PressEthic

During last Thursday's Press Ethics class, discussion turned to TV news reports about the Middle East and their role in influencing American opinion on the war in Iraq and the conflict with Iran. We didn't know it then, but the idea, offered in class, that the latest news about Iran's nuclear program is never properly couched in a critical historical context, had made its way to Comedy Central's The Daily Show the night before. Jon Stewart interviewed former Nightline anchor Ted Koppel on Koppel's coverage of Iran.

"Every night, for months--for years--you explained Iran," Stewart said to Koppel. "Twenty-six years later, you have to do a special explaining Iran. What didn't we get?" The audience laughed. "We only did it for 444 days," Koppel reminded Stewart, who then suggested the lack of insight into the Iranian situation could be "willful ignorance."

A few minutes later, Koppel fired off an overview of the history of U.S.-Iranian relations, going as far back as the 1953 CIA-engineered coup that ousted a nationalist prime minister and propped up the country's Britain-friendly Shah. History, it seems, does stick inside some people's brains.

How could people who watched the news during the Iranian hostage crisis--or at any other time during the 80s--have forgotten what we thought of Iran and Iraq then? It is unbelievable, but not as hard to imagine as the idea that people whose job it is to report the news would also forget what they reported. If Koppel remembers Iran, he must have also saved a few tidbits from former headlines about Iraq.

Where was Koppel in 2003, when news networks were helping force the image of Saddam as a terrorist-loving, weapons hungry killer with international designs down Americans' throats? As Koppel himself pointed out, why should any Americans forget that the chemical weapons Saddam used against his own citizens were U.S.-made? "We still have the receipts," he quipped.

The air in the leadup to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was filled with the most artificial, misappropriated fear the country has seen since the McCarthy era. All along, those paternally protective anchors knew what we all should have remembered: a story they had told us over the years--one whose occasional retelling could have spared us all this latest, tragic chapter.