This document provides an introduction and overview of the relationship between the American news media and the government in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks. It discusses how the news media largely accepted and disseminated the government's framing of the attacks and calls for military intervention without sufficient independent scrutiny or consideration of alternative viewpoints. The document traces how objectivity became an ideal of American journalism and how this limits the news media's ability to fulfill its watchdog role over the government, particularly during times of crisis when patriotism runs high. It argues the news coverage of 9/11 revealed the news media acting more as a lapdog than watchdog to the government.

1. From Watchdog to Lapdog
The News Media on September 11, 2001
Nicolas Alan Brugge
Professor William Hoynes
Sociology - 301 - 01
April 13, 2009

2. Contents
Introduction 2
Objectivity and the Myth of the “Free Press”
11
Codependents: News Media and the State in Times of Crisis 33
Shock and Awe: Television Coverage of 9/11 54
Trying to Understand it All: Press Coverage of 9/11 82
Conclusion 105

3. “The subtlest change in New York is something that people don’t speak much
about but that is in everyone’s mind. The city, for the first time in its long history, is
destructible. A single flight can quickly end this island fantasy, burn the towers, crum-
ble the bridges, turn the underground passages into lethal chambers, cremate the mil-
lions. The intimation of the mortality is part of New York now: in the sounds of jets
overhead, in the black headlines of the latest edition.” - E.B. White, 1949
Introduction
The sun shone brilliantly above that morning. It seemed like just another early autumn
day. But, then, it happened. By the end of the day, by the time those billowing plumes of smoke
had engulfed lower Manhattan, we had entered into the 21st century – become global players in
our new found arena of the “War Against Terror.”
Since that fateful morning, the United States of America has charted a new course
through the geo-political landscape that has arisen in the wake of the attacks. New wars have be-
gun while old wars have been reignited. Gautanamo Bay and the Patriot Act have become com-
monplace phrases in our daily political discussions. As our conception of the world changed with
the seeming blink of an eye, it has become a cliche to say that September 11, 2001 changed eve-
rything. But, in fact, not everything changed that day. In the immediate aftermath of the terrorist
1
2

4. attacks of September 11th, the resultant news coverage revealed the deeply imbued structures
underlying the highly complex and coordinated functions of our country’s varied news media
institutions.
Indeed, we expected the American news media to present us with the facts, the truth; to
place such horrific and mind-numbing events in some context, to give it all some meaning, some
cohesion. Largely ignored were alternative viewpoints and any attempt to understand how our
foreign policy may have contributed to the attacks. Instead, what we got was news coverage that
did little to further enlighten our understanding of the situation at hand; to ask the fundamental
question as to why we, supposedly “the greatest nation in the world,” were attacked. The Ameri-
can news media (seemingly) lacked an ability to critically evaluate the alleged truths put forth by
our government.
In the guise of Pearl Harbor, and other similar historical precedents, the media blindly
accepted the growing ideology of military intervention that quickly rose from the ashes of the
still smoldering towers. As they covered the attacks, the American news media predominantly
turned to government officials to aid in their understanding of the events.1 These leaders, either
from the Pentagon or from the executive branch, helped generate the patriotic and militaristic
environment that would come to define the coming weeks and months. In turn, that classic con-
ception of East versus West, Good versus Evil (the Clash of Civilizations) became the standard
for discussing the context surrounding the attacks.
In his first speech after the attacks, President Bush portrayed “the conflict as a war be-
tween good and evil in which the United States was going to ‘eradicate evil from the world’ and
3
1 Nisbet, Matt. "Media Coverage After the Attack: Reason and Deliberative Democracy Put to the Test." Generation
Sxeptic. 1 Oct. 2001. Committe for Skeptical Inquiry. 7 Apr. 2008 <http://www.csicop.org/genx/terrorattack/>.

5. ‘smoke out and pursue... evil doers, those barbaric people.” 2 Academic experts, policy critics —
nonpartisan scholars that could assist in our understanding of the numerous and complex circum-
stances that led to such horrific attacks — were left entirely out of the picture. The American
news media thereby fell in line with the highly nationalistic and militaristic ideology espoused by
our government. As Douglas Kellner, author of Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy,
notes: “the images and and discourses of the corporate media failed to provide a coherent ac-
count of what happened, why it happened, and what would count as intelligent and responsible
responses.” 3
Prior to the events of that fateful day, our perceptions of the American news media had
become marked by a lack of faith; whether one considered themselves part of the political left or
right, the American news media had fallen out of favor with the majority of Americans in the
decades prior to the September 11 attacks. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Pro-
ject for Excellence in Journalism found that “Americans think journalists are sloppier, less pro-
fessional, less moral, less caring, more biased, less honest about their mistakes and generally
more harmful to democracy than they did in the 1980s.”4 For example, “the number of Ameri-
cans who think news organizations are highly professional declined from 72 to 49 percent” from
1985 to 2001.5 Accordingly, the amount of Hard News — “(read important) news about current
political and other national and international happenings” 6— had fallen from roughly 60% in
4
2 Kellner, Douglas. "September 11, the Media, and War Fever." Television News Media 3.143 (2002), 143 - 151. pp.
144.
3 _______________. Media Spectacle and the Crisis of Democracy: Terrorism, War and Election Battles. London:
Paradigm, 2005. pp. 29.
4 "2004 Annual Report: Overview." "Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism" Journalism.org.
15 Mar. 2004. Pew Center. 4 Apr. 2009 <http://www.journalism.org/node/862>.
5 "2004 Annual Report: Overview." <http://www.journalism.org/node/862>.
6 Gans, Herbert J. Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time.
Evanston, Il: Northwestern University Press, 1979. pp. xiv.

6. 1987 to 45.5% in June of 2001.7 On the other hand, the amount of Soft News — the “human in-
terest, scandal, entertainment, and the celebrity stories that now appear even in the most elite
newspapers”8 — had increased from roughly 19.5% in 1987 to 24.4% in June of 2001.9 In fact,
prior to the events of September 11, the Pew Center for the People and the Press found that “just
23% of the public paid very close attention to the typical news story.” 10
Before the attacks we knew our news media outlets were broken like the rest of our
democratic institutions; we knew that their focus on infotainment had eroded the more serious
conception in which we had come to view our “free” press. Indeed, in the immediate aftermath
of the September 11th attacks, the American news media did not keep our best interests at heart.
As the years since 2001 have shown, the “facts” given to us in those bleary-eyed days of twenty-
four hour news coverage were misleading — half-truths espoused by government officials, fur-
ther disseminated (unchecked) by the varied institutions of our news media, meant to keep us on
a course of patriotic fervor ripe for a nearly national consensus of military intervention.
However, we have also seen triumphs of the American news media, moments where it
ultimately fulfills its watchdog responsibilities. As W. Lance Bennett and William Serrin com-
ment, “the watchdog role is defined here as: (1) independent scrutiny by the press of the activi-
ties of government, business, and other public institutions, with an aim toward (2) documenting,
questioning, and investigating those activities, in order to (3) provide publics and officials with
5
7 “Before and After: How the War on Terrorism Has Changed the News Agenda, Network Television, June to Octo-
ber 2001.” “Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism” Journalism.org. 19 Nov. 2001. Pew Cen-
ter. 4 Apr. 2009. <http://www.journalism.org/node/289>.
8 Gans, Herbert J. Democracy and the News. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. pp. 28.
9 “Before and After: How the War on Terrorism Has Changed the News Agenda, Network Television, June to Octo-
ber 2001.” <http://www.journalism.org/node/289>.
10 “Terrorism Transforms News Interest: Worries Over New Attacks Decline.” “Pew Center for the People and the
Press” People-Press.org. 18 Dec. 2001. Pew Center. 4 Apr. 2009 <http://people-press.org/report/146/terrorism
-transforms-news-interest>.

7. timely information on issues of public concern.”11 Watergate, and the investigative reporting of
Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, was an act of journalism so powerful that it led to the resig-
nation of the President of the United States. But, none of that hard hitting reporting, none of that
journalism that myths are made of, arose on that fateful day. Thus, what we are left with is a lin-
gering question as to how such a culturally heralded institution as the American news media ul-
timately misled us, failed us even, in our greatest moment of domestic terror.
To start, we must first understand the very root of the news media’s supposed role as an
objective watchdog, purveyor of truth and justice. Robert M. Entman, author of “The Nature and
Sources of News,” notes: “The ideal goal of traditional journalism has been to make power ac-
countable: to keep ordinary citizens apprised of what government is doing, and how it affects
them both individually and with respect to the groups and values that they care about.”12 Al-
though such idealism has come to dominate the nearly mythic conceptions of our “free” press,
the reality of the situation has been something quite different. Author of, Democracy and the
News, Herbert Gans, comments:
journalists are employed professionals working for mainly commercial news media that try to
supply what the news audience will accept and what advertisers will pay for. Much of the audi-
ence is interested in keeping with the news rather being politically involved citizens. These and
other facts of everyday journalism complicate the profession’s pursuit of its ideals.13
Though many journalists still attempt to hold onto the ideals of watchdog reporting, the daily
modes of practices that have come to define our contemporary newsrooms has greatly restricted
the range of stories that journalists are ultimately allowed to pursue. In fact, at the heart of the
6
11 Bennett, W. Lance and William Serrin. “The Watchdog Role.” Institutions of American Democracy: The Press.
Eds. Geneva Overholser and Kathleen H. Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 169-187. pp. 169.
12 Entman, Robert M. “The Nature and Sources of News.” Institutions of American Democracy: The Press. Eds.
Geneva Overholser and Kathleen H. Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. pp. 48.
13 Gans, pp. 21.

