Complacency In War: Indexing And The Role Of The Media In The Lead Up To The Invasion Of Iraq

Complacency in War: Indexing and the Role of the Media in the Lead Up to the Invasion of Iraq

Jack Michael Stephens

Journalism 464 Professor Tabb May 18, 2007

Stephens 2 It has now widely been acknowledged by many academics and journalist that during the lead up to the Iraq war the media became lax in it’s supposed “watch dog role” in scrutinizing the government in it’s case for war. Because of this many within the public perceived the war as a just war and even thought that Saddam Hussein had a direct connection to 9/11.1 Instead of blaming the public for lack of attention to the media and instead of espousing the (what must be comforting to journalists) idea that the Iraq War was a journalistic anomaly that can easily be corrected with tighter ethical standards, I argue that the passivity of the press towards the Bush administration was actually of its own making and is embedded within the culture of today’s journalism. One of the main reasons for this passivity has to do with what is called “indexing;” indexing is how journalists get (and what they perceive as) sources. Journalists tend to ‘index’ their reporting to the views of the political elite and other official sources (Bennett, 2003b, 2004). When there is consensus among the elite sources, the likelihood that journalists will investigate an issue and push for answers is rather low, with the result that the media agenda is set by government officials rather than by journalists or editors.2 Because the agenda is set by the government instead of the journalists the media will tend to give to the public what the elite want the public to be feed. In issues of domestic policy, sources in the government (as well as non-government elites) tend to disagree on many issues, yet when it comes to international policy many within the government and the elite tend to agree with each other much more. This is turn leads to a lack of diverse 1

Steven Kull, “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War.” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 4 (Dec. 2003): 571-572. 2 Daniela V. Dimitrova and Jesper Strömbäck, “Mission Accomplished?” International Communication Gazette 67, no. 5 (Oct. 2005): 403.

Stephens 3 opinions in the news (whether it be print, television, or radio). In the case of the lead up to war many in the media chose to use this standard form of reporting. Coupled with a lack of drive to actually delve deeper into the issues of the invasion, being spoon-feed faulty intelligence on Hussein’s government, and presenting a lack of sources to the public, the news media inadvertently (as well as in some cases intentionally) became a mouthpiece for the Bush administration in the removal of Hussein from power. In this paper I will present evidence from previous studies on news organizations here in the U.S., and abroad, in order to show how indexing indeed was an important factor in the news media’s “mistakes” in reporting the lead up to war and how it influenced the public’s opinion to help support the Bush administration’s goals for Hussein’s removal. First, a quick explanation of indexing. In a study in 1973 Leon Sigal examined the structures of news organizations that related to how reporters got their information and their interactions with their sources. “Because reporters cannot witness many events directly, they ‘must locate themselves to places where information is most likely to flow to them.’”3 Because of this news organizations embed their reporters in the institutions of government. So they will have reporters in the Pentagon, the State Department, the White House, etc. Because of this most of the news organizations concentrate all of their efforts in the elite political circles of Washington D.C. to get their sources and stories. “Officials in a liberal democracy typically do not speak with a uniform voice; there are variations in elite consensus on important policy issues.” With indexing, reporters and the media tend to cover stories that mirror the debate within elite circles with “whom

3

Steven Livingston and W. Lance Bennet, “Gatkeeping, Indexing, and Live-Event News: Is Technology Altering the Construction of News?” Political Communication 20, no. 4 (Oct./Dec. 2003): 365.

