 Media Credit: David Trudo Journalists debated the effect of media on democracy in a symposium Saturday.
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The news media, sometimes referred to as the fourth branch of government, has been criticized for its lack of skeptical investigative reporting before and during the war in Iraq. Some claim that the media is partly to blame for the war because it did not sufficiently question the government's actions or provide the public with an alternative view on the war in Iraq.
In Saturday's fall symposium, "No News is Bad News: The role of the media in our democracy," journalists discussed the effect of the post-9/11 patriotism on the media, the responsibilities and difficulties of investigative journalism, and the effect of the decline of newspapers on the quality of reporting. The symposium, sponsored by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities, was the fourth of its kind. It consisted of three sessions of renowned journalists discussing war reporting, political reporting, and the business aspect of the news media.
The symposium began with a panel discussion on the dangers and difficulties of reporting in Iraq, the role of objectivity in reporting, and the apparent breakdown of skepticism in favor of patriotism after Sept. 11. Pulitzer Prize-winner and journalist Samantha Power discussed how the news media did not perform its job of questioning the government after Sept. 11 and that the system of checks and balances within the government disappeared, including the essential fourth branch of the news media.
"What is so amazing and disappointing in the post-9/11 world was that those checks seemed to melt away," Power said. "There is a lot of guilt, I think, and outright embarrassment about that period."
Although the news media has now begun to criticize U.S. actions in Iraq, Power said it still only operates from the American viewpoint. Originally, news coverage of Iraq was sometimes biased because it was done under the influence of American patriotism; although that has dissipated, coverage is still not complete because it does not take into account the Iraqi perspective.
"We don't have any idea of how Iraqis feel. The way we even refer to the Iraqis as a 'they,' - there is no individuality," Power said. "They are completely peripheral to our debate about withdrawal."
It is difficult, however, to gain access to the individual Iraqi, since reporting from Iraq is both difficult and dangerous. According to the panelists, covering Iraq is very different from traditional war reporting.
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