8. news media supposed watchdog role lies the adherence of our contemporary newsrooms to the
principles of objectivity.
As we will see in the following chapter, it was not until the revolution of the penny press,
in the mid-18th century, that the notion of objectivity, of parting with the press’ past ways of par-
tisanship and commercial-ties, became a growing marker of the press’ new character. But, it
would take the Civil War (which pushed the press into the national consciousness in ways never
before seen), though, as well as the growing popularity of realism in the public’s conception of
the arts and science, for objectivity to become a firmly entrenched staple of the American news
media. Indeed, by tracing our cultural understanding of the American news media from the time
of our founding fathers, and their highly partisanship and commercial-based press, to our more
present context of mass media and integrated news services, the role of objectivity comes to exist
in a spectrum dominated by a persuasive sense of variability.
Indeed, we will come to see that objectivity has never existed in a pure form; the objec-
tivity necessary for a truly free press, a press that upholds the nearly mythic conceptions in
which we hold our “watchdog” news media, does not exist. It very well may never exist; it ap-
pears beyond the cultural and economic constraints of the modern business structure of the
American news media. However, the principles of objectivity, inherent to contemporary modes
of journalistic practice, have severely limited the ability of the news media to properly perform
its supposed watchdog duties. For example, the very ways in which the growing adherence of
objectivity has compelled journalists to rely on government officials as always authoritative
sources of news, effectively constrains journalists’ abilities to function as more than mere mes-
sengers for our country’s political elites.
7

9. However, the ideals of objectivity have always dissipated as our country’s security be-
comes threatened; this is the focus of our second chapter. Brigitte Nacos, author of “Terrorism/
Counterterrorism and Media in the Age of Global Communication,” notes:
just as during war time and other serious international crises the press may be caught up in a pub-
lic outburst of patriotism in reaction to terrorism at the expense of its watchdog responsibilities.
Whether this change from watchdog to lapdog is the result of self-censorship or of intimidation
by governments and their supporters, or both, the result is the same: Docile media organizations
allow presidents and other governmental leaders far more latitude to enact emergency policies
and enlist support for extreme military actions in response to terrorist strikes and threats than they
would in times of normalcy.14
From the First World War to the Second; from Vietnam to the smaller military actions of the
Cold War; from the first Gulf war to our current actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the press has
attempted to walk the fine line between reporting the factual events and realities of our interna-
tional crises and merely falling in line — swept up by the nationalistic fervor that arises during
such moments where a heightened degree of national affirmation arises.
In fact, it is during these times that we most often turn to the news media to aid in our
understanding, to help us critically debate the urgent questions that arise in such moments of cri-
sis. But, it is also these moments that the military (the strong-arm of the government), and the
press (our supposed watchdog), invariably collide. Consequently, as the military and the news
media struggle “to deal with each other anew, the most constitutionally fettered institution, the
military, appears to become unfettered (the catch being civilian control), while the most constitu-
tionally unfettered, the media, becomes fettered.”15 From the Civil War, to our present activities
in the Middle East, the government (and military) ultimately undermine the effectiveness of our
“free” press. Accordingly, to understand the relationship that quickly developed between the
8
14 Nacos, Brigitte L. "Terrorism/Counterterrorism and Media in the Age of Global Communication." United Nations
University. 2006. United Nations University. 7 Apr. 2008 < http://www.unu.edu/gs/files/2006/shimane/nacos_text_e
n.pdf.>.
15 Prochnau, William. “The Military and the Media.” Institutions of American Democracy: The Press. Eds. Geneva
Overholser and Kathleen H. Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. pp. 328.

10. news media and government officials on September 11 (our primary sources of authoritative in-
formation in the hours, day and weeks following the attacks), we must first look towards the past.
In comprehending the highly coordinated efforts of the government to effectively censor and
shape the news media’s coverage, we can consequently understand how the resultant structure of
their relationship ultimately arises through the limitations imposed by the principles of objectiv-
ity.
It is with that in mind that we inevitably turn to our final chapters. As we come to once
again relive the coverage of the attacks (now, though, with a considerable emotional and tempo-
ral distance), the structures ultimately underlying the relationship between the American news
media and the government come to light. While the atrocious events of September 11, 2001 led
our country on a new course of international intervention and nationalism, the likes of which
have been unseen since the infamous attacks on Pearl Harbor nearly half a century ago, the ter-
rorist attacks conversely revealed the natural order of our media institutions in such moments of
crisis.
In “Shock and Awe: The Television Coverage of 9/11,” we will look at the ways in which
the television coverage of the attacks not only revealed the almost inherent limitations of our
news media institutions in general, but also revealed the very constraints of the television me-
dium itself. In looking at the three most watched evening news programs of the time, ABC, CBS,
and, NBC, we shall see how television, because of its highly simplistic visual language, ulti-
mately allowed our government to restrict the scope of the news media’s coverage, effectively
restraining our national discourse.16 Likewise, in our final chapter, “Trying to Understand it All:
the Newspaper Coverage of 9/11,” we will revisit the coverage of the two most widely circulated
9
16 Gans, pp. 22.

11. papers in the days and weeks after the attacks, USA Today and The New York Times;17 in doing so
we will see how the limitations of our news media institutions function as interconnected whole
as the press not only closely followed the range of stories from the television newscasts the day
before, but became further constrained by the very limitations of the print medium.
It is then, as we reach the final pages, that we come to see not only the truth of the news
media’s coverage of the September 11 terrorist attacks, but also the natural order of our news
media institutions on a day to day basis. The news media, bound by the structural limitations
(seemingly) inherent to its very structure, ceased its barking, ceased its watchdog duties, and be-
came a lapdog, another means of perpetuating the post September 11 ideology of the Bush ad-
ministration. For though the American news media may at times serve as a watchdog, in times of
national crisis, in times in which the strength of the nation is tested, the times in which we most
need the objective facts of the situation, the American news media ultimately heals to our gov-
ernment, to the universal discourse espoused by the leaders and officials of our state.
10
17 Barringer, Felicity. Some Big Papers Buck Trend of Circulation Drops. 7 May 2002. NYTimes. 18 Mar. 2009
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/07/business/some-big-papers-buck-trend-of-circulation-drops.html>.

12. “Objective journalism is a contradiction in terms” - Hunter S. Thompson
Objectivity and the Myth of the “Free Press”
After the first plane hit we knew something monumental had just happened; whether an
accident, or, even worse, an attack, (though not an assumption quite yet), we knew this was
something out of the ordinary; this was an event; this was news. We rushed to our televisions; we
flicked on our radios; we checked our favorite websites. In our greatest moment of domestic ter-
ror since Pearl Harbor, nearly half a century ago, we once again turned to our varied news media
institutions to present us with the facts.
But, as the last several decades have shown, the American news media has become
marked by a heightened degree of sensationalistic and trivial coverage — “soft” news, as some
would call it. Prior to the terrorist attacks, the growing rise of shark attacks, and the disappear-
1
11

13. ance of Congressman Gary Condit’s intern, Chandra Levy, overwhelmed the headlines of our
country’s varied news media institutions. The Pew Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism
found that in June of 2001, Hard News accounted for only 45.5% of evening news telecasts,
while the second most common stories, Lifestyle Features, accounted for 19.7%.18 Those figures
nearly matched the all-time low in 1997 when Hard News only accounted for 41.3%, and Life-
style Features, 24.8%.19 Yet, even with having been bombarded for the last several decades with
such lackluster and sensationalistic coverage, of the most inconsequential matters, we still turned
to the American news media; hoping, perhaps knowing, that they would enlighten us, tell us the
truth, the facts of the matter.
Indeed, it is during such moments of domestic crisis that the news media is charged with
informing the public; for the majority of Americans on September 11, 2001, the American news
media was the primary means to receive the most up to date information. Jill Abramson, former
Washington Bureau Chief for the New York Times comments, people “crave information because
they see that information as essential to their safety, to turn forward with their lives.” 20 However,
as the events and knowledge gained in the years since that fateful September day have shown,
the American news media did not enlighten us; they did not give us all the cold and hard facts of
the matter; the truth was seemingly nowhere to be found. But, on that day, and during the weeks
after, the news media became our country’s lifeline, our sole means of receiving the latest infor-
mation.
12
18 "Before and After: How the War on Terrorism Has Changed the News Agenda, Network Television, June to Octo-
ber 2001." Journalism.org. 19 Nov. 2001. Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism. 3 Jan. 2009
<http://www.journalism.org/node/289>.
19 "Before and After: How the War on Terrorism Has Changed the News Agenda, Network Television, June to Octo-
ber 2001." <http://www.journalism.org/node/289>.
20 "What the Public Thinks of News Coverage Since Sept. 11" 28 Nov. 2001. Brookings Institution. 3 Mar. 2009
<http://www.brookings.edu/events/2001/1128media---journalism.aspx>.

14. Much of this faith (this confidence that our news media will present us with the facts, that
they will place such horrific catastrophes in some context, that they will give it all some mean-
ing), in part, stems from our historical conceptions of the press as a purveyor of truth and justice;
a watchdog over our more elite driven institutions; our fourth estate. At their core, though, these
mythic conceptions of our “free” press rely on the basic notion of objectivity; the “freedom” of
our press lies not only in its structural separation from the government but also in our belief that
the press will act in an objective manner; that our varied news media institutions will separate the
hard and concrete facts of the world from the personal values and beliefs of the paper’s owners,
reporters and editors.
Textbooks on the profession of journalism cite five central components of “objective”
reporting; balance, the goal of undistorted reporting; nonpartisanship, relaying both sides of the
story; the inverted pyramid, arranging the important facts of the story in the lead paragraph; na-
ive empiricism, the reliance on facts; and, finally, detachment, that the reporter separate his own
personal values from the story and facts at hand. Indeed, the notion of objectivity, the ideal of it,
continues to play a fundamental role in both the structural framework of the modern newsroom,
as well as our very perceptions, and, perhaps, psychological understandings, of our country’s
varied press institutions. However, as Michael Schudson, author of Discovering the News: A So-
cial History of American Newspapers, notes:
Objectivity is a peculiar demand to make of institutions which, as business corporations, are dedi-
cated first of all to economic survival. It is a peculiar demand to make of institutions which often,
by tradition or explicit credo, are political organs. It is a peculiar demand to make of editors and
reporters who have none of the professional apparatus which, for doctors or lawyers or scientists,
is supposed to guarantee objectivity.21
13
21 Schudson, Michael. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. New York: Basic Books,
1978. pp. 3.