Stephens 4 journalists regard as decisive in the outcomes of the issues in the news.”4 But the danger with this is that when there tends to be consensus in elite political circles, as was the case with the invasion of Iraq, the news media tends to become a mouthpiece of the Washington elite as well as (possibly) being the mouthpiece for official administration policy. Because news reporters are steeped in a culture and tradition of indexing they tend to not stray to far from the elites in Washington and in turn lack the drive to delve deeper into a story and as well as trying to find alternative sources that espouse a different line than the elites. More specifically, we can see indexing in its role in the lead up to the Iraq War to what David L. Altheide and Jennifer N. Grimes calls “War Programming.” War programming is: the organization and structure of the discourse of recent reportage about wars, and not mere content. It encompasses content as well as thematic emphases on dominant frames. Because the main frame involved the inevitability of war and U.S. preparation for it, critiques that attempted to question the propaganda campaign propelling the country toward war were ignored.5 Because there was a large consensus that war was inevitable among the elites in Washington many news organizations failed to report (fully and accurately) the opposition to the lead up to war because they thought it was too late to turn the tides of war. This obviously leads to a public which is less informed than they should be and more complacent to the administrations line of thinking. Yet the Society of Professional 4

Livingston, “Gatekeeping, Indexing, and Live-Event News,” 365-366. David L. Altheide and Jennifer N. Grimes, “War Programing: The Propaganda Project and the Iraq War.” Sociological Quarterly 46, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 618. 5

Stephens 5 Journalists code of ethics states that “public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy. The duty of the journalist is to further those ends by seeking truth and providing a fair and comprehensive account of evens and issues.”6 As we will see further in this paper this idealistic view of the journalist’s role was not followed by many of the journalists and news organizations whom follow the SPJ code of ethics and who’s mission is to educate the public in matters of government policy (as well as other societal issues). Public opinion is very important for policy makers in their decision to go to war and in the lead up to war. Because of this many policy makers and elites in the government need to make their case to the public through the news media since there is almost no other way for the public to hear their message other wise on a daily bases. Since the news media has natural organizational filters in how they give the public their news policy makers have to frame their message in a way in which they know will give the viewer the most impact of what they want them to hear. An example would be VicePresident Dick Chenney saying that it’s a “slam dunk” that Hussein has weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in his possession. The news media, obviously, will repeat that hardhitting catch phrase over and over again throughout the day. Instead of focusing on the entire interview the news media will only focus on that specific comment which will further enhance the administration’s policy of invasion since an attentive public will hear, see, and read that phrase over a period of days if not weeks. We can see with the New York Times and the Washington Post how the administration’s framing of the war (during the lead up to war), and indexing, affected the 6

Jay Black, Bob Steele, and Ralph Barney, eds. Doing Ethics In Journalism: A Handbook with Case Studies (Needham Heights, Massachusetss: Allyn & Bacon, 1994), 6.

Stephens 6 front page stories for both newspapers. During a two-month period of high support for the invasion of Iraq the Times and the Post tended to mirror what was said during White House press briefings. Instead of framing their own news the two papers were letting the administration frame the news for them. From April to May 2003 the key phrase words mentioned in the press briefings were WMD, terrorism, coalition, freedom, and outlaw regime. Freedom was the most mentioned phrase with coalition, terrorism, and WMD a close second, third and fourth. Consequently the phrases used in the front page stories for the newspapers mirrored exactly the phrases used in the briefings; with freedom coming in first, than coalition, terrorism and finally WMD.7 Even during a period of time of low public support for the war latter on, the two newspapers still mirrored the administration’s talking points. Unlike earlier in the war the White House barely mentioned WMD anymore as a rational for war, consequently the WMD story was barely covered on the front pages of the Times and Post. The media also relied heavily on government sources within their stories. Of all of the sources that the Times used, government sources were in 44 percent their articles. The Times also used anonymous sources in 78 percent of their articles.8 For Time magazine Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell “were referenced and cited much more frequently than even the heads of state of key countries, including those in Europe and the Middle East.”9 While government sources were used heavily in the Times and Time magazine anti-war voices (from the U.N., NGOs, and activists) Time only used them 5 7

Thomas B. Christie, “Framing Rationale for the Iraq War: The Interaction of Public Support with Mass Media and Public Policy Agendas.” Internaitonal Communication Gazette 68, no. 5/6 (Oct. 2006): 526-527. 8 Daniela V. Dimitrova and Jesper Strömbäck, “Mission Accomplished?” International Communication Gazette 67, no. 5 (Oct. 2005): 410. 9 Cynthia Boaz. “War and Foreign Policy Framing in International Media.” Peace Review 17, no. 4 (Oct./Dec. 2005): 353.

