Cruelties of war
By Bernardo Ajzenberg
April 6, 2003
At least five journalists have been killed already (through the deadline for this column) while covering the invasion of Iraq by the forces of the Anglo-American coalition. The most recent one, American Michael Kelly, a columnist for the Washington Post, died Thursday night in an accident during a confrontation south of the Baghdad airport.
He was one of about 600 correspondents embedded by a Pentagon program amid the soldiers, in this case, the 3rd Infantry Division. His death heats up once again the discussion about this controversial program. Politically, it is a disaster for the United States. You just need to remember that the Post is one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world that openly supported the war.
Last Sunday (March 30), the Israeli newspaper Maariv carried a story about two Israeli and two Portuguese journalists who approached U.S. troops in Iraq through Kuwait. According to their statements, they were humiliated, beaten, tortured and, afterward, expelled back across the border. The headline on the story was: A 48-hour nightmare: imprisoned by the Americans.
There are also various dramatic stories from independent journalists. One, published in the French daily Le Monde on April 3, showed them begging for water, gas and food from coalition troops.
The circumstances surrounding the death of a journalist from the British TV network ITN, a veteran of war coverage who died when he fell off the roof of a hotel in Baghdad, remain obscure.
Putting together these examples, you get a still-imprecise number of journalists from different countries missing or detained by Iraqi military or militias.
All of this has happened in a little more than two weeks of a conflict that still hasnt even reached its peak.
Second step
The cruelty of war stops with the right to information, however, and does not express itself only in this crude and brutal way without a doubt more painful and tragic than anything else simply eliminating journalists.
On a parallel level, indirect and even wider, this cruelty needs to contaminate equally the journalistic product itself, then it parts from the principle that does not exist in real battlefields without virtual mirrors propaganda, counter-information and the bluff but also, from the other side, the search for reliable information.
While prudently pulling from Baghdad its special correspondents for safety and logistical reasons, explained in Tuesdays edition Folha, the only Brazilian news organization that had journalists in the Iraqi capital, became in practice a victim of this type of cruelty in the second step of war.
With this, it realized that it was obligated to inaugurate another phase in its coverage of the conflict in the Persian Gulf, on an equal standing with its competitors in what is referred to as the enormous dependence on international news agencies and material by columnists or foreign newspapers.
Immediate reflex
In the first days since Wednesdays edition the reflex was immediate. The newspaper felt the thud; it had difficulties producing news that is clearly differentiated.
A comparison between Thursdays editions of Folha and Estado de So Paulo, for example, is significant. The two special sections carried the main news on the front page about the coalition approaching Baghdad, a story specifically about the fall of a U.S. helicopter, and a map.
The second page, in both cases, started with information that civilians in Najaf had received the invaders in a friendly way with more editorial coincidences than differentiation.
The important section, War of information, revealing in the traps created in the war for the media themselves, evaporated.
Up to the moment, to give another example, the newspaper was unable to stick to a story consistent with economic factors behind the political or diplomatic misunderstandings (inside the United States, between Europe and the United States, and even between the United Kingdom and United States) in what is referred to as the reconstruction of Iraq.
Only on Friday, in seeking a new focus, did Folha express a reaction in emphasizing the existence of criticism in violation of human rights by both sides involved in the conflict.
Counterweight
Just as occurred on the occasion of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and the war in Afghanistan in 2002, the opportunity for the newspaper to again become indispensable in the current coverage (as it has been for 13 days with special reports from Iraq) rests on this strategy: publish editions which have information, aside from the essential facts of the day, that neither radio, TV nor Internet much less other newspapers is capable of equaling.
I refer to the balance in the explanation of the forces in conflict; creativity in the topics that are highlighted; more profound military, geopolitical and diplomatic analyses; clarity in the texts and boxes; and unaccustomed guidelines.
Only with the power of a good surprise can the journalism of Folha help produce a counterweight to the permanent action of the cruelties of war against the right to information.
Taglines
Not one day has passed since Monday without Letters to the Editor publishing one or more letters for or against the recurring tagline The empire attacks used in the news about the war.
As I observed in the March 23 column, the branding transmits an opinion against the war explicitly in Folhas editorials. Thus, it is not neutral, and the controversy in Letters to the Editor is proof.
On Tuesday, in an internal critique, I pointed out how being officially opposition journalism apart from critical and independent journalism the tagline Facing reality was used that day in the news about the minimum wage and reforms in the social welfare and tax systems.
I showed how it reflected a declaration by a leader of the Brazilian Social Democracy Party (PSDB), to which former President Fernando Henrique Cardoso belongs, which, in the same edition, declared that today the Workers Party (in the government) faced the reality of life.
In a global way, the management of the newspaper judged that these taglines, used to organize reading, did not need to be bureaucratic (social welfare, security, for example).
They can be more creative or even editorialize. It would be the only element on the part of the news that could eventually have the connotation most opinionated since its contents are discussed with the managing editor.
As for creativity, there is agreement. The editorialization of taglines, however, seems reckless: it is a subtle and arbitrary form of opening a loophole to innoculate in the news an engagement, a predisposition, and at times, an ironic, provocative jab.
This when there is simply no need for the joke that is inconvenient or in bad taste, such as the well-known instance in 1991 when the tagline Breeze of Itu was used for news about the tragic gale that in October of that year which caused 15 deaths and 200 injuries in that city in So Paulo state.
Days later, on that occasion, the same Letters to the Editor published a letter in which five signatories described the tagline as grotesque, sordid, and frivolous, saying it does not belong in a serious and socially responsible newspaper.
In the current case, the Spanish newspaper El Pas, to use an example that is not a local competitor, uses the tagline War in Iraq. It stops being seen as against U.S. policy, while maintaining that line in editorials, it has optimal quality in its news.
At its heart, this controversy in Letters to the Editor about The empire attacks last week does not mention only the newspapers opinion (which, in fact, is absolutely legitimate). It mainly asks up to what point this opinion does or does not contaminate, even in a subliminal or limited way, space considered sacred for balance and impartiality. Its clear that those qualities are not synonymous with bureaucracy and are not incompatible with healthy