15. Why is it then that we make such demands of our varied news media institutions, and, just what
is it that leads us to this seemingly peculiar faith? Though we have always understood that the
ideal of pure objectivity to be beyond our abilities as individuals, as human beings —each of us
inherently possessing our own unique perceptions of the world around us — the journalistic
practices that have come to define our contemporary newsrooms still focus and attempt to main-
tain the ideal of objective reporting. To understand such faith, then, we must understand the very
history of objectivity in the American news media.
Thus, by tracing the history of objectivity in American journalism, from the time of our
founding fathers to our contemporary news media landscape of multi-national media conglomer-
ates, the nearly epic myth of objectivity becomes just that, a myth; an institutionally and cultur-
ally engrained veil that forever alters the ways in which we view and comprehend the actions of
our “free” press. The press coverage of September 11th, 2001, consequently becomes part of a
continuum that inherently stems from the ways in which the very principles of objectivity have
come to invisibly taint and alter our perceptions of the news media. It is with that in mind that we
turn to the history of objectivity within the American news media.
Before Objectivity: The American Press from 1791 to 1833
To start, we must begin at the start, 1791, at the time of our founding fathers and the in-
ception of the First Amendment — the first law of the new American government to directly ad-
dress the press and its place in the new democracy of the United States. The First Amendment
states that: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the
14

16. people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” 22
The fact that our founding fathers so explicitly declared a structural separation between the gov-
ernment and the press is of no small importance; it is from these simple words that much of our
conception of a “free” press stems.
Only seven years later, though, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798, for-
bidding criticism of the government and “making it a criminal offense to print ‘any false, scan-
dalous and malicious writing... against the government of the United States.”23 As Michael
Schudson and Susan Tifft, authors of “American Journalism in Historical Perspective” note, it
was only after the Alien and Sedition Act expired in 1800 that the First Amendment:
begin to accrue a legal tradition consistent with the broad protections of its language. Until then,
in fact, it could be argued that the First Amendment was more of a protection of states’ rights than
the rights of individual or the press. After all, it prohibited the federal government — but not the
state governments — from abridging freedom of speech and of
the press.24
Quite a chasm therefore exists between our current understandings of the First Amendment and
that of our founding fathers, (the very men who wrote and voted the amendment into law).
Whereas today we view the First Amendment as protecting the very rights of the American news
media to function in an objective (and at times, critical manner), our founding fathers could not
even comprehend such an ideal of the press — it was beyond their political and cultural scope.
In fact, that newspapers were primarily read by mercantile and political elites only further
points to the narrowness of the 18th century American press. It was no wonder then that while
some “newspapers were primarily commercial, others were political. The political papers gave
15
22 United States Constitution: Bill of Rights. Cornell University Law School. 23 Nov. 2008
<http://www.law.cornell.e du/constitution/constitution.billofrights.html>.
23 Schudson, Michael and Susan E. Tifft. “American Journalism in Historical Perspective.” Institutions of American
Democracy: The Press. Eds. Geneva Overholser and Kathleen H. Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press,
2005. pp. 20.
24 Schudson and Tiftt. “American Journalism in Historical Perspective.” pp. 20.

17. greater emphasis to news of national politics [as they] were financed by political parties, factions
of parties, or candidates for office who dictated editorial policy.” 25 The press of the late-18th
century and early-19th century was thereby marked by a high degree of partisanship and a com-
plete lack of objectivity. Indeed, as the majority of these papers’ readership was solely devoted to
mercantile and political elites (they were the only ones that could afford either the daily cost of
six cents, or the yearly subscription fees of eight to ten dollars) objectivity was not even an issue
quite yet; one would only subscribe to those papers that reflected one’s political preferences.
Partisanship was thus the name of the game as editors were mostly subservient to their
political parties and had a limited scope beyond their personal politics and commercial interests
as to what was acceptable to print. David Paul Nord, author of “Newspapers and American Na-
tionhood, 1776-1826,” comments, that such a highly partisan climate established an environment
where in “the first fifty years of independence, in every effort to undermine the government or
disrupt the state, the newspaper was implicated. Newspapers were the organizers of faction and
sedition.”26 In such an exceedingly charged political environment, where the identity of the na-
tion was still being forged, objectivity could not possibly exist.
Thus, though we may believe our nearly mythic conceptions of the “free” press to stem
from the beliefs of our founding fathers and the First Amendment, the truth of the matter appears
quite different. Objectivity never concerned our founding fathers. For them, the press stood as a
political and commercial apparatus, not a further check and balance on the government. How-
ever, in the mid-19th century a shift occurred; new papers came hot off the presses as an alterna-
16
25 Schudson, Discovering the New: A Social History of American Newspapers. pp. 15.
26 Nord, David Paul. "Newspaper and American Nationhood, 1776-1826." Three Hundred Years of the American
Newspaper. Ed. John B. Hench. Worcester, MA: American Antiquarian Society, 1991. pp. 395.

18. tive tradition began; partisanship was out, nonpartisanship was in, and objectivity was fast ap-
proaching on the horizon.
The Rise of Objectivity: The Penny Papers to the Civil War
Between 1833 and 1835 venturesome entrepreneurs started a range of “penny papers” in
the growing urban centers of New York, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia. Unlike the papers
before them, which sold for six cents, these “penny papers” sold for a single penny and were
primarily hawked by newsboys on the streets. Rejecting the subscription plan of the papers be-
fore them, these penny papers sought a greater degree of revenue in advertisements, thus affect-
ing their very content.27
Unlike the partisan papers of the early 19th century, then, the penny papers not only dealt
with the issues of commerce and politics, but also the new social world of the mid-19th century.
Penny papers targeted the common urban man; advertisements were no longer solely directed to
businessmen interested in the latest commercial and legal news, but to the new urban man, a hu-
man being with mortal needs.28 The penny papers “began to reflect, not the affairs of an elite in a
small trading society, but the activities of an increasingly varied, urban and middle-class society
of trade, transportation, and manufacturing.”29 David Mindich, author of Just the Facts: How
“Objectivity” Came to Define American Journalism, continues that:
unlike the party or mercantile press, the pennies were not supported by political parties, and the
articles were more likely to cover news outside the narrow political and mercantile interests of the
six-centers. Crime news, for example, was more prevalent in the pennies, as was other news, of
ten sensationalistic, that fell beyond the six-center’s purview.30
17
27 Schudson and Tifft. “American Journalism in Historical Perspective.” pp. 21.
28 Schudson, pp. 23.
29 Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. pp. 23.
30 Mindich, David T. Z. Just the Facts: How 'Objectivity Came to Define American Journalism. New York: New
York University Press, 1998. pp. 17-18.

19. Publishers like James Gordon Bennett (publisher of the New York Herald), and James Watson
Webb (editor and publisher of the New York Courier and Enquirer), realized the financial feasi-
bility in focusing on sensationalistic and human-interest stories; stories of murder and drama,
stories of men and their honor, stories of social scandal and betrayal — these became the daily
ingredients of success for the penny papers. Todd Gitlin, author of Media Unlimited, notes that
by cultivating “the human interest story, newspapers could be sensational yet newsy, realistic yet
emotion-inspiring, vividly personal yet general in their import. They were diversions that didn’t
strictly divert. Or rather, they distracted readers from their immediate environs by refusing to dis-
tract them from some larger world.” 31 Opposed to the more mundane and dense discussion of
politics, human interest stories, and other sensationalistic stories, could appeal to everyone — the
dramatic thrust of such stories appearing more as entertainment than actual news. The penny pa-
pers therefore helped originate a new sense of what counted as news.
In hoping to appeal to a greater range of advertisers, as well as seeking greater circulation
amongst the population at large, penny papers thereby rejected the partisanship that dominated
the partisan papers before them. Schudson notes:
Most of the penny papers, including all of the pioneers in the field, claimed political independ-
ence, something that earlier papers rarely pretended to. James Gordon Bennett felt that this was
closely tied to the economic design of the penny paper, the ‘nonsubscriber plan,’ as he called it, of
selling on the streets. Only the penny press could be a free press, he wrote ‘simply because it is
subservient to none of its readers — known to none of its readers — and entirely ignorant who
ares its readers and who are not.’32
The objectivity of the paper therefore lay in its rejection of any outright affiliation to any political
party; though the penny press espoused particular political viewpoints in their editorials, the po-
litical coverage of the penny press was essentially nonpartisan. With the rise of the Associated
18
31 Gitlin, Todd. Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives. New York: Met-
ropolitan Books, 2007. pp. 51.
32 Schudson. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. pp. 21.

