“The first casualty of war is the truth. Truth is not always killed in war, more often it is missing, or being held prisoner”
-David Benjamin, “Censorship in the Gulf” http://web1.duc.auburn.edu/~benjadp/gulf/gulf.html 1995.

Vietnam was the first media war, but successive international conflicts in which the US has been involved have been subject not only to increasing media exposure, but also to increased military and government censorship as time, technology, and journalistic practices have progressed. Successive conflicts to be discussed here include the Gulf War and the current, ongoing, and ambiguous “War on Terror” which includes US invasions in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Vietnam was a very special war because it was the first media war, and the media brought the war into the homes of the American public. The images and stories the media brought home ignited unprecedented public protest to an international war. The Gulf War was also a media war historically important in its own right; this was a war in which the media was used by the military as a propagandistic tool to ensure public support for the war by severely limiting reporting (Knightly 488). The most recent series of conflicts is perhaps the most difficult to define, and arguably the most complex in many ways because of its ambiguity and evasive enemy(ies). The “War on Terror” is a very unique media war not only because of the government’s carefully-crafted media control mechanism, which is “embedding” American reporters and journalists with the troops, but also because of the huge technological advancements since the Gulf War which allow the public to more easily and openly share and debate opinions and information about the international situation.

Vietnam was the very first media war. The pervasion of television into most American homes allowed images of the war to be brought straight into people’s living rooms for the first time. The 60% of Americans who got their news from television at this time “would agree that [they] saw scenes of real-life violence, death, and horror on [their] screen[s] that would have been unthinkable before Vietnam” (Knightly 451). The impact of these images at the time of Vietnam is certain to have been huge on Americans, as evidenced by unprecedented public decent and protest of the war. Even though there were only a maximum number of 47 journalists of 400 on the field at any time, “the nature of the Vietnam War made for fairly easy coverage” because little movement was involved in Army and Marine operations (Benjamin). While this was an optimal situation for journalists who wanted to cover as much of the war as possible and impact American viewers, the military was at a loss because journalists had relatively unhampered access to the negative side of the war. The television reporting of Vietnam had made it very difficult for two American administrations to continue that war, ‘which was going on in American homes’…The war on colour-television screens had made Americans far more anti-militarist and anti-war than anything else. ‘One wonders if in future a democracy which has uninhibited television coverage in every home will ever be able to fight a war…however just’ (Knightly 452).

As became evident during the Gulf War, the military’s solution to uninhibited television coverage which caused negative public opinion of a war was to inhibit the reporters’ access to the war and severely limit their freedom to dispel information about the war to the public. While the military did keep secrets from the press in Vietnam such as a 14-month “clandestine bombing campaign against Cambodia, whose neutrality Washington then professed to respect” and falsification of statistics (Knightly 463), the press was still able to bring enough negative coverage of the war to Americans to have a significant impact on the public. During the Gulf War, however, such increased restrictions on reporters paralyzed their abilities to leave such a significant impact upon the public.

By limiting reporters’ access to and ability to report “information on the effectiveness of ineffectiveness of enemy military measures, information on the operating methods and tactics of the military” and by obligating reporters “to stay with a public affairs escort on Saudi bases and at the discretion of the commander on U.S. bases” (Benjamin), the military effectively tied the hands of reporters. As a result, “the military won extremely positive coverage during the war at the price of a dissatisfied press corps and lingering doubts about whether what the press saw was the whole story” (Benjamin). As the second media war, the Gulf War could have been an opportunity for journalists and reporters to hone their skills and offer the public the information to oppose shady military operations abroad. Yet, military restrictions hampered this effort. As John R. MacArthur wrote, “’It was difficult to find anyone who didn’t…count Desert Storm a devastating and immoral victory for military censorship and a crushing defeat for the press and the First Amendment’” (Knightly 529).

The “War on Terror” which is the most ambiguous war of all three, so far entailing ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, is a different type of media war than both Vietnam and the Gulf War. The government and military’s censorship practices have evolved, creating even more propagandistic reporting and arguably more public skepticism than in both past wars. Because the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were so long in coming, media outlets were especially geared-up to provide the most extensive wartime coverage in history, but these plans were intercepted by government restrictions of a new sort (Knightly 529). According to Knightly, Bryan Whitman, Deputy Secretary of Defense, created a plan to control the media that had four goals: 1) Emphasize the dangers of the Iraqi regime; 2) Discredit those who question these dangers; 3) Appeal to the public’s hearts and minds instead of logic; and 4) Emphasize the message, “Trust us. We know more than we can tell you” (Knightly 529).

With these four points in mind, Whitman devised a new version of “embedding” a journalist with an infantry unit. At first glance, it appeared that “embedded” journalists were conveying first-hand, accurate information about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Upon deeper consideration, however, it is clear that this practice during this war is an ingenious way of maintaining government control over the media and holding the media to these four points. By embedding journalists with a military unit, the journalist is bound to create personal attachments to the soldiers and their causes, and may even feel a part of the unit. This is problematic because journalists can easily become biased in their reporting, as was the goal of Whitman. Journalists would also take a special interest in the troops, focusing more during this war than during others on creating a human interest aspect by reporting on the troops. This takes the focus off of the military’s operations abroad, while also appealing to the “hearts and minds instead of logic” of the American public (Knightly 532). Even if the journalists were able to gather unbiased information and images showing what was really happening on the ground, the Pentagon was undermining their efforts by gathering “back-up” images which it would edit itself and sell to media outlets in ready-to-watch packages (Knightly 534). In fact, reporters who tried to gather their own footage or create their own story that might go outside of the government’s approved boundaries may be in danger. As President Bush said, “You’re either with us or you’re against us.” This was proved when American missiles bombed Al-Jazeera and targeted a BBC correspondent working with the news broadcaster that had aired interviews with Osama bin Laden and other key American “enemy” figures (Knightly 537).

While the government was effectively able to deceive the American public about the initial operations abroad in the “War on Terror” by severely limiting the journalists and reporters and purposely placing them in situations of bias in favor of the military, the government is losing this power. This is due in part to the huge technological information boom in the past few years. With so many video, blog, and other informational websites available today, the government is hardly able to effectively regulate all of the information available on the internet. Nearly anyone with a cell phone who witnesses any noteworthy event can record a video and post it on YouTube or blog about it. Certainly, there are questions of authenticity when such unregulated information is immediately available to all on the internet, but the public finally has the opportunity to take back the media which is supposed to serve it by creating it. Images and stories which the government wishes to withhold from the network television airwaves can be easily released to the public online, and images that cast a negative light on the government can be replayed endlessly by web-users (consider the scandalous truth that there were never any WMDs in Iraq. Viewers can watch the video clip as many times as they want at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPwWnW-SGeU). Therefore, the “War on Terror” is an unprecedented media war not only because of its unusual circumstances, and the new take on “embedded” journalism, but especially because the public is having an increasingly free role in releasing information and exchanging opinions on the war.

Each of the three main wars fought by the United States since the infiltration of image-based media from television to web images have been historically important for distinct reasons. Vietnam was the very first media war in which the media had the power to most greatly impact the public; the Gulf War was a media war strongly restricted by the military; the “War on Terror” is a uniquely circumstanced war in which the American military and government initially tried to somewhat subtly push the media to report in a way that was both biased towards the US and focused on the troops rather than the real events. The “War on Terror” is also the first instance in which the public has gained the ability to freely report and exchange their opinions on the internet. The question is, will the internet be a lasting free outlet and venue for information exchange about this and future wars, or will popular sites like YouTube owned by corporations eventually be subjected to similar government restrictions that the major television networks have experienced?