The Media and Information Environments Ten Years After 9/11: Accidental Journalists and the New Information Landscape

‘Cameras are now in places where cameras never used to be’: Mark Lukasiewicz, NBC News Vice-President (Bauder 2007). ‘[A]lmost by definition … a war waged on live television is a war in which political and public relations considerations become inextricably bound up with military tactics and strategy … how victory is won is almost important as victory itself’ (Dobbs 2003). On 17 January 1991, war erupted in the Middle East. As Operation Desert Storm began, television audiences around the world tuned into CNN to watch the ‘live’ coverage from a hotel in Baghdad... only they did not see very much at all. In fact, the opening hours of the war were in sound only as the three CNN reporters described the bombs falling on Iraq’s capital city while audiences saw only their photos superimposed on maps of Baghdad and Iraq. The first conflict not only of the New World Order but also of the ‘new’ media age, characterized by 24/7 electronic news gathering and live satellite broadcasting, was reported as if on radio (Taylor 1992).