20. Press, in 1848, and other like organizations which sought to market news as a national commod-
ity — Wolff in 1855, and Reuter in 1858 — objectivity became not just a seeming demand, but
nearly a necessity. By distributing papers across a variety of locations, filled with a variety of in-
dividuals, each with their own political preferences and viewpoints, the A.P., and other such or-
ganizations, adopted an objective tone so as not to offend or turn-away any of its potential read-
ers.
The economic structure of the newspaper publishing industry thus became rationalized.
No longer was revenue dependent on the paper’s political or commercial affiliations. Rather, ad-
vertising, and the non-subscription plan, allowed the penny papers to reject the partisanship of
the past and appeal to a wider range of readers. The penny papers embraced the ethos of nonpar-
tisanship — thereby creating a certain degree of objectivity within their reports — out of an
economic-based desire. Objectivity did not organically spring about from the liberties and calls
for justice in our country. Rather, objectivity, more pointedly nonpartisanship at this point, arose
out of a business demand to separate the penny papers from the six-centers before them. This no-
tion of objectivity, though, appeared in a highly complex manner, constantly shifting with the
demands of advertising and the political climate of the time.
Just before the start of the Civil War, in 1860, Congress established the U.S. Government
Printing Office to handle the printing of U.S. government documents (a job previously outsour-
ced to newspapers along partisan lines). Though not generally seen as a defining moment in the
history of the American journalism, the establishment of a government office effectively ended
“the partisan printing contracts and hence the party press. Combined with a telegraphic network,
which allowed for rapid communication from Washington, and the emerging wire services,
which delivered a single message to newspapers of all political stripes, the end of the party press
19

21. forever altered the nonpartisan press as well.”33 No longer was it necessary for direct ties to exist
between the government and the varying newspapers of the country.
For the first time politicians suddenly had greater access to more disperse and broader
ranges of the population as the nonpartisanship ethos of the penny papers upped circulation and
became the most popular papers of the mid- to late-19th century. With partisanship out, and the
nonpartisanship of the penny papers in, it was thus “no longer possible for a party or politician to
control any news medium as an official organ,” but “it was no longer necessary for high officials
of government to do so. Their views were guaranteed access to all the major media — and pro-
tected against ‘irresponsible’ attack — by virtue of the authority of their position, not their par-
ticular party or politics.” 34 By no longer having to rely on partisan politics to generate headlines,
editors and reporters went to government officials as authoritative, and always present, sources
of news.
As we will later see later in the chapter, the news media’s reliance on government offi-
cials severely affects the day to day practices of the news media; in effect, what government offi-
cials do and do not talk about, essentially sets the news media’s agenda. What is important for
now, though, is that the nonpartisanship of the penny papers allowed the government and the
press to become ever closer connected; the press was now both “free from direct political control
and deeply connected to the actions and operations of the government.”35 However, it must be
noted, though, that while nonpartisanship created the proper foundation for objectivity to arise,
nonpartisanship, in and of itself, does not guarantee objectivity. Indeed, it would take the Civil
20
33 Mindich, pp. 85.
34 Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War:” The Media and Vietnam. Berkley: University of California Press, 1989.
pp. 70.
35 Mindich, pp. 85.

22. War to elevate objectivity to an essential stylistic and structural component of the new nonparti-
san ethos of the penny papers.
Entrenching Objectivity: The Civil War and Edward M. Stanton
With brothers fighting brothers, a country divided to the point of previously unseen acts
of violence, the Civil War pushed the news media to the forefront of American culture. Not only
did the Civil War focus the national attention on the latest sources of information, the national
press, but the war further increased the press’ sheer news gathering capacity. In fact, it was dur-
ing the time of the Civil War, in which the government and the press were forced to communi-
cate like never before, that newspapers began to devote a dedicated group of reporters to cover
the actions of our government; though earlier papers had assigned individual reporters to Wash-
ington, the Washington press corp as we understand it today (reporters specifically assigned to
cover the daily business of our government in the capital), only began to take its shape towards
the end of the Civil War.36
Furthermore, as will be discussed in greater depth in the following chapter, the Civil War
brought the government’s attention to the issues of controlling information during times of war;
news reports of Union activity would often appear in Confederate papers, prompting President
Lincoln’s Secretary of War, Edward M. Stanton, to take measures to control the flow of informa-
tion. Stanton even went so far as to install a telegraph machine in the office adjacent to his. Con-
sequently, the national press not only relied on Stanton’s press releases to deem what information
21
36 Kumar, Martha Joynt and Alex Jones. “Government and the Press: Issues and Trends.” Institutions of American
Democracy: The Press. Eds. Geneva Overholser and Kathleen H. Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press,
2005. pp. 241.

23. was acceptable to print, but, in fact, certain papers would even print Stanton’s statements as the
lead article on their respective front pages.37 In fact, Mindich argues that Stanton ultimately de-
veloped the journalistic style known as the inverted pyramid: “a system of ordering facts in a de-
scending order of importance.”38
By looking at the press releases written by Stanton during the Civil War, as well as the
telegraphs that Stanton immediately issued after Lincoln’s assassination, Mindich argues that
Stanton’s style marks a decisive break from the journalistic tendencies of the time:
Some journalism historians might prefer to a see a glorious genesis to the inverted pyramid; its
immortalizes valiant Civil War reporters and validates the modern notion of ‘objectivity.’ But a
repressive, manipulative, authoritative prototype for the ‘objective’ style, if not soothing, is re-
vealing. As modern journalists seek truth in a balance of authoritative sound bites and quotes,
they should keep in mind how information, when cleverly managed and manipulated, may give
little more than the government’s side of a story.39
Just as the structural constraints of nonpartisanship, and objectivity, were forcing journalists to
turn to government officials as sources of news, Stanton burst to the forefront of the American
news media with his press releases written in the new and distinct style of the inverted pyramid.
As opposed to the (then) traditional means of chronologically reporting the events of any
given story, the inverted pyramid relies entirely on facts and their ordering therein. But, because
it “has no narrative flow, the inverted pyramid is easier to manipulate than the chronological ac-
count; it is easy to delete paragraphs and facts without disturbing the sense of the story.”40
Thus,with Stanton effectively revolutionizing the very structure of reporting, appearing to strip
the story of all but the objective facts of the matter, the essential traits necessary for objectivity to
become embedded as a set of principles within the very structures of journalistic practice were
22
37 Mindich, pp. 93.
38 Mindich, pp. 68.
39 Mindich, pp. 93.
40 Mindich, pp. 89.

24. present by the end of the Civil War. However, it would take the growing popularity of realism,
and a devotion to science, among the arts and humanities, for the principles of objectivity to be-
come essential to very modes of journalistic practice.
Professionalizing Journalism: Objectivity as a Professional Code
By the late 19th century a decisive intellectual shift occurred just as the effects of the
Civil War had created a degree of institutional changes within the structure of the American news
media. Around the world, new conceptions arose in which realism, and a devotion to science,
were becoming mainstays of intellectual thought. Charles Darwin, and his theory of evolution,
brought science seeming evidence of objective facts about the world. But, “still, more important,
[Darwin’s theory of evolution] included human beings as objects about which facts could be
gathered and studied. The human mind externalized or objectified the body, and, as psycholo-
gists, and other social scientist worked over the implications of Darwinian theory, human beings
objectified themselves.”41 For the first time human beings believed they could make objective
statements about the world; facts seemed possible and journalists quickly seized upon this new
intellectual ethos.
Textbooks, such as Edwin Shuman’s Steps into Journalism (1894), burst onto the scene,
explicitly describing the values and professional norms essential to the establishment of a profes-
sional institution of journalism, one that could ultimately rival the norms and ethics of the more
culturally established professions of medicine and law. Objectivity thus became central to the
professional creed of journalism; the reporter had to separate his personal values and beliefs from
the facts of the world at hand. As George Henry Payne, author of History of Journalism in the
United States, writes:
23
41 Schudson. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. pp. 75.

25. There is no profession, unless it is medicine, that calls for a higher regard for the simple truth than
does journalism. ‘A good reporter is one who is never deceived by a lie.’ There have been men,
there are men, into whose consciousness this fact never penetrates, but for the vast majority of the
men who have achieved distinction in journalism it has been an actuating and primal principle.” 42
The ethos of the time, as reflected by Payne’s statement, was that of an objective ideal for the
growing class of professional journalists.
For journalists at the end of the 19th century, the world was finally open; hard and con-
crete statements could be made about the world at large. James Carey, author of “On, Before. and
After, September 11,” comments, the “press, in effect, broke away from politics. It established
itself, at least in principle, as independent of all institutions; independent of the state, independ-
ent of political parties, independent of interest groups. It became the independence voter writ
large; is only loyalty was to an abstract truth and abstract public interest.”43 Journalists conse-
quently believed objectivity to be an essential component of the very ways in which they viewed
and wrote about the world; it was the job of the American reporter to objectively stand aside and
view his government’s actions from afar, to protect the everyday citizens of the state. It was here,
then, in the late-19th century, that the principle of objectivity, and a unwavering faith therein,
reached its apex.
Consequently, it was also around this time that investigate reporting ultimately flourished.
Neil Henry, author of American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media,
notes that “from the 1890s through the early 1920s is remembered by many histories as the pe-
riod when independent, investigative journalism began to flower and come into its own as a
24
42 Payne, George H. History of Journalism in the United States. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1920. pp.
378.
43 Carey, James W. “American Journalism On, Before, and After, September 11.” Journalism After September 11.
Eds. Barbie Zelier and Stuart Allan. New York: Routledge, 2002. 71-90. pp. 79.

