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Lens of the media

Note: Posted following President George W. Bush's Press Conference, April 13, 2004:

You are a soldier on the battlefield for our future. Your mind is part of the territory being fought over to determine whether the collective will to persevere can be undermined by actions in the theater of war or by fuzzy thinkers at home. The battle is being waged on two fronts through the lens of the media. On one front insurgents in Iraq battle. On a second front fight those willing to use the events on the Iraqi front for domestic political gain.

Media acts like a magnifying lens held over the map of reality. Through the lens you can see detail more clearly, but the price paid for that is distortion of perspective. Events under the lens seem larger than life. The media lens can be used for good or ill.

Part of President Bush's press conference was explain that insurgents would use the media to weaken your resolve. He recognized the "intentions of the enemy to shake our will." As Bush said:

Look, nobody likes to see dead people on their television screens -- I don't. It's a tough time for the American people to see that. It's gut-wrenching.

    and

We are in a long war. The war on terror is not going to end immediately. This is a war against people who have no guilt in killing innocent people. That's what they're willing to do. They kill on a moment's notice because they're trying to shake our will, they're trying to create fear, they're trying to affect people's behaviors. And we're simply not going to let them do that.

So how to Americans find the collective will to persist? Courage and clarity come from understanding what is valuable that is worth fighting for. Bush explained why freedom is worth fighting for. Beyond that, democracy is worth fighting for. Although it is not generally taught in schools, that should be easy. Constitutional democracy permanently codifies the humility that comes from always understanding there may be a better way of doing things. It institutionalizes openness and manufactures an umbrella of mutual self-protection built in to a process of peaceful change. Those under its protection understand the need to protect yourself against those living the law of the jungle who don't.

On the second front, political campaigners need to demonstrate that they understand why we are in Iraq and that they care.

In this battle, journalists have at least three different jobs:

1. They have to inoculate readers to defend themselves against incursions by guerillas who try to undermine the will to understand what is valuable and why.
2. They have to help sharpen readers' own participatory skills. After all, we are in a race toward civilization in which there is no guarantee the good guys -- whomever believes in the process of continuous, peaceful change-- will win.
3. They have to hold political candidates accountable for clear explanations of what is important and why.

We live on a cusp in history because science has put so much power in the hands of any zealot that no corner of the world is safe from it. Whatever you may feel about American mistakes in the past, no nation has done more to promote freedom than ours. And while the United Nations might eventually lead the effort, its track record is abysmal and its charter does not address when a nation might forfeit sovereignty or why.

The only corollary between today and the Vietnam War can be drawn from the Colonel's monolog in Apocalypse Now, where decent fathers and sons became guerrillas, willing to suspend their morality to win. We don't have to suspend morality. We have to have the strength to stand up to those who do and who use the lens of the media to magnify it for selfish gain instead of progress towards civilization.

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