Why is it so dangerous to be a reporter these days? I am thinking, of course, about the ordeal of Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig—and they, happily, survived their kidnapping in Gaza. But many reporters have been kidnapped in recent years, and around 100 have been killed, according to the Freedom Forum in Washington DC.
And it would be naïve to think that the problem isn’t going to get worse. And cable news, running 24/7 as it does—and not just in the US, but in many different countries—is going to be right in the middle of it. More than in the middle, in fact. You could even say, grimly, “held hostage,” or “in the crossfire.” Oh, for the days when the news was merely about “hardball.” Now we’re talking real weapons, not just beanball-pitches.
Continuing with a sports-object-projectile analogy-seeking, it seems that these days, lots of different contending forces around the world see the media in general, and reporters in particular, as kind of a football to be thrown around, and to be spiked, stolen, grabbed, fumbled, etc. Or maybe a better simile, than “like a football,” to use in re: reporters is “like a hockey puck”—something to get slapped and slammed across a hard surface in search of points.
And what forces am I thinking of? Well, there are the usual suspects: governments. They always want to shape their message. And of course, the familiar apparatus of p.r. types and spin doctors. But in addition, just about everyone, these days, knows the power of shaping a story. Ordinary people in the US pretty much know what they should say when they get their 15 minutes of fame. And now the same media savvy extends around the world. In Third World countries, folks generally know how to strike a pose for the media—oftentimes, as they show themselves to the West, they are merely “agrarian reformers” or other stripes of non-threatening moderates, or aid-seeking victims, but at other times, they seek to strike a pose of “authentic” Muslim righteousness. The latest example of such radical-chic-ish admiring of Third World Revolutionaries is the CNN special on Osama Bin Laden, in which OBL was sort of a new Che Guevara. What a kiss-up that documentary was! As The New York Times, hardly a bastion of conservatism, observed in a withering review of the CNN special that first aired on August 23, “Parts of ‘In the Footsteps of bin Laden’ could almost double as a recruiting video for Al Qaeda.” Which is to say, even the terrorists have figured out how to play the media—and as we have seen, the media are easily played.
Not all media, of course. CNN and the BBC are perhaps the most famous for their trendy-leftism, morphing into apologizing, of covering up for, Third World dictators—viz. Eason Jordan’s now notorious April 2003 Times op-ed in which he admitted (actually, bragged would be a better word) that he had withheld information about Saddam Hussein’s abuses to guarantee CNN’s access to the old Iraqi regime. A corrupt bargain, and after it was revealed, Jordan was rightly forced to resign. But of course, other media outlets have their own biases: How does one define, for example, Al-Jazeera? Is it left, in the sense of CNN or BBC? Or does Al-J represent another kind of ideology together, that doesn’t fit very well in our Western left-right typology—fellow travelers of Islamofascism, perhaps?
Al-Jazeera is a special case, because it has only come to prominence since 9-11, and mostly for its coverage of Arab and Muslim news. And while it is widely regarded, at least by many Americans, as being in league with the terrorists, it clearly has popular support, not to mention a pretty good-sized budget. Which is why it keeps expanding. And yet at the same time, some of its reporters have been killed in the line of duty, too.
So that’s the harsh reality, folks. The stakes are high, because the battle for media-domination—the power to set the agenda, to light a fire in men’s minds—are high. And so it is that reporters are targets. And in irregular warfare, as seen in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, where the enemy doesn’t wear a uniform, and where suicide bombers are everywhere, then all are vulnerable. So say a prayer for those who venture out in the field. They are risking their lives.
And it’s only going to get worse. One thinks, and this is only slightly a stretch, of the words that Raymond Chandler used to describe his fictional private eye, Philip Marlowe: “But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”
Well, not all reporters fit that description. Although I think, of course, that Steve Centanni, whom I have watched for years, fits that description. And if Olaf is good enough for Steve, and Steve vouches for him, then settles the question about him, too.