Stephens 7 percent of the time while using military actors 20 percent of the time.10 The Times only covered anti-war protests (and articles with a general “negative” tone) 2 percent of the time.11 Both Time and Newsweek’s coverage in the lead up to the Iraq War was heavily influenced by the administration with a majority of their stories on Iraq also being framed within the same context as terrorism and 9/11. Time’s and Newsweek’s coverage of Iraq policy was framed by the September 11 context, as well as stories about terrorism in general…the September 16 cover stories about Iraq were preceded by cover stories about September 11 and then followed by a Time September 23 cover about al Qaeda terrorists. Newsweek’s cover in September 23 emphasized Iraq, with a main title “How We Helped Create Saddam and Can We Fix Iraq after He’s Gone?” and a large picture of Saddam Hussein’s face taking up most of the cover. Within the issue, just before the cover story, was a four-page photo spread focused around September 11 commemorations, including flags, a kneeling police officer at Ground Zero, flowers, and President Bush’s words from his speech of commemoration, spread across two pages, “What our enemies have begun, we will finish.”12 Newsweek also included stories of terrorist threats against the U.S. with stories on Hussein and Iraq. Time had a cover story on the capture of a terrorist who planed to wreck havoc on southeast Asia along with a story on patrolling the no-fly zones in Iraq.13 10

Boaz, “War and Foreign Policy Framing,” 353. Dimitrova, “Mission Accomplished?” 410. 12 Amy Fried, “Terrorism as a Context of Coverage before the Iraq War.” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 10, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 128. 13 Fried, “Terrorism as a Context of Coverage,” 128. 11

Stephens 8 Yet how did the administration so successfully guide the media to frame the upcoming Iraq War in the context of terrorism and why would news organizations, which are supposed to hold government accountable, constantly give such a prominent voice to government officials in their stories and so little to non-government anti-war sources. As we have seen above, the role of indexing plays a major role in this. As I will show below the media did not take an active role in making sure their sources were vetted properly as well as critiquing statements that came from the government. Numerous studies have shown that during times of war the media tends to ally itself with the government and the political elites much more closely than is normal for the media to do all ready (within the context of indexing).14 Some of this has to do with the fact that the media is just as much influenced by patriotic and nationalistic feelings as any other blue-blooded American is and when it comes to issues that are framed in a national security issue context the media, as with the public, tend to side with the government. Another factor has to do with how the government frames its argument and how it feeds its argument to the media. But, the most important factor has to do with a combination of those factors as well as the overwhelming factor of indexing within the journalistic world and on relying to much on official sources in the every day dissemination of the news. The current administration in power can use as much rhetoric and propaganda as it wants, but if the media performs its watch dog role than the public is less likely to tow the line of the White House. Yet as Steven Kull has shown us, the public seemed to believe in every line that was being feed to them by the administration 14

“Students of propaganda (Lippman 1925; Doob 1966; Speier 1969; Lasswell 1971; Lasswell, Speier, and Lerner 1979) and American journalism have long noted that the press capitulates to the government during time of war (Gerth 1992; Kellner 1992; 2003; Shapiro 1992; Jackall 1994; Ellenius and Foundation 1998; Jackall 1999; Der Derian 2002; Herman and Chomsky 2002).” Altheide, “War Programming,” 619.

