Whose Flag Is Bigger?

By James Poniewozik

It's one thing to endanger the safety of American troops. But God help you if you hurt their feelings. Geraldo Rivera, reporting from Iraq for Fox News last week, drew a map in the sand, on camera, that gave away his unit's location. (In Afghanistan, Rivera had reported that he was at the site of a friendly fire incident that occurred miles away, so knowing where he was was an improvement.) And Peter Arnett, a legendary war correspondent under contract with NBC News and MSNBC, gave an interview to Iraqi state TV in which he obsequiously praised the "courtesy" of Iraqi information ministers, opined that the original coalition war plan had "failed" because of Iraqi resistance and said reporting of civilian casualties had aided the antiwar movement.

Which man was fired and had a U.S. Senator declare that he should be tried for treason? Not the guy who painted an electronic bull's-eye on a group of soldiers (though Rivera was moved from the front lines to Kuwait). It was Arnett, one of the few remaining American TV reporters in Baghdad, because he offered boneheaded punditry--not substantively different from boneheaded punditry all around the American media--to the wrong interviewer. Nor were decorated officers safe from scrutiny. At a Pentagon briefing, General Richard Myers blasted retired generals serving as news analysts for criticizing the Pentagon's war plans. The question of the week for the media: Whose side are you on?

The boring answer is, Nobody's. (The sanctimonious one is, The truth.) The real question is whether the role of the press in war extends to maintaining morale--and to what extent "maintaining morale" is a synonym for "not ticking off the viewers." Arnett's crime was that he "created a perception" of bias, to use the standard weasel words. Worse, he created a perception of the opposite bias from that which, as is clear to anyone with sight, MSNBC wants to convey. The network flies a flag in its lower left-hand corner and uses the military's name for the war, Operation Iraqi Freedom, to brand its coverage. Those also happen to be two on-screen signatures of Fox News, the vocally patriotic network that has continued to beat MSNBC and second-place CNN in the ratings since the war began.

Patriotism pays. So Fox and MSNBC dueled over who was the greater quisling. Fox produced an attack-style ad highlighting Arnett's interview; MSNBC aired a spot (complete with flag) that promised, "We will not compromise military security or jeopardize a single American life," an apparent dig at Rivera. Even CNN (like TIME, a unit of AOL Time Warner) was defensively asserting that it was no Mata Hari. During a live report from Walter Rodgers with the 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry, outside Baghdad, anchor Carol Costello prompted, "Walter, just to clarify for our audience, everything you're telling us is O.K. with the military, right?"

On the other side of the whose-side debate, journalists embedded with allied troops continue to be criticized for lacking the big picture and bonding with soldiers. But picking on gung-ho embeds takes the focus off the decision makers who should be providing context and balance rather than festooning their screens with bunting. When a reporter hurtling across the desert says "we" when referring to the unit that stands between him or her and oblivion, it is understandable: everyone is biased against getting killed. For an anchor in an air-conditioned studio, it is not just slanted but self-aggrandizing. ("We're closing in on Baghdad"? You and whose army, Bub?)

One of those network we-sayers, Fox anchor Neil Cavuto, gave an impassioned on-air retort to a professor who criticized him as biased. "Am I slanted and biased?" he asked. "You damn well bet I am, Professor. I'm more in favor of a system that lets me say what I'm saying here rather than one who would be killing me for doing the same thing over there." His argument is as unassailable as it is irrelevant. The question is not whether liberty is an absolute good but whether one should give up journalistic independence in the name of it. That is what any broadcaster would do who heeded Myers' warning that certain analysis "is not helpful...when we've got troops in combat." Basing editorial decisions on what's "helpful" for troops and patriots may make for outstanding morale--and probably even better ratings. But a healthy democracy does not wage war by shooting first and asking questions later.