Newsrooms Bewitched by Iraq War

By: Jim Moscou Opinion

I'm always suspicious of journalists who refer to people on their beats by their nicknames. Take, for example, "So, Rummy said to me ... ." Or, "Rummy said it was a good question ... ." I hear that, my skin crawls and I think this reporter is A) Too close to his subject, B) Too enamored of his subject, C) Completely full of himself, or D) All of the above.

"Rummy" is, of course, Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. secretary of defense, and those quotes come from a reporter who has been covering him as his Department of Defense orchestrates a possible military strike against Iraq. I came across this reporter during a biological/chemical-warfare-training course a few months back in the United Kingdom. He seemed bright, but his insinuated intimacy raised a red flag, as it should for any journalist worth his keep.

But I've come to realize there's a far broader issue raised by the irksome comments of the "Rummy" reporter.

Like a journalist seduced by his source, American newsrooms can be easily distracted from a story by their own preparations for it. And, at the moment, newsrooms are bewitched by their efforts to get ready for war. Reporters and editors have become so engrossed with the idea of covering an Iraq conflict, it's undermining skepticism and luring them into professional links with a government that knows how to engage the press better than the press does that government.

I'm not arguing there's grand newsroom support for President Bush's Iraq policy. This is about covering the war itself. If your newsroom is planning vast Iraq coverage, I doubt you can deny the excitement and anticipation to, well, "Let's roll." And that's downright dangerous.

Some of my colleagues seem more impressed with co-workers who are being sent to cover the war than what questions should be asked. Add to the mix an entire new generation of reporters - most young, all hungry - eager to earn "war reporter" stripes. Exotic combat gear, for the first time, is pouring into newsrooms: flak jackets, satellite phones, helmets, field first-aid kits, generators, piles of cash. Pets are finding temporary homes, life insurance is being bought, mortgage payments are being sent in advance. If you're a reporter aiming for the 2003 Middle East rumble - or if you sit next to one (as I have) - you know what I'm talking about.

And a lot of journalists do know. Starting days after 9/11, more American reporters (several thousand at least) trained for war than ever in the profession's history, as first reported by this magazine. Never have newspaper publishers and editors spent so much money and time preparing staff for war. The bottomless budgets, trips to private "hostile-environment-training courses" in posh English countryside inns, Pentagon-sponsored reporter-combat courses, massive purchases of combat gear, armored cars, weeks of meetings - the efforts are unequaled in time and expense.

Reporters from every strata of the newspaper industry not only will write from the front lines but arrive more ready for war than their predecessors. Maybe too ready.

Full disclosure: I feel the tug to Baghdad myself. I, too, like new gear and challenging assignments. And I'm not criticizing the training. We needed it. I was one of the first American print reporters to take a hostile-environment course in the United Kingdom (the food was delicious), and have written in E&P that I believe editors and publishers must train reporters for hazardous assignments or they may have blood on their hands.

But preparation should neither taint journalistic skepticism nor, as disturbingly evident in recent months, spark what appears to be dangerous newsroom momentum and groupthink. "When a news organization puts so much preparation into something, a lot of people have a lot at stake to see it happen," a veteran reporter (who asked not to be named) at one of America's largest papers told me. With daily meetings at the "highest levels," the expenses, the foreign assignments, "the whole thing is just whipping people into a tizzy. People ultimately want to see it happen. We want to participate in it."

It's as if we all want to be "Rummy's" friends. Heck, when Rummy offered reporters combat training, we only asked, "When?" I'll never believe the Pentagon would do anything for the benefit of the American press if it didn't benefit the Pentagon even more. As the cream of America's newsrooms clamor to do push-ups, I wonder if the time would have been better spent asking questions. We'll probably get our war. And it may be the war we deserve.

A young reporter for a Denver newspaper said to me that he thought war reporting was "the highest calling" for a journalist. He's preparing for Iraq. He's a nice guy, enthusiastic about his job. But the comment gnawed at me. Weeks later, I realized he was dead wrong. The highest calling in journalism is not war reporting. It's finding the story that would help prevent a war. Along the road to Baghdad, we seem to have lost that idea.