Stephens 9 despite the fact that allegations of WMDs and links to Al Qaeda were wrong. Both before and after the war, a substantial portion of Americans have believed that evidence of a link between Iraq and al Qaeda existed. Before the war, in the January PIPA/KN poll, 68 percent expressed the belief that Iraq played an important role in September 11, with 13 percent even expressing the belief that “conclusive evidence” of Iraq’s involvement had been found. Asked in June, July, and August-September…large percentages (45 to 52 percent) said they believed that the United States had “found clear evidence in Iraq that Saddam Hussein was working closely with the al-Qaeda [sic] terrorist organization.” … a striking misperception occurred after the war, when the United States failed to énd any WMD or even any solid evidence of aWMD program. PIPA/KN érst asked in May whether respondents thought that the United States has or has not “found Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq, and 34 percent said the United States had (another 7 percent did not know). In June, Harris Interactive subsequently asked, “Do you believe clear evidence of weapons of mass destruction has been found in Iraq or not?” and 35 percent said that it had.15 Obviously the news media did not do their job in educating the public in the run-up to the war and during the immediate aftermath of the war. The administration and its elite allies would constantly frame (in the lead up to the 15

Steven Kull, et. al. “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War.” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 4 (Dec. 2003): 571-572.

Stephens 10 invasion of Iraq) Hussein and Iraq within the frame of the “War on Terror.” The administration allowed leaks to occur that framed Hussein and Iraq within the context of terrorism, specifically Al Qaeda but also with the militant Islamic organizations in Palestine. Instead of critically challenging their own sources on the accuracy of such claims many news organizations used those sources (anonymously) in their stories which in turn were used by the administration to help frame the context for the war in Iraq (terrorism and WMDs).16 Since Iraq was part of what George W. Bush called the ‘axis of evil’, and the administration successfully argued that Iraq possessed WMDs and that the war against Iraq was part of the ‘war on terror’, the responsibility for the war was perceived as a non-issue. That is, the president and the administration managed to make the war in Iraq appear congruent with the ‘war on terror’. And, as Entman writes, ‘When an event or issue is clearly congruent in this way, it becomes relatively easy for presidents to frame it so that most participants think alike’ (Entman, 2004: 148).17 This further helped the administration make its case to the public. Because, as we have seen above, the sources used by most major newspapers and magazines used administration and military officials the journalists covering the war had less of a critical eye than they should have on the president’s framing of the Iraq War within the context of terrorism. The administration also used a certain tactic to help their war policies along. The tactic in question, called by retired Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner, was the “excluded 16 17

Altheide, “War Programming,” 626-627. Dimitrova, “Mission Accomplished?” 411-412.

Stephens 11 middle.” That is, when people are given shoddy and incomplete information they will draw false connections due to suggestive statements.18 Throughout the summer of 2003, Gardiner documented incidents that he saw as information-warfare campaigns directed both at targeted foreign populations and the American public. By the fall, he had collected his analysis into a lengthy treatise, called "Truth from These Podia," which concluded that "the war was handled like a political campaign," in which the emphasis was not on the truth but on the message.19 And yet because of the way the news media sets up how they get their stories and where they get their sources they were complicit in the administration’s attempt to influence the media. Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor state: Censorship and propaganda exist in the news media and come in many flavors – using unnamed sources in national security stories; using the same elite-level sources repeatedly; ‘killing’ a story before it comes to light; and encouraging self-censorship on the part of working reporters. Although they will rarely admit to it, news organizations are often willing colluders with governments and militaries in efforts to censor because major media owners are members of the political elite themselves and therefore share similar goals and outcomes.20 Looking back at the utter disregard for challenging the administration’s, in what is now 18

Daniel Shulman, “Mind Games.” Columbia Journalism Review 45, no. 1 (May/June 2006), available on EbscoHost Academic Search Premier (accessed May 13, 2007). 19 Shulman, “Mind Games.” 20 Nancy Snow and Philip M. Taylor. “The Revival of the Propaganda State: US Propaganda at Home and Abroad since 9/11.” International Communication Gazette 68, no. 5/6 (Oct. 2006): 396.

