It’s a start. Yet just avoiding words is not enough. Conflict journalists need to be aware of words: where language comes from, what it means, who benefits by its use, and what it obscures. We especially need to consider these issues as we cover the heated rhetoric over Iran’s nuclear program. For example, many in the media confuse preemptive and preventive wars, although the two are quite different. A preventive war is initiated to destroy the potential threat of an attack by an enemy. This entails suspicion of an eventual assault, rather than one that is actually proven to be planned or imminent. By contrast, a preemptive war is launched in anticipation of immediate aggression, amid clear signs that the other side is going to attack.
The launch of conflict when no attack has occurred is a violation of international law, unless authorized by the UN Security Council. A preemptive strike is seen as justifiable, however, which is why the Bush administration strained to describe the 2003 invasion of Iraq as such. In the case of Iran, we lack indisputable evidence that an attack on Israel or anyone else is “imminent.” It is simply a fear—a well-founded one, perhaps, but nothing as solid as the proof of troop mobilization on the border when Israel struck against Egypt in the Six Day War in 1967.
We, as well as the public, must understand how and why language gets twisted by those who would market war. Those in favor of attacking Iran would like to sell any potential assault as a preemptive war. But unless it fits the criteria, journalists should remain wary.
Let’s not forget that war can be an abstraction to politicians, but not to those who fight and live through it. To soldiers and conflict-zone residents, war is bloody and devastating, and it’s hard for news consumers to realize this when the stories they read are stuffed with bloodless clichés. Conflict reporters often are the only neutral parties on hand during a skirmish; if they don’t accurately report an event, it might never be reported at all. If a society wants to support a war, so be it. But, as journalists, let’s do our best to report these conflicts with precision and clarity, so that people know exactly what they’re supporting.
Best CJR write-up, all year.
Why is this not a weekly feature?
"Fighting Words" makes a nice column title.
#1 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Tue 4 Sep 2012 at 03:51 AM
Brava! This is brilliant and needed semantic dissection, and I agree with Dan: It would a make very useful regular feature.
#2 Posted by Harriet W. , CJR on Sun 9 Sep 2012 at 05:47 PM
An interesting piece. Something else that may be worth exploring, from a journalism perspective, is how reporters have to be careful when reporting on a subject not to get to immersed in the subject's culture.
Because when you become too immersed in the language and a culture's concepts, you can inhale their assumptions. You lose your ability to observe as a separate entity. You become one of them. (this happens alot in the financial reporting side these days)
It can make reporting a bit tricky in that you must follow the terms and participate in the discussions to develop an understanding of the subject, but still maintain the distance required to preserve your identity.
There's an old article on nuclear weapons strategy which explored this:
http://www.buildfreedom.com/tl/tl07aa.shtml
"In other words, what I learned at the program is that talking about nuclear weapons is fun. The words are quick, clean, light, they trip off the tongue. You can reel off dozens of them in seconds, forgetting about how one might interfere with the next, not to mention with the lives beneath them. Nearly everyone I observed--lecturers, students, hawks, doves, men, and women--took pleasure in using the words; some of us spoke with a self-consciously ironic edge, but the pleasure was there nonetheless. Part of the appeal was the thrill of being able to manipulate an arcane language, the power of entering the secret kingdom. But perhaps more important, learning the language gives a sense of control, a feeling of mastery over technology that is finally not controllable but powerful beyond human comprehension. The longer I stayed, the more conversations I participated in, the less I was frightened of nuclear war.
How can learning to speak a language have such a powerful effect? One answer, discussed earlier, is that the language is abstract and sanitized, never giving access to the images of war. But there is more to it than that. The learning process itself removed me from the reality of nuclear war. My energy was focused on the challenge of decoding acronyms, learning new terms, developing competence in the language--not on the weapons and the wars behind the words. By the time I was through, I had learned far more than an alternate, if abstract, set of words. The content of what I could talk about was monumentally different...
Technostrategic language articulates only the perspective of users of nuclear weapons, not the victims. Speaking in expert language not only offers distance, a feeling of control, and an alternative focus for one's energies; it also offers escape from thinking of oneself as victims of nuclear war...
The problem, however, is not simply that defense intellectuals use abstract terminology that removes them from the reality of which they speak. There is no reality behind the words. Or, rather, the "reality" they speak of is itself a world of abstractions. Deterrence theory, and much of strategic doctrine, was invented to hold together abstractly, its validity judged by internal logic. These abstract systems were developed as a way to make it possible to, in Herman Kahn's phrase, "think about the unthinkable"--not as a way to describe or codify relations on the ground."
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sun 9 Sep 2012 at 09:33 PM
One could add that basic training is really training to kill, and that all the people in the military, ours and theirs, are trained killers.
#4 Posted by Herbert J Gans, CJR on Tue 11 Sep 2012 at 01:56 PM
Thank you, Herbert J Gans.
Further, I would be delighted to see an analysis of the word 'hero' as used in military propaganda.
#5 Posted by Jim Brokaw, CJR on Mon 17 Sep 2012 at 08:44 PM
That there is dangerous territory, Jim:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/in-defense-of-chris-hayes/257744/
#6 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 17 Sep 2012 at 09:35 PM
Even in this article, the use of "consumer" of news and "customer" diminishes the meaning of journalism to a corporate product...
#7 Posted by Jim, CJR on Sat 17 Nov 2012 at 08:06 AM
...and citizens with a right to know the truth to customers who may be fed what the corporations decide.
#8 Posted by Jim, CJR on Sat 17 Nov 2012 at 08:11 AM