26. genre.” 44 Muckraking, President Theodore Roosevelt’s “dirty word” for those journalists who
were forcing the government to confront issues it would prefer to ignore, reached its height as
journalists attempted to expose the abysmal conditions of the country’s slums and mental hospi-
tals. However, as the 20th century brought on new technologies, two world wars, a great depres-
sion, and a cold war, journalists began to openly debate the ideals of objectivity in the face of
more stringent control by the government.
The 20th Century and Objectivity: From WWI and P.R. to Contemporary News Media
World War I, and the concurrent rise of press relations, usurped the growing ideals of the
professional, objective journalist. As Schudson comments,
With the rise of public relations in the 1920s, with the growing awareness of government that it
can serve itself better by managing the news, and with the growing consciousness in the press that
it had to contend with the manipulation of news on a grand scale, it grew more difficult for the
conscientious journalist to be satisfied that getting the news is sufficient.45
For the first time since the Civil War, World War I brought the relationship between the press and
the government to new heights.
With the establishment of the Committee on Public Information in 1917, President Wil-
son attempted to control domestic reports of the First World War. Though there was “an ostensi-
ble effort to balance freedom with national security, the momentum shifted quickly toward estab-
lishing centralized control of news flowing to the public from the government and the military.”46
The government established their control by not only centralizing the flow of information but
also through the employment of certain public relation techniques that were gaining wide spread
25
44 Henry, Neil. American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media. Berkley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2007. pp. 77.
45 Schudson. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. pp. 176.
46 Teel, Leonard R. The Public Press, 1900-1945. The History of American Journalism. Ser. 5. Westport, CT: Prae-
ger, 2006. pp. 74.

27. popularity at the time. As Stewart Ewen, author of P.R! A Social History of Spin, notes, “The un-
precedented creation of the CPI — a comprehensive propaganda bureau intended to mobilize and
channel popular enthusiasms — reflected a general awareness of ‘public opinion’ among busi-
ness and political elites in the United States.”47
The field of public relations, as reflected in the war-time propaganda of the First World
War, attempted to respond to, and shape the news by framing events in particular terms that
would emphasize certain facts while neglecting others, effectively manipulating the factuality of
the matter while still maintaing a sense of presenting an objective statement. P.R. firms thereby
manipulated the very way the public viewed and understood the world at large. In fact, P.R. firms
became popular in according response to the growing strength of the news media industry; with
more headlines to fill and more news to cover, P.R. firms presented an ideal means for those that
wished to manage their perception in the news media.
Furthermore, press relations ultimately initiated what cultural theorist, Daniel Boorstin,
calls “pseudo-events.” As Boorstin writes, a pseudo-event:
is not spontaneous, but comes because someone has planned, planted, or incited it [...] It is
planted primarily (not always exclusively) for the immediate purpose of being reported or repro-
duced. Therefore, its occurrence is arranged for the convenience of the reporting or reproducing
media. Its success is measured by how widely it is reported. Time relations in it are commonly
fictitious or factitious; the announcement given out in advance ‘for future release’ and written as
if the event had occurred in the past. The question, ‘Is it real?’ is less important than, ‘Is it news-
worthy?’48
From the perfectly staged and scripted press conferences, to the precisely released statements,
managed and coordinated by P.R. companies, the 20th century marked a growing rise in pseudo-
events. For example, in the early 1930s the White House began staging Presidential press confer-
ences, allowing journalists face to face access with the President, effectively giving the illusion
26
47 Ewen, Stuart. PR!: A Social History of Spin. New York: Basic Books, 1996. pp. 104
48 Boorstin, Daniel J. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. New York: Atheneum, 1987. pp. 11.

28. of open access to the highest seat of American power. However, as the president had, more often
than not, been thoroughly prepped for the conferences, and his staff could also restrict which
journalists were allowed to attend, even what they could ultimately ask, such routine pseudo-
events as our presidential press conferences only appear newsworthy, while nothing of actual
consequence is effectively revealed. Indeed, as pseudo-events carry certain characteristics of ac-
tual news, appearing in the national press and across our television and radio airwaves, such co-
ordinated events help to create the seeming illusion of objectivity, while, actually, manipulating
the truth of the matter.
Consequently, public relations “threatened the very idea of reporting. News appeared to
become less the reporting of events in the world than the reprinting of those facts in the universe
of facts which appealed to special interests who could afford to hire public relations counsel.” 49
Edward Bernays, one of the founders of public relations, once commented that the P.R. counselor
“is not merely the purveyor of news” but “he is more logically the creator of news.”50 The
American news media consequently underwent a process of re-identification as journalists
“could no longer believe that facts speak for themselves.” 51 Compounding the scenario, the
growing rise of new communications technologies, such as radio and television, expanded the
businesses of countless news media empires; newspaper, and other such forms of mass commu-
nication, became part of larger conglomerates in which the bottom line became solely focused on
the financial stability of the company.
It was during this time that reporters became conscious of the fallacies of objectivity;
amidst such a climate dominated by the growth of P.R. firms and the growing tendency of the
27
49 Schudson. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. pp. 138.
50 Hiebert, Ray Eldon. Courtier to the Crowd: The Story of Ivy Lee and the Development of Public Relations. Ames:
Iowa State University Press, 1966. pp. 114.
51 Schudson. Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers. pp. 149.

29. government to control and restrict news in times of crisis — WWI, The Great Depression,
WWII, and the Cold War — journalists began to see the professionalism of journalism, as well as
the ideological underpinnings of objectivity, as false. Daniel Hallin argues that:
the ideology of the journalist as professional is in important ways a ‘false consciousness.’ Based
on the idea that ‘news judgement’ can be politically neutral, it not only conceals the process by
which the news is shaped politically, but is itself part of that process. It is, in short a ‘myth’ — but
in a particular sense of that world. Far from being a mere lie or illusion, it is a deeply held system
of consciousness that profoundly affects both the structure of the news organization and the day-
to-day practice of journalism.52
The 20th century thus represented a decisive shift for journalists and the very ways in which they
viewed the norms and values of their profession. Contending with the manipulation and subjec-
tivity of press relations ,and their ability to frame (and in certain ways) dictate the content and
coverage of the news media, journalists came to see objectivity as what it truly is: a myth; at
best, an ideal to aspire to.
In fact, as the 1970s brought on a new economy, marked by a greater degree of streamlin-
ing business practices, (and consequent acts of downsizing), numerous news organizations were
forced to cut costs. As James Carey notes of the 1970s: “As firms grew larger, news in the tradi-
tional sense became a smaller and increasingly insignificant part of total corporate enterprise.
Freed from effective requirements to serve the ‘public interest, convenience, and necessity,’
broadcasting operations were subjected to ruthless cost-cutting and increasingly rationalized and
bureaucratized corporations.” 53 First to go were foreign bureaus, greatly hindering the ability of
the American news media to properly report on foreign affairs. Conversely, with a greater atten-
tion paid to the news’ revenue, the contemporary focus on soft news rose in abundance — Life-
style features becoming daily parts of our news regimen.
28
52 Hallin, pp. 23.
53 Carey. pp. 85.

30. However, while understanding the ideals of objectivity to be effectively unattainable,
journalists still aspire to them. The style of the inverted pyramid still marks most articles featured
in our national paper while the news media continues to rely on the actions and words of the
government as essential, authoritative, and always newsworthy sources of information. Though
some may argue that the nonpartisanship essential to objectivity may have seemingly dissipated
in the light of the contemporary rise of partisan political pundits and cable news stations like Fox
News, news media organizations continue to stress their nonpartisanship — Fox News has even
gone so far as to make, “Fair and Balanced,” the station’s slogan. Thus, though journalists may
understand that the principles of objectivity may be unattainable, that they may be beyond our
reach as human beings, the structural limitations imposed by the such principles of objectivity
continue to affect the daily practices of our country’s varied news media institutions.
Structural Limitations and the American News Media: Concluding Thoughts
As we have seen, objectivity did not organically arise out of a need for an (objective)
fourth estate. Rather, the market of the mid-19th century dictated a need, and provide an opening
for, an objective, nonpartisan press. Yet, objectivity still plays a fundamental role within our con-
temporary newsrooms. Though contemporary journalists understand the unachievable nature of
the ideal of objectivity — in light of the rise of P.R. firms and other such news-management
techniques of the 20th century — the principles of objectivity still serve as guiding modes of
practice for the majority of journalists. With not only time and staff in short supply, but also
money, journalists rely on what they know, and that includes their adherence to government
sources. However, regardless of journalists’ own understanding of such shortcomings, the very
reliance on the classic principles of objectivity have severely limited the scope of debate and the
ability of the news media to properly function as an objective watchdog.
29

31. First of all, because journalists attempt to act as nonpartisan, objective purveyors of truth,
journalists come to rely on authoritative sources, mostly from government and other elite-
sanctioned institutions. The complications of this reliance on official sources is nearly self-
evident for those “in political office (and, to a lesser extent, business) wield considerable power
to set the news agenda by what they speak about and, just as important, what they keep quiet
about.” 54 As W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston, authors of When
the Press Fails, further note:
it is important to recognize that what carries a story is not necessarily its truth or importance but
whether it is driven by dominant officials within institutional decision-making arenas such as ex-
ecutive policy circles, or legislative or judicial processes. The advantage generally goes to those
officials with the greatest perceived power to affect the issues or events at hand, the greatest ca-
pacity to use the levers of office to advance their news narratives of a regular basis, and the best
communication operations to spin their preferred narratives as well.55
The principles of objectivity, the ways in which the ideals of it have forced the American news
media into its current structural reliance on authoritative sources, ultimately limits the ability of
the news media to properly function as a watchdog; by inherently relying on government offi-
cials to the extent that the news media does, it becomes difficult for the news media to properly
criticize or interpret governments actions or statements without the influence of government offi-
cials. As Herbert Gans further comments:
Officials of course tell most official news, enabling them to simultaneously hide self-interested
actions and justifications of their actions behind the imprimatur associated with their offices. If
these officials tell lies, journalists can suggest they have done so but only if they find other
sources who allow themselves to be quoted to that effect — and these are not always available.56
By having to rely on such authoritative sources to maintain the supposed objectivity of the news,
journalists consequently get pulled into a tug of war; at once, journalists turn to sources to pre-
30
54 McChesney, Robert W. The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century. New York:
Monthly Review Press, 2004. pp. 69.
55 Bennett, W. Lance, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston. When the Press Fails: Political Power and the
News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. pp. 29.
56 Gans, Herbert J. Democracy and the News. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. pp. 47.

