War has always been tragic, gruesome and bloody. Never has its graphic imagery penetrated the human psyche as fiercely, continuously, relentlessly as it does nowadays.
We owe it to the medium of television, voted the greatest technological invention of all time, with 5.69 billion viewers worldwide. Social media is gaining ground with 4.89 billion users in 2023, but television retains the upper hand.
Should we be grateful?
How can one speak positively of human nature, whose character so singularly tough, can endure such grotesque servings of blood and gore?
The media serves this mournful feast of human suffering and with gaping mouths we devour it eagerly and completely, secretly appreciative of their horrific offerings. Dumbly we sit and gape at their brutal array of “the naked and the dead”, the sorrowful, the unfortunate, the condemned.
Where does the perversion lie, with the viewer or with those who provide the view?
TV may indeed be technology’s greatest miracle of communication, shrinking our world with its various sounds and images into one small picture. It haunts us in our homes, living rooms, bedrooms; in our coffee-shops, offices airports. Where do we hide from its display of inhuman scenes of mass murder at its basest?
In its insatiable appetite for “Breaking News”, may we add false and biased, it has lost its way on the avenue of taste.
For decades the news’ media has been an active player in the drama of war. For decades the written press has covered wars around the globe, followed by radio broadcasting, early in the 20th century, which reached the public instantaneously. Yet neither one could offer graphic footage of dying mothers and children, squashed by the boots of the military.
How often have we witnessed victims trembling with fear, in pools of blood, or harrowing photos of a wounded child begging for water? Day after day, hour after hour, we are flooded with such brutal savagery of mass murder of the innocent, the helpless, the weak. Even the lion-hearted break out in tears.
The aggravating reality is that the news media has taken to one-sided, fraudulent, deceptive narratives.
We lament the transformation of Ted Turner’s star News Channel, now reduced to a purveyor of loathsome falsifications, fictitious fabrications, in both narrative and imagery.
If such a lop-sided display was meant to send a message of good vs evil, it has backfired. Their failure emboldens them to try harder, spewing myth and mendacity, showing no restraint, no shame, no conscience, no humanity.
How do the conveyors sleep at night after knowingly serving a platter of dishonesty and duplicity to its gullible trusting followers?
Oh for the rarity of human charity. This is not television’s finest hour.
Once upon a time news was meant to be factual, accurate, truthful, and impartial. Today one would be hard-pressed to find fairness and impartiality on any news outlet. Newsmen now follow an agenda drawn out by their employers. If the news does not comply, fake it.
They have reduced harmony to chaos, truth to fiction, humans to insects.
The reckless way which the media chooses sides is dumb, deaf, and blind.
How can there be a distinction between human and human?
It is unforgivable what today’s newsmen are doing to the once honoured profession of journalism.
The late British journalist and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990) once said, “the world may well be governed by a TV camera.” He called the camera “the villain, the enemy capable of infinite deception”. His words ring true today when we witness TV journalists stage scenes of unspeakable cruelty in front of a camera to influence public opinion. This is an exceedingly dangerous practice of “fooling” multitudes of viewers. How have we sunk so low?
We are governed by the images news outlets choose to show us, regardless of their veracity. Covering decisions may help determine the outcome of conflicts by swaying public opinion. The tacit stand against demonstrable errors all too obvious on TV, speaks volumes of truths.
Many a military expert expressed the theory that wars won on the battlefield may be lost in the living room.
Because of its arbitrary bias and selective process, the war waging in Gaza has never received a fair coverage from the major networks.
Had the news media responded honestly to the Palestinian struggle for existence, had it covered the horrors of the past decades, the destruction and the agony of this homeless people, we may well have had a sovereign state of Palestine by now. All the wars in the Middle East would have been eliminated.
Impartiality in television journalism requires the total truth regardless of who is angered by it.
Even-handed reporting necessitates treating similar atrocities in similar manner, more so on television, because there is no avoiding it.
Who is committing mass murder is a question that must be answered truthfully.
Distortion of reality can only undermine the work of those endowed with the qualification for the pursuit of truth. The road towards peace should remain clear of bias.
The stand of TV journalism baffles the mind and torments the heart. There can be no safety in illogical irrational positions, that mass murder is acceptable.
How easily we forget that armies cannot kill ideas.
If truth has become the bête noir of TV, will there be weeping and gnashing of teeth when truth prevails?
Will truth prevail? It is still questionable.
“O horror, horror, horror. Tongue nor heart cannot conceive nor name thee.”
William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
* A version of this article appears in print in the 9 November, 2023 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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