What isn't like the movies, according to Horgan and other soldiers, is the fact that Iraqi troops aren't rolling over and playing dead, but rather fighting for their lives. It's a hard lesson to learn, especially for many young soldiers, many of whom have spent their whole lives having had life's experiences filtered through television and the Internet. Think about Evan Marriott, TV's doltish Joe Millionaire, and Trista Rehn, The Bachelorette. Think about beautiful people committing to marry someone they've never seen before, based on the whims of Mr. and Mrs. America. Think about "celebrities" being dropped in various exotic locales, all for our vicarious, voyeuristic pleasure. Now think about these same folks being dropped in the middle of the barren Iraqi desert. Shocking? Perhaps. But the ultimate reality television -- the war we're all watching unfold -- is much more than that. It's "shock and awe," and, despite what some of the images being sent back might lead you to believe, it's also very much life and death. You know, real.
For some time, television's harshest critics have claimed that the medium was dangerously blurring the line between TV and reality. The recent glut of so-called "reality" shows has pretty well confirmed their point. But with Americans now watching a real, live, "hey, they're firing back!" war from the comfort of their sofas or barstools, the question becomes "Whose reality?" Does the Bush administration's "embedding" of reporters within armed forces units keep them from telling anything other than the government's PR version of the war? (The embedding, by the way, includes rules that forbid reporters to talk to soldiers "off the record," quashing attempts to get the GIs' "real" -- there's that word again -- views).
Beyond the issue of whose version of reality we're absorbing from TV's war coverage, the past three weeks have raised another longstanding, even darker criticism of the medium: we're losing track of the distinction between reality -- in this case, wartime's death and destruction -- and our own entertainment.
Don't think that our government wasn't concerned about how they were going to market the war to the people back home. The US built a new multi-million dollar press center in Camp As Sayliyah in Qatar, replete with fancy plasma TVs and a Star Trek-like backdrop (interestingly, the high-tech building was built months ago, even as UN resolutions and inspections were still being carried out). You don't get ready for what you expect to be the biggest show of the year without a quality set.
The government's slick handling of the technical necessities of war reporting, along with letting some reporters tag along, has largely worked -- at least on the American press, who have generally delivered the daily scripts desired by the government while keeping the televised bloodshed, especially that of Iraqi civilians, to a minimum. Indeed, even the fighting itself has been co-opted by the media -- turn on TV coverage of the war and you'll inevitably hear a reporter hurriedly report back that "we're coming under fire," or "we just took out an armored transportation vehicle." The use of "we" in these combat situations "embeds" the idea in viewers' minds that the American soldiers' view of what's going on is the only real one. If "we" are all fighting this war together, the soldiers and their ride-along Hemingway wanna-bes, who's left to report with any objectivity what's really going on?
And just why are these reporters risking their lives? To bring you, the viewer, the most up-to-date and crucial information? Or to beat the other rival networks in the ratings game?
Remember "Scud Stud" Arthur Kent? The dashing, Italian-leather jacket clad reporter who became a minor star during the first Gulf War, for no other reason than he managed to stay level-headed and un-mussed despite Scud missiles firing all around him? Well, now he's got company. Newsman Ted Koppel is already filing reports from the Iraqi desert, clad in a specially designed suit engineered to withstand a chemical attack. Messrs Brokaw and Jennings and Rather, already fixtures in our news consciousness, now seem as omnipresent as family members. Nic Robertson? He's so familiar, he might as well be driving one of those Bradley Fighting Vehicles. And in a postmodern twist, Peter Arnett and Geraldo Rivera have become the news while covering the news -- both of the veteran reporters were sent packing for not following the script.
Yes, being in the right place at the right time in this war can make you a star. However, being in the wrong place at the wrong time can mean a permanent vacation, desert-style. As in Death. Dismemberment. Reality. As in what hapenned to Atlantic magazine editor-at-large Michael Kelly last week, killed while covering a battle in Iraq.