32. sent always newsworthy information, in an efficient and timely manner, while, conversely, such
sources have the ability to set the agenda of what the news does and does not cover. If no other
sources arise to debate the supposed worth of the statements put forth by our government offi-
cials, the news media has a structural issue in criticizing the supposed worth of the original
statement.
In fact, just as the nonpartisanship of the penny papers presented the press with a double
edged sword, so too did the inverted pyramid allow the press to at once become (seemingly)
more objective, while, consequently, allowing for a greater manipulation on the part of the writer.
As Stanton revealed during the Civil War, and the plethora of P.R. firms have revealed over the
last century, the inverted pyramid, while creating the illusion of factuality, ultimately allows one
to manipulate the truth of the matter; by (seemingly) organizing the “facts” from highest to low-
est priority, one may burry those facts that one wishes to, by and large, ignore at the bottom of
the piece. Conversely, those facts that the writer wishes to emphasize, but may merely be of only
superfluous importance and validity, can be placed at the top, increasing the supposed legitimacy
and worth of the “fact” as the legitimacy and worth of the “fact” at the bottom of the page is
largely undermined.
On September 11, 2001, then, we, as citizens. witnessed the ways in which our “objec-
tive” press, our fourth estate, have ultimately come to hinder our comprehension of the actual
facts of the matter. By accepting the words and “facts” of our varied news media institutions at
face value, by not critically evaluating the sources of such news, the American news media
(bound by the structural limitations arising out of the ideals of objectivity), compelled us, as
American citizens, to be wrapped up in the patriotic fervor that came to quickly dominate our
country as the march towards war moved steadily and hurriedly along. By primarily focusing on
31

33. the reaction from official sources, the news media could not help but perpetuate the growing
militarism that our government officials continually espoused.
However, as the history of our country reveals. no matter how strong a journalist or news
organization’s impulse to remain objective, objectivity, as we have come to understand it, ulti-
mately dissipates as America enters into moments of crisis, moments in which the national secu-
rity of the country is brought into question. It is during such moments that the relationship be-
tween the news media and the government reaches it height, further complicating the ability of
the news media to properly function as a further check and balance on our government. It is with
that in mind that we turn to our next chapter.
32

34. “Trust isn’t the only causality of war. So is rational thought.” - David Talbot, Salon
Codependents: News Media and the State in Times of Crisis
After the second plane hit we knew that this was not just some accident, that this was not
just “one of those things.” No. This was something much more. This was an attack on the United
States of America — a declaration of war against our country. No longer was the media reporting
what appeared to be an accident of catastrophic proportions. Now the American news media had
to contend with an incident that pertained to the highest levels of our national security. Yet, as
our country’s long history of national security conflicts has revealed, the relationship between the
news media and the government is one of a highly complex and coordinated function.
Now, that is not to say that the American news media blindly espouses whatever the gov-
ernment tells them to say; this is not some covert conspiracy between the men and women in
1
33

35. charge of reporting, producing and financing the news media with certain government and mili-
tary officials (after the September 11 terrorist attacks there were no closed door meetings, no re-
lays from the government as to how to handle the coverage). No. Instead, the American news has
become conditioned after years of handling moments in which the national security of our coun-
try has been tested. As Susan Carruthers, author of The Media at War, writes, by “repeatedly
showing war as a necessary, perhaps even desirable, form of conflict-resolution or preemptive
‘self-defense,’ [the news media] generally perpetuate[s] the institution of war” well before a war
even begins.57
In the previous chapter we saw how the economic-based demand for nonpartisan papers
created the foundations for what would later become our culturally engrained notion of the ob-
jective press; how the rejection of partisan ties and the embrace of nonpartisanship forced the
American news media to rely on authoritative sources whose stance as government officials in-
herently validates their statements. In the most routine of circumstances, then, the news media
and the American government already work in close association. But, in moments during which
international conflicts become of tantamount importance to the very security of the country, in
which the notion of war is thrust to the forefront of our national consciousness, the news media
and the government invariably collide.
In fact, it is during such moments that journalists may begin to self-censor themselves,
actively forgoing their supposed objectivity. Herbert Gans notes that journalists accept self-
censorship during such moments of national security issues because, “as citizens, they are also
concerned with the national security; and as journalists and citizens, they do not want to contrib-
34
57 Carruther, Susan L. The Media at War. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000. pp. 24.

36. ute to the possible loss of American lives.”58 Jay Rosen, author of “September 11 in the Mind of
American Journalism,” continues that, normally, “journalists don’t get struck by an event. They
report when events strike others, And it is this basic immunity from action that makes the whole
regime of neutrality, objectivity, and detachment even thinkable, let alone practical for
journalists.”59As we will later see, September 11 thus represented a decisive shift in the history
of the American news media; American journalists were, for the first time, covering an event in
real time as it happened to them, to us, to all Americans. What is important for now, though, is
that, on the most basic level, journalists must not only contend with the possible influence from
military and government officials during times of national security crises, but that they must also
contend with themselves, with their own sense of duty and loyalty to the well-being of the coun-
try.
As the news media coverage of the September 11 attacks revealed, and we will soon see,
the relationship between the American news media and that of the government is ultimately one
of a two way street. The military needs the news media just as the news media needs information
that only government and military officials could possibly provide. At once, the American news
media relies on the government to provide information perfectly suited to sell papers while, at
the same time, the U.S. government relies on the news media to relay information that could pro-
foundly affect the national perception of any given military action. Though their aims may be
different, though they bicker and feud from time to time, jostling and pressing the other, the news
media and the government’s relationship is one of a symbiotic nature — they are codependents
during such times of conflict. However, while the news media may benefit by the increase in cir-
35
58 Gans, Herbert J. Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and
Time. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2004. pp. 271.
59 Rosen, Jay. “September 11 in the Mind of American Journalism.” Journalism After September 11. Eds. Barbie
Zelizer and Stuart Allan. New York: Routledge, 2002. 27-35. pp. 28.

37. culation due to the heightened interest in the security of the country, the news media’s ability to
properly perform their watchdog becomes more greatly complicated as they forced into greater
and more precious contact with government (and military) officials. Arising out of the structural
limitations imposed by the principles of objectivity, the news media, during such moments of
crisis, essentially becomes a messenger for our country’s political elites.
War Sells Papers, Papers Sell Wars: The Start of a “Beautiful Friendship”
Formal American war reporting dates back to the mid-19th century when the News Or-
leans Picayune sent George Wilkins Kendall to the battlefields of the Mexican-American War.
Prior to Kendall’s reports from the front lines, most war reports were relayed by military generals
themselves; lengthy diary accounts and letters back home formed early accounts of American
wars. But, through his reports of the Mexican-American War, Kendall set the foundation for cov-
ering future wars from the perspective of the American journalist.
Kendall wrote about the bravery of American soldiers; he told tales of heroism, of sol-
diers fighting the enemy back, winning the day, securing victory for America. Numerous reports
even go so far as to suggest that Kendall participated in the fighting alongside American soldiers,
blurring the boundaries between objective reporting that much further.60 Though Kendall’s par-
ticipation in the fighting would become more of an aberration than the norm for war reporters in
the 19th century, the closing divide between the objective journalist and citizen of the State
would become a consistent conflict for journalists reporting future American war efforts. Indeed,
Kendall’s reports from the front lines “provided early editors with a lesson quickly learned: War
36
60 60 Stein, Meyer L. Under Fire: The Story of American War Correspondents. Ann Harbor: The University of
Michigan, 1968. pp. 18.

38. news sold papers.”61 Nearly a decade and a half later, then, with the outbreak of the American
Civil War, the American news media was all too prepared, sending scores of reporters to the bat-
tlefield, knowing that every American’s stake in the war would mean huge profits for all in-
volved.
As we saw in the previous chapter, the American Civil War represented an intensification
as well as a new tradition in the relationship between the government and the American news
media. With the advent of the telegraph, reports from the front lines pored into newsroom, and
then to the public, well before the government had time to control the flow of information; in
fact, information reported from the battle lines in Union papers would soon appear in Confeder-
ate papers as well. Sensing that such vital information could give an undue advantage to the en-
emy, President Lincoln and his staff quickly moved to stem the flow of information. Secretary of
War, Edward M. Stanton, “decreed that newspaper could not publish the ‘number, position, or
strength of the military forces of the United States.” 62 Stanton, perhaps better than anyone at the
time, understood that news and images could become “strategic commodities in wartime, as sub-
ject to rationing as other essential items, and sometimes as scarce.” 63 In recognizing the power
of the news media, Stanton consequently recognized the government’s need to control it.
For the first time since the revolution of the penny press, the American news media faced
direct censorship and control from the American government. Stanton and President Lincoln not
only understood that the American news media could provide tales of heroism and strength that
could further spur on a sense of optimism for the North, but, that if left unchecked, the news me-
dia could also aid the enemy in supplying information that would otherwise go unreported. In-
37
61 Prochnau, William. “The Military and the Media. Institutions of American Democracy: The Press. Eds. Geneva
Overholser and Kathleen H. Jamieson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. pp. 311.
62 Stein, pp. 18.
63 Carruthers, pp. 6.

