Reporters Discuss Gulf War

Veteran wartime reporters debated the extent to which the media was censored during the Gulf War in front of 200 People at the Kennedy School's ARCO Forum last night.

Peter Arnett, a CNN correspondent to the Middle East during the Gulf war, said censorship created problems for wartime reporters.

After televising the capture of American POW's Arnett said General. Norman Schwarzkopf criticized him for jeopardizing the U.S. military effort in Iraq.

Arnett said that the "internationalization of the news coverage" exemplified by CNN shifted the American media's depiction of war from "patriotic" and "nationalistic" to a more global one.

John R. MacArthur, who recently wroteSecond Front: Censorship and Propoganda in the Gulf War, also critized government intervention in the media during the Gulf War. Reporters covering the Gulf War was organized into "pools" closely supervised by military officials, he said.

MacArthur also said that reporters had to submit copies of their stories to the military for "security review." He described this as "censorship."

MacArthur said that the media also failed to cover adequately the U.S. intervention in Somalia. Only foreign photographers took pictures of the mutilation of American corpses after the failed kidnapping attempt of faction leader General Mohammed Farrah Aidid, MacArthur said.

Moderator Marvin Kalb '53, director of the Shorenstein Barone Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy, said much of the information released by government officials during the Gulf War was later shown to be false.

But Bernard E. Trainor, director of the National Security Program of the Kennedy School and a former army colonel and war correspondent for the New York Times, maintained that there has been no wartime censorships by the government since World War II.

Trainor also questioned how much access to government activities is granted to the media by the first amendment.

"Tensions between the media and the government,if they are too strained, are not good for therepublic," Trainor said. He said that MacArthur"oversimplified the difficult business ofreporting war."

Members of the audience said that they greatlyenjoyed the stimulating debate on journalism,censorship and the Gulf War.

Ron Bath, a fellow of the National SecurityProgram at the Kennedy School, said the discussionwas "very interesting." Stephanie Mel, a graduatestudent at the Kennedy School, said that "[thedebate] was the most lively forum among the three[I] have attended.

"Tensions between the media and the government,if they are too strained, are not good for therepublic," Trainor said. He said that MacArthur"oversimplified the difficult business ofreporting war."

Members of the audience said that they greatlyenjoyed the stimulating debate on journalism,censorship and the Gulf War.

Ron Bath, a fellow of the National SecurityProgram at the Kennedy School, said the discussionwas "very interesting." Stephanie Mel, a graduatestudent at the Kennedy School, said that "[thedebate] was the most lively forum among the three[I] have attended.