Panelists Debate Kosovo Media Coverage

A small crowd packed Boylston Hall's Ticknor Lounge last night to discuss media coverage of the Kosovo conflict with experts on the area.

While the participants disagreed on many of the details surrounding the issue, they agreed that the media plays an important role in modern international affairs.

"I've always considered the press to be a valuable presence," said Colonel Michael W. Alvis, former military assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Army. "Like air. It's non-negotiable."

The informal forum, entitled "Media Coverage in Conflict--How much do we really know about Kosovo?" was sponsored by the student council of the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs (WFCIA).

Panelists included Alvis, a WFCIA fellow; Instructor in Government Gary J. Bass '92, who is also a former reporter for The Economist; and Susan E' Reed, an Emmy Award-winning journalist for CBS and a Nieman fellow at the Kennedy School of Government.

After brief introductory statements by the panelists, the discussion was driven by audience questions. Jungmin Lee '01, special events co-chair for the WFCIA student council, estimated that over 60 people attended the event.

The debate started with an analysis of the problems journalists face while covering international conflicts.

Reed related anecdotes of the physical dangers reporters face in the Balkans.

One CBS reporter, she said, was woken up at 2 a.m. in his Belgrade hotel, detained and interrogated by Yugoslav police for a story he had written. He was finally abandoned at the border, miles from his hotel.

"Now Dan Rather is in Belgrade," Reed said. "He's walking a very tight line. From a reporter's point of view, you don't want to stand down; you want to stand up to people. But you can understand the situation."

Alvis acknowledged that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic has made coverage difficult for U.S. journalists.

The forum later focused on a more general discussion of how the media and the public have come to portray war in the 90s, and how Kosovo may be a lesson for both.

Bass cited several problems with the media's treatment of the Kosovo situation.

"Problems are that editors are becoming less interested in the Balkans...the dreaded year of Monica has taken time away [from other issues]," he said.

Bass, who covered the Balkans in the early '90s, also said past experience with regional conflicts "may have put [the U.S.] on a hair trigger."

"It's very hard if you've been in Bosnia not to think Milosevic is a pretty horrible guy," he said.

Bass said the public feels the NATO waited too long during the ethnic cleansing by Bosnian Serbs before intervening. Now, he said, the U.S. wants to avoid making the same mistake in this new Balkan conflict.

"We made the '95 bombings of the Bosnian Serbs seem so easy," Bass said. "[It] gave Clinton the idea that 'I don't have to put a bunch of divisions in Albania and Macedonia before going ahead."

Alvis, following Bass's lead noted that the situation in Kosovo will teach the public and the media that war cannot always be limited to a brief and decisive air campaign.

"I really think this Kosovo situation is going to be a reality check for a lot of the bad habits we've developed," Alvis said.

He said these bad habits included the assumptions that wars can always be won quickly and "no one ever dies on our side."

The audience also raised the concern that while much coverage has been given to Milosevic, very little has been given to the attitudes of Serbs in Kosovo or other Serb leaders. Bass said Milosevic has used Serb nationalism but it will not disappear were he removed from command.

"Israel for a while has tried to personalize nationalism, getting rid of some Palestinian leaders. It didn't work," he said.

Alvis agreed that Milosevic is not the sole problem.

"I think it's a common misconception that everything would be all right if he left the scene," he said.