Feature Article

When Objectivity Isn’t Neutral: Media Coverage of Conflict

By Jane Austin

American public support for the Iraq War was rife with misunderstanding about critical actors and issues: in 2004 44% of Americans polled thought Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th terrorist attacks; in 2006 over 50% believed that Iraq had WMDs when the US invaded. Media appeared complicit in public misinformation that mobilized support for a military invasion of Iraq. Was the media acting as a propagandistic mouthpiece of the government? Perhaps unwittingly. Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick, authors of Peace Journalism, suggest that it is the pursuit of objectivity and desire for powerful sources that often result in bias.

The norm of objectivity originated in the late 19th century. As circulation increased and newspapers became dependent on advertising revenue, news organizations sought coverage that would offend the least number of readers.  Today, journalists worldwide try to adhere to the objectivity norm. Citizens, as well, expect news to be free from bias. When this expectation isn’t met, news organizations feel the heat. (See “The Bullets in My In-Box,” by Ethan Bronner, for a revealing discussion of the challenges to meeting objectivity expectations in Palestinian/Israeli conflict coverage).

According to Lynch, McGoldrick and others, the roots of bias may be found in the subjective choices inherent to the news production process: journalists and editors are “gatekeepers” who select which stories to print and which sources to quote. Gatekeepers determine sources based on who has publicly acknowledged power. According to Professor Lance Bennett at the University of Washington, the journalistic practice of “following the power” privileges government framing of the news. In the Iraq War case, this meant media coverage was dominated by Bush administration rhetoric of “WMDs”, the “axis of evil”, and other fear-generating catch phrases that promoted war logic – instead of including voices of citizens, international organizations, and academics who questioned the mobilization. Largely absent from media coverage was information that undermined the administration’s case for war, including UN assertions that Iraq’s nuclear weapons program had been dismantled in the 1990s.

Media coverage also tends to simplify the often complex and abstract context surrounding a conflict. For example, Gulf War coverage focused on Saddam Hussein’s negative actions, rather than the broader context of Bush and Reagan foreign policy and economic interest in Iraq’s oil reserves. Further, media coverage prefers dualistic narratives: good vs. evil and us vs. them binaries. This simplifies complex events and creates a facade of balance by representing conflicts as two-sided (despite the existence of multiple parties and perspectives). Gulf War coverage repeated the Bush administration’s analogies of Saddam Hussein to Hitler, undermining the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iraq’s aggression in Kuwait. 

Government officials can generate support for policy by exploiting such media biases.  Critical analysis of government policy is more important then ever as we wage an ill-defined “War on Terror.” McGoldrick and Lynch argue that the objectivity norm can be reworked to better reflect the complex reality of conflict. They argue that conflict coverage should include multiple perspectives and interpretations of the origin, content, and potential solutions to a conflict.