Abstract
Newsmen and soldiers enter a way situation with almost intrinsically opposed priorities. The soldiers must fight to win. Their imperatives include staying alive, keeping casualties on their own side at a minimum, concealing their forces' intentions and movements from the enemy to ensure maximum advantage and inflicting enough damage on the enemy to guarantee victory. Newsmen, on the other hand, are opposed to ferret out the truth about the confrontation and to report it as fully as possible to their audiences.
Technologically, the Gulf War of the early 1991 was the most thoroughly reported of any way in history. The human factor was an entirely different story. Protests and criticism flew as hot and heavy as bullets and rockets, both during and after the fighting, and journalistic breast-beating, in some quarters, thunders almost as loudly as the bombs.
The War, whatever else may be said about it, was a costly 'laboratory case' for students of the media. It has stimulated much passionate discussion, and even some valuable research projects, and promises to continue to do so. The War affected people. So did the way television and the other mass media reported it. It is this impact on people which prompts Trends to devote special attention to research on television coverage of the War.
Recommended Citation
Cordelian, W.
(1992)
"Television Reporting of the Gulf War,"
Communication Research Trends: Vol. 12:
No.
2, Article 1.
Available at:
https://scholarcommons.scu.edu/crt/vol12/iss2/1