Stephens 12 known, false propaganda Michael Massing, in a 2004 New York Review of Books article wrote, “‘the Iraq saga should cause journalists to examine the breadth of their sources,’ and wondered whether journalists were too dependent on high-level officials instead of cultivating lower-ranking people within government bureaucracies.”21 It’s also easy to see the consequences of the journalistic policies of the press in its mission to the public and how it reflects on their journalistic standards. In a poll done in the late 1990s comparing Swedish and American journalists 58 percent of Swedish journalists said that objectivity meant “‘going beyond the statements of the contending sides to the hard facts of a political dispute’” while only 28 percent of American journalists thought that’s what objectivity meant.22 Clearly, for journalists in the U.S. objectivity means quoting and giving equal time to certain political elites in and around Washington D.C. Yet, as we have seen above, when there are no clear contradictory statements among the political elite than many journalists do not pursue opposite views outside of the Beltway and instead give the public a one sided view of a story that can potentially have more than two sides. This also shows that journalists are more concerned with getting different views of political elites and less concerned in actually delving into a story and trying to dig up facts that are important to the issue at hand. With the Iraq war delving deeper meant holding a healthy skepticism of administration pronouncements and not relying on indexing as the sole key to disseminating the news. Journalists should have sought outside sources and should have seriously engaged ambassadors from other countries around the world and brought their 21

Oliver Boyd-Barrett, “Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the Propaganda Model.” Journalism Studies 5, no. 4 (Nov. 2004): 440. 22 Dimitrova, “Mission Accomplished?” 403.

Stephens 13 voices into the discussion instead of relying more on administration officials such as Powell and Rumsfeld. Lance Bennett (2003a) observed that the US press exhibited high levels of complicity with the government in regard to the 2003 Iraq War, discussing 10 factors that ‘created a perfect propaganda storm’ in US media. Notably, the US media ignored the world opposition to the war in a generally ethnocentric and patriotic storytelling (Bennett, 2003a). Dimitrova et al. (2005) offer one of the few comparative studies of the coverage of the 2003 Iraq War. They found significant differences in war framing between US and international news websites. Foreign sites were more likely to include the responsibility frame, for instance, while the American sites were more likely to focus on military conflict (Dimitrova et al., 2005). In addition, US news reporters included more media self-references than foreign journalists.23 The constant framing of terrorism and Iraq by the administration and the uncritical compliance in passing on this information to the public by the news media caused many in the public to side with the administration in their argument that Hussein had to be taken out due to his connections with terrorists. Magazines such as Time and Newsweek that constantly framed Iraq within the context of terrorism and using flashy graphics with Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the Twin Towers in them continued to feed the fear of the public about issues of terrorism. Seeing pictures of Hussein along with bin Laden and the events of 9/11 helped further concretize in the minds of many that Hussein was somehow

23

Dimitrova, “Mission Accomplished?” 407.

Stephens 14 connected to Al Qaeda.24 Dimitrova and Strömbäck explain: The media thus seem to ‘blind’ the audience to alternative interpretations of events and imply national consensus on issues by not offering opposing views. In theoretical terms, this means that one-sided coverage might function as ‘consensus heuristic’, which means that information regarding a certain issue may function as a clue to which viewpoints are valid or acceptable. As explained by Mutz (1998: 210): ‘When media emphasize who or which side of an issue or controversy is ahead or behind, they may inadvertently cue the consensus heuristic, thus altering attitudes toward a candidate or issue.’ By doing this, the media might also trigger a ‘spiral of silence’ (Noelle-Neumann, 1984), deliberately or not.25 Of course, there are alternative explanations. Some of these come from Kull in his 2003 paper on the public’s misperception of the administration’s statements on Iraq. One of these being that the administration continually would mention 9/11, terrorism, Al Qaeda, and Hussein in the same speeches and talking points across the country and these in turn would be viewed, heard, and read by the public. In a letter to Congress Bush stated, “the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.” Nothing in this sentence mentions Iraq, yet the letter to Congress was a justification for a war against Iraq. Cheney also made statements about Al Qaeda officials meeting with Iraqi intelligence officers as well 24 25

Fried, “Terrorism as a Context of Coverage before the Iraq War.” Dimitrova, “Mission Accomplished?” 413.

