist. Reporters were being reminded that they are sometimes dense, prejudiced and self-seeking.

Much as I hate to differ with the great Mr. O'Rourke, democracy is by its nature about the trees and not about the forest, which makes an absolutely free press a luxury we can ill afford in wartime, particularly a war of national survival (as Israel now faces), which is by its nature about the forest. The First Amendment protection of the press, if it is to mean anything, must allow the media to say anything they want about the government and even about an ongoing war. But it surely does not require the government to help the press to gather information, particularly in a war zone on foreign soil. If the newsies get the story, by all means let them print it. But if the military thinks their news gathering activities present a threat to the soldiers' safety or even to successful prosecution of the war, then most any limitations seem reasonable.

Free press absolutists seem willing to let the forest burn so long as their one tree survives. I'd rather save the forest, even if it gets thinned a little.

N.B.--that's my official entry in today's Tortured Metaphor contest.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 18, 2002 6:10 PM