Journalism symposium gives first-hand look at war coverage

By Mitchell Peters

Two Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists discussed the atrocities of seeing war first-hand and gave pessimistic looks at the United States’ future in Iraq during a symposium Friday.

Chris Hedges, a reporter for the New York Times, and Seymour Hersh, a free-lance writer and contributor to The New Yorker Magazine, addressed war coverage in the media during “Covering the War after the War”, a Roger Tatarian Journalism Symposium sponsored by the department of mass communication and journalism.

Hedges, who spent most of his adult life working in the confines of war, spoke about the perversity and despair he witnessed while working in the Middle East, Central America and Kosovo.

“ War is the pornography of violence,” Hedges said. “I have breathed death into my lungs.”

Hedges said the American public never saw the war that actually occurred in Iraq .

With neatly packaged video clips, the American people were fed the myth of war that is seen in movies and novels, he said.

“ The media masks it from the public,” Hedges said, “we only saw the feel-good story.”

Hersh concurred the American public was fed a story that lacked factual basis about the need for the war in Iraq.

“ We went to a war based on facts that weren’t facts,” Hersh said. “I think we have been hijacked by seven or eight guys who had a semi-religious belief . . . These guys are out of touch.”

Many American journalists fail to give all the details to their audience partly due to their efforts to play it safe and satisfy news executives in order to move up and win promotions, Hersh said.

Hersh said he doesn’t believe America’s involvement in Iraq will be over anytime soon.

Neither President Bush nor Sen. John Kerry, if elected, will be able to pull the U.S. out of the hole it has dug itself into, he said.

Hersh sees nothing but problems in months to come in Iraq.

“ Civil war is coming,” Hersh said. “It is there now.”

Friday’s symposium also included a discussion panel: Kevin Diaz, a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers’ Washington Bureau, Pauline Lubens, a photojournalist with the San Jose Mercury News, and James Hattori, a reporter with NBC News’ West Coast Bureau.

Professor Tommy Miller, Roger Tatarian Chair for Professional Journalism at Fresno State and coordinator of the symposium, said he hopes to makes the symposium an annual event that will benefit and inform all students.