Stephens 15 as equating Iraq with being a safe haven for terrorists.26 Yet this explanation ignores the news media’s role as watch dog. If the media had been doing its stated function than it would have sought out sources, such as low level bureaucrats and sources outside the Washington elite, in order to contradict and critique the administration’s argument that Iraq had WMD and had ties to Al Qaeda. In seeking out these sources many in the news media could have seen through the administration’s propaganda and in turn could have filtered out the rhetoric of the administration with level-headed analysis of its own. Instead of allowing the White House to frame the debate the media in turn could have framed the debate itself by actually “seeking out truth and reporting it.”27 Another explanation from Kull is: The seemingly obvious explanation—that the problem is that people just do not pay enough attention to the news—does not hold up. As discussed, higher levels of attention to news did not reduce the likelihood of misperception, and in the case of those who primarily got their news from Fox News, misperceptions increased with greater attention.28 So obviously it’s not the fault of the public that they had misperceived the facts about Iraq so badly. And, as stated above, if the press had done it’s job it could have actively shielded the public from false information by giving greater voice to dissenters within the government as well as giving voice to those outside the Beltway. It is the culture of the newsroom that drives journalists to only seek sources within elite government circles, especially if a journalist has been mingling within those circles for many years (such as Bob Woodward). Journalists need to actively enforce changes 26

Kull, “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War,” 591. Jay Black, Doing Ethics In Journalism, 6. 28 Kull, “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War,” 594. 27

Stephens 16 within their newsrooms and seek out alternative viewpoints and not go after the major “headliners” in order to propel their stories along. Journalists need to change their mindset on what is a “credible source” and what a “beat” actually is. Only with this can we divert another information “blackout” (within the mainstream news media) that occurred during the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq.

Bibliography Altheide, David L. “War Programming: The Propaganda Project and the Iraq War.” Sociological Quarterly 46, no. 4 (Fall 2005): 617-643. Black, Jay and Bob Steele, and Ralph Barney, eds. Doing Ethics In Journalism: A Handbook with Case Studies. Needham Heights, Massachusetss: Allyn & Bacon, 1994. Boaz, Cynthia. “War and Foreign Policy Framing in International Media.” Peace Review 17, no. 4 (Oct./Dec. 2005): 349-356. Boyd-Barrett, Oliver. “Judith Miller, The New York Times, and the Propaganda Model.” Journalism Studies 5, no. 4 (Nov. 2004): 435-449. Christie, Thomas B. “Framing Rationale for the Iraq War: The Interaction of Public Support with Mass Media and Public Policy Agendas.” International Communication

Stephens 17 Gazette 68, no. 5/6 (Oct. 2006): 519-532. Dimitrova, Daniela V. and Jesper Strömbäck. “Mission Accomplished?” International Communication Gazette 67, no. 5 (Oct. 2005): 399-417. Fried, Amy. “Terrorism as a Context of Coverage before the Iraq War.” Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics 10, no. 3 (Summer 2005): 125-132. Kull, Steven, et. al. “Misperceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War.” Political Science Quarterly 118, no. 4 (Dec. 2003): 569-598. Livingston, Steven and W. Lance Bennet. “Gatekeeping, Indexing, and Live-Event News: Is Technology Altering the Construction of News?” Political Communication 20, no. 4 (Oct./Dec. 2003): 363-380. Schulman, Daniel. “Mind Games.” Columbia Journalism Review 45, no. 1 (May/June 2006): 38-49. Snow, Nancy and Philip M. Taylor. “The Revival of the Propaganda State: US Propaganda at Home and Abroad since 9/11.” International Communication Gazette 68, no. 5/6 (Oct. 2006): 389-407.