PressEthic

I spent part of last week talking to military recruiters in Queens. The intention was to have them talk about the current state of recruiting.

Four of the guys I spoke with had come directly from Iraq into recruiting and what they wanted to talk about was media coverage of the war.

They're not happy.

In a nutshell, all we see is the bad stuff, they said. All we see are the bodies.

We don't see the hospitals and schools being built, we don't see the lights coming on for the first time in months, we see the bodies.

They all wanted the news to reflect more of their personal experiences. Understandable.

To paraphrase one of them, if they'd been in three or four firefights in a year, what did the media think they were doing the rest of the time? And for that matter, what did they think the non-combat arms people were doing?

But they also understood that if it's good news, it's no news.

Poynteronline has a link to a CBS article that addresses the issue of fair coverage of Iraq and the ethics of gore on the evening news, issues people have blogged about here.

Three or four articles I've read approach the issue like the CBS piece: should we show the blood and gore, because it's the reality of the situation?

It's a good question, but it's not the whole question.

The conversation about Iraq coverage seems to have more to do with the ethics of showing bodies or not showing bodies, rather than of real balance in coverage.

Bodies aren't the sum total of the reality of war, any war.

Bad news isn't the only news.

To me, that's the real conversation - that a balance needs to be struck in coverage, as well as ethics.

Media are responsible for policing themselves ethically in their content, but omitting bodies from the evening news alone doesn't make fair and balanced coverage.

The message I got from those recruiters was, if you're going to show the gore, fine, it's part of the reality.

But show the hospital being built as well, because that's news too.