39. deed, Stanton helped originate a tried and trued means of coercing the news media into falling in
line with dominant ideological stance of the government. As Susan Curruthers notes, by “identi-
fying the ends for which war is waged as indivisible from the national interest, states have also
made considerable use of patriotism as a mechanism for discipline mass media. Criticism of the
war — its ends or means — consequently becomes an act of treason.”64 Stanton recognized the
power of patriotic rhetoric, using the justification of “in the national interest” (for the good of the
country, as all patriots would do), to establish a secret police force, arrest reporters, restrict press
passes, and even usurp the authority of his generals.65 Indeed, Stanton (and Lincoln’s) under-
standing of controlling the flow of wartime information would provide invaluable lessons for
American politicians in the 20th century.
P.R. and the Management of the News: From the First to Second World War
The First World War reflected a heightened attitude of the American government’s under-
standing of the news media; the American news media would not, under any circumstances, be
allowed to undermine the military and political operations at home or abroad. As William Pro-
chnau, author of ‘The Military and the Media,” comments:
For the first (and only time) in its history the U.S. government charged a fee to the journalists or
their employers of $1,000 for accreditation, severely limiting access. It then required correspon-
dents and their employers to sign pledges that they would refrain from publishing news that might
abet the enemy, and post a $10,000 bond ($150,000 in today’s dollars) as a guarantee of
violations.66
Instead of merely censoring the reports coming from the front lines as Stanton had done during
the Civil War, the U.S. government took a new stance, outright restricting access to the front
38
64 Carruthers, pp. 9.
65 Mindich, David T. Z. Just the Facts: How 'Objectivity Came to Define American Journalism. New York: New
York University Press, 1998. pp. 78.
66 Prochnau, pp. 313.

40. lines for all but a handful of reporters. The American news media found itself “not partners to
government, but instruments of government. They were valued — and feared — not for their ca-
pacity to represent public opinion, but for their power to control it.” 67 On April 13, 1917 (less
than two weeks after America’s official intervention into the war), President Wilson created the
Committee on Public Information (CPI). President Wilson had been advised that, though:
the cooperation of the press has been generous and patriotic, there is a steadily developing need
for some authoritative agency to assure the publication of all vital facts on national defense. Pre
mature or ill-advised announcements of policy, plans, and specific actions, whether innocent or
otherwise, would constitute a source of danger.68
The CPI thereby functioned as a further (propagandistic) means to control the information put
forth by the American news media. Just as Stanton had convinced Lincoln before him, President
Wilson was made to understand that the news media had to be controlled, that the government
had to take a participatory and oversight role in what information the news media did and did not
disseminate.
As mentioned in the previous chapter, World War I represented the U.S. government’s
first foray into the new found intellectual field of press relations. A founder of press relations,,
Edward Bernays noted that it was “astounding the success of propaganda during the war which
opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting
the public mind.”69 For example, as Stuart Ewen, author PR!: A Social History of Spin, com-
ments:
In the Domestic Section of the CPI... the Division of News channeled thousands of ‘official war
news’ press releases through the mails and along telegraph lines on twenty-four-hours-a-day ba-
sis. Concurrently, the Foreign Section of the CPI, which maintained offices in over thirty coun-
tries, used naval radio transmitters to ‘pour a steady stream of American information into interna-
39
67 Schudson, pp. 164.
68 Teel, Leonard R. The Public Press, 1900-1945. The History of American Journalism. Ser. 5. Westport, CT: Prae-
ger, 2006. pp. 74.
69 Schudson, pp. 141.

41. tional channels of communication.’ Syndicated ‘human-interest’ features were also distributed,
aimed at those readers who skipped over the news columns.70
The government not only understood that they had to control information, but that they could
also supply it. By releasing human interest stories about American soldiers and families fighting
overseas, the CPI was able to help focus the attention of the American public away from the
more horrific facts of the war.
Indeed, World War I represented a new type of war fare; new weapons, spurred on by
new technologies, could ravage the human body, and morale, like nothing before. And, with the
advent of photography in the late-19th century, the ability for the horrors of war to be oh-so real-
istically reproduced and transmitted across the world, helped to enforce more stringent regula-
tions on the news media. The coverage of the First World War consequently closely followed the
ideological stance of the government; the news media became a further means of disseminating
the beliefs and postulations put forth by our government. As Prochnau once more notes, “World
War I became a story that simply wasn’t told until long after it was too late. It left a haunting
message about what denial of access, censorship, and claims of protecting ‘national security’ can
wreak.”71
Only two years later, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, President Wilson fully as-
serted the new creed of the U.S. government; Wilson forbid journalists from reporting on the
Peace Conference even though the issues discussed at the conference contained information per-
taining to the upmost importance of American politics.72 It was not until after the Peace Confer-
ence had ended that Wilson allowed the results of the conference to be released to the press. As
Schudson comments, “at the Paris Peace Conference the government ‘controlled’ the news in an
40
70 Ewen, Stuart. PR!: A Social History of Spin. New York: Basic Books, 1996. pp. 111.
71 Prochnau, pp. 314.
72 Schudson, pp. 166.

42. organized, self-conscious fashion. This dramatized, as nothing before could have, that govern-
ment management of news would be a permanent condition of modern society.”73 By 1941, then,
at the outbreak of the Second World War, the U.S. government was all too prepared to handle the
flow of information that would invariably arise from our country’s varied news media institu-
tions; no matter who was in charge it had become startlingly clear to politicians across the coun-
try that “insofar as the news media carry the messages of official controllers, and insofar as the
news legitimates their messages, journalists help control the citizenry.”74
Thus, nearly twenty years later, eleven days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,
“Congress passed the War Powers Act authorizing President Roosevelt, among other things, to
censor communications. Within 48 hours he established the Office of Censorship.”75 Recogniz-
ing that they could not outwardly censor the American news media in a manner similar to that of
the Fascist enemies overseas (if they did, how could the government separate themselves from
the enemy) the Office of Censorship, instead, established a voluntary model which “aimed to
achieve the government’s goal of suppressing information of value to the enemy through explicit
cooperation from the front offices down to the reporters.”76 The Office of Censorship not only
published a series of guidelines as to how the news media could aid the American war effort, but
also went so far as to outright revise information that they deemed unsuitable to the American
welfare.77
Unlike the First World War, where the relationship between the news media and the gov-
ernment became one of tension, the Second World War represented a seeming agreement be-
41
73 Schudson, pp. 166.
74 Gans, pp. 296.
75 Teel, pp. 208.
76 Teel, pp. 209.
77 Prochnau, pp. 314.

43. tween the American news media and government. As Daniel Hallin notes, “The mobilization of
public opinion was increasingly seen as something that needed to be organized systematically,
and the press was naturally considered central to that effort. This meant that the governments had
an incentive to offer the press access and to give it adequate information and freedom to insure
its credibility.”78 Indeed, as wars sold papers, (and this war was selling papers like nothing else
before), the news media appeared all too ready to submit itself to the eyes of the government. In
turn, the government was ready to provide exclusive information to the news media, even going
so far as to allow New York Times reporter William L. Laurence to not only watch the first test of
the top-secret atomic bomb in the deserts of New Mexico, but allowed Laurence to later observe
the dropping of the A-bomb on Nagasaki.79 Laurence never uttered a word about his exclusive
reports until after the government deemed it acceptable to print. Laurence, like other reporters
during the Second World War, was seen as serving a patriotic duty.
The Second World War thereby represented not only an intensification of the relationship
that had evolved between the news media and the government during times of warfare but also a
new characteristic as the relationship came to take on a more harmonic tone; journalists during
the Second World War readily submitted themselves to the self-censorship of reports, under-
standing that what they reported had dire consequences for the public morale and safety of the
country. However, World War II would become the height of the (seemingly) harmonious rela-
tionship between the news media and the government. In the hot wars that would soon follow
(under the auspice of the great Cold War), the relationship between the news media and the gov-
ernment would take on a much more heated and contested nature.
42
78 Hallin, Daniel C. The “Uncensored War:” The Media and Vietnam. Berkley: University of California Press, 1989.
pp. 127.
79 Prochnau, pp. 314.

44. From Korea to Vietnam: Clashes of the News Media and the Government
Though the Korean War has mostly been regaled to the farther depths of our country’s
memory, the Korean War reflected a decisive shift away from the news media and government’s
relationship that had developed since the Civil War. As William Prochnau notes, the Korean War
“began so suddenly and with such surprise that censorship was not installed and as a result the
words sent home were as tough and realistic as any from a war front, partly because the soldiers
themselves begged the correspondents to tell the people the real story.”80 Though General Doug-
las McArthur attempted to censor such “horrific” reports from the front lines, he later relented,
but not before telling several correspondents that they had “an important responsibility in the
matter of psychological warfare.”81 The Korean War thus became a transitional moment for the
news media and the government; due to the quickness of the war’s beginning, as well as the in-
crease in technology communications (television was quickly establishing itself as a new and
powerful medium), journalists were able to (momentarily) cover an American war without direct
guidelines or notions of “voluntary censorship” from the government. Indeed, as America would
soon enter into another hot war in the South Pacific, the journalist’s responsibility to matters of
psychological warfare would once more come to stand front and center.
Unlike any war before it, the Vietnam War polarized the nation to extents previously un-
seen, many blaming the news media’s coverage for the war’s eventual demise. However, early
coverage of the war was not openly critical. In fact, at first, the military actions in Vietnam were
not reported as acts of war, but as a limited engagement (American soldiers merely serving as
43
80 Prochnau, pp. 315.
81 Knightley, Phillip. The First Casualty, From the Crimea to Vietnam: The War Correspondent as Hero, Propagan-
dist, and Myth Maker. New York: Harcouth Brace Jovanovich, 1975. pp. 337.

45. advisors to their south Vietnamese counterparts). However, as the years passed, and more and
more troops were called overseas, “growing divisions in Washington, declining morale among
American troops in the field, and the spread of antiwar movement into parts of the political
mainstream,” created an environment perfectly suited for the news media to critically engage
with the methods and means of the U.S. war effort.82
Indeed, it is in his seminal study of the Vietnam War that Daniel Hallin ultimately argues
that journalists operate in either one of two spheres: that of the “sphere of consensus,” or that of
the “sphere of legitimate controversy.” In times of political consensus, in times when the political
climate of the country is one of general harmony, Hallin argues that journalists “tend to act as
responsible members of the political establishment, upholding the dominant political perspective
and passing on more or less at face value the views of authorities assumed to represent the nation
on a whole.” 83 On the other hand, though, Hallin argues that during times of political conflict,
moments in which a lack of agreement seems to define the political establishment, journalists
tend to “become more detached or even adversarial,” allowing themselves to openly critique, de-
bate and challenge issues that would normally go unchecked during times of political
consensus.84
Thus, it was not until the Tet Offensive in December of 1968 that the tides began to
change. After witnessing the attacks firsthand, Walter Cronkite, then the leading news media
broadcaster in the U.S., stated that:
To say we are closer to victory is to believe, in the face of evidence, the optimists who have been
wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism.
To say that we are mired in stalemate seem to the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion.85
44
82 Hallin, pp. 163.
83 Hallin, pp. 10.
84 Hallin, pp. 10.
85 Hallin, pp. 170.

46. Cronkite’s statement crystalized the already growing criticisms of the war back home. No longer
was the political climate of the country one of bipartisan support for the war; with an uncertain
conclusion to the war becoming a greater fear among the general public and select politicians,
the American news media quickly ceased upon the new cultural and political climate as they be-
gan to report the Vietnam War from a more critical perspective. No longer did the news media
solely rely on government officials and high-ranking officers for accounts of the war. Now the
American news media was turning to the everyday soldier as “the image of the soldier eager to
fight gave way to that of the reluctant warrior whose battle was mainly to survive.”86
It was not until the Vietnam War dragged on, and more troops were increasingly sent over
seas, only to be sent back in body bags, that the news media came to properly critique and en-
gage with the government’s actions and decisions during the Vietnam War; with no end seem-
ingly in sight to the war, and with causalities increasing exponentially, only then did certain gov-
ernment and other institutionally-elite officials began to openly criticize the U.S. war effort.
Once such officials stepped forward, once members of the political establishment began to voice
opposition to the consensuses of the time, the news media finally followed in turn, they too com-
ing to more forcefully debate the value of the war effort.
It is, then, just as Hallin argues: the American news media’s ability to properly function
as an objective purveyor of truth and justice relies heavily on the political climate of our country
and the degree of consensus therein. If no government or military sources voice opposition to the
White House message, journalists have (structural) issues criticizing the possible legitimacy of
any governmental stance. Indeed, as W. Lance Bennett, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Living-
ston, authors of When The Press Fails: Political Power and the News Media from Iraq to Ka-
45
86 Hallin, pp. 180.

47. trina, argue, “the practice of filtering political stories through the perceived power alignments in
government makes it difficult for mainstream news reporting to sustain credible challenges that
come from sources outside those spheres of power.” 87 Unless a sphere of legitimate controversy
arises within the political establishment, the news media has a structural issue with critically en-
gaging with the messages and means of the political establishment. With no other authoritative
figures present, with no other means to critique the actions of the government without appearing
un-objective, the news media is forced to follow in line with the dominant climate of the political
establishment.
As the Vietnam War came to its conclusion in 1973, many Americans blamed the news
media for the war’s demise and the eventual retreat of American troops. Indeed, as there is no
bigger stage to voice one’s opinion on than the various forums of the news media, the news me-
dia’s critical coverage of the war, its focus on officials and coverage that painted the war in a
negative light, ultimately came to stand as the central cause of the American defeat. As former
President Reagan famously said, “There is a lesson for all of us in Vietnam. If we are forced to
fight, we must have the means and the determination to prevail or we will not have what it takes
to secure the peace.”88 For Reagan, like many others who favored the Vietnam War, the news
media’s reflection of anti-war sentiments ultimately hindered the national optimism and consen-
sus that is (seemingly) required for the victory of any large-scale international military confronta-
tion. But, it must be noted, though, that if no internal opposition had arisen among the political
establishment, the news media would have never “prevented” America from winning the war.
46
87 Bennett, W. Lance, Regina G. Lawrence, and Steven Livingston. When the Press Fails: Political Power and the
News Media from Iraq to Katrina. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2007. pp. 28.
88 Reagan, Ronald. "Peace: Restoring the Margin of Safety." "8/18/1980 Speech" Ronald Reagan Presidential Li-
brary, National Archives and Records Administration. 18 Aug. 1980. University of Texas. 4 Apr. 2009
<http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/reference/8.18.80.html>.

48. Yet, in the years after the Vietnam War, military officials, and leading theorists at the Pentagon,
focused their attention on the affects of the news media’s coverage of U.S. military operations,
ready for the next inevitable confrontation.
A.V., After Vietnam: Grenada and Panama to the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars
The invasion of Grenada in October of 1983 would set the precedent for the govern-
ment’s management of the news media in light of the shortcomings of the Vietnam War. Still be-
lieving that the Vietnam War ended in defeat because of the news media’s critical coverage of the
military operations overseas, the Pentagon quickly established internal guidelines for managing
the news media during all forthwith moments of military action.
During the first days of the U.S. invasion of Grenada, American reporters were kept at the
nearby island of Barbados until the invasion was firmly under American control and the fighting
had all but subsided. It was only about a month later that journalists were finally allowed a lim-
ited tour of the island.89 As then Secretary of Defense, Caspar W. Weinberger, noted of the news
media, “Sometimes there seems to be little or no thought given to whether publication of facts
will harm the conduct of our foreign policy, or, most important, whether it will endanger Ameri-
can lives.”90 Vietnam had taught the military vital lessons, that the news media’s psychological
and political impact on the public morale could never be underestimated again.
American journalists, though, erupted in anger over their newly imposed restrictions. A
special commission of military officers and former journalists was consequently established to
further debate and clarify the expected norms of the news media and government in times of cri-
ses. The commission led to the creation of a national media pool, “a rotation of national journal-
47
89 Taylor, Philip. "Blame Grenada!" News Media and the Law 25.4 (2001): 8-10. Proquest. Vassar College. 18 Mar.
2009 <http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-92343317.html>.
90 Halloran, Richard. “Pentagon and the Press: The War Goes On.” New York Times 29 Jan 1986. A.20.

49. ists that could be called in a moment’s notice to cover the opening stages of a war, an invasion or
other military maneuver.”91 However, less than ten years later, with the invasion of Panama at
the end of the decade, the news media was once more restricted from covering the first forty-
eight hours of the invasion. American journalists were up in arms again over the restrictions, out-
right criticizing the government’s imposed restrictions. Soon, though, journalists would get their
wish as they were (seemingly) allowed greater access than ever to our military operations, the
U.S. entering into its first sustained actions in the Middle East.
The Gulf War represented a reversion of sorts for the U.S. government as Pentagon offi-
cials realized that providing prepackaged information to journalists could be far more advanta-
geous to their efforts than simply restricting access. Susan Carruthers notes that during the Gulf
War, rather “than excluding the media altogether from the scene of military operations — as had
been the attempted during the Grenada intervention — the Pentagon realized that allowing ‘fet-
tered’ media access was preferable to an unworkable, and resented, blanket ban.” 92 The Penta-
gon quickly established a two-tier system that regulated the information journalists would either
be told or could witness first-hand. Those journalists regaled to the bottom of the ladder, mostly
international correspondents from outside the Coalition (the term denoted to represent the allied
forces against Iraq) were kept in the luxurious accommodations of Kuwait where daily press con-
ferences were held by military officials. Those select journalists who were allowed greater ac-
cess, mostly U.S. and journalists from the leading Coalition nations, France and Britain, were
allowed a place with a Media Reporting Team (MRTs) which were under the close supervision
and command of American military public affair officers (PAOs).93
48
91 Taylor, pp. 8.
92 Carruthers, pp. 110.
93 Carruthers, pp. 134-135.

50. Unlike Grenada and Panama, where the military seemingly favored a more restrictive and
exclusionary relation to the news media, the first Bush Administration understood that, with the
right amount of control on the ground, as well as staging routine press conferences, that control-
ling the news media, dictating what could and could not be seen, was preferable, and far more
advantageous, than any exclusionary relation could yield; indeed, before the war a “decision had
been made by those ‘highest sources’ to largely deliver the news directly to the public through
television, bypassing the filter of the news media. In effect, the secretary of defense became the
nation’s war correspondent.”94 Yet, the American public did not seem to notice; the characteris-
tics essential to the pseudo-events of our government, their staged press conferences and pre-
cisely timed press releases, the ability of the military to effectively package their highly con-
trolled information, (seemingly) hid the truth from us. Indeed, the Gulf War brought home the
seeming realities of war unlike any coverage before it; by controlling the footage seen, as well as
dictating information concerning causalities figures and missile success rates through staged
press conferences, the military controlled the news media, and, thus, by and large, controlled the
story of the Gulf War.
As a decade later we would move our military forces into Afghanistan and Iraq (retalia-
tory responses to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the consequent War on Terror)
the military’s manipulation and control of the news media reached its contemporary height. In
the run up to the Iraq War, the Pentagon deftly used the news media to release press statements
and other such coordinated news worthy events, pseudo-events, to manipulate the national con-
sensus and understanding of the causes behind our military actions. The Pentagon and White
House employed perfectly released statements and timed press conferences to fill the airwaves
49
94 Prochnau, pp. 322.