MacArthur, John R. Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War. New York: Hill and Wang, 1992. 260 pages.

John R. MacArthur, publisher of Harper's Magazine and a director of the J. Roderick MacArthur Foundation, has been called a "trust fund brat" by some who have felt the sting of his criticism. But that's usually the best they can do, because it's clear that a shift in the standards of the media profession has been underway since Vietnam. Advertising and public relations -- the use of information for the purpose of marketing -- is one way to describe this change.

The $10.8 million Kuwaiti account at Hill and Knowlton, a public relations firm, spoon-fed propaganda to the American people. One example is their story about Iraqi troops pulling babies out of incubators; this was lapped up and repeated by everyone from Amnesty International to George Bush. It was a masterful bit of PR, particularly since it was also a complete fabrication. Not to be outdone by H & K, the Pentagon imposed the same "journalist pool" system they used during Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989, and controlled all news from the front. Vietnam-style reporting, where cameramen were free to capture images of human suffering, is now replaced with images from nose cameras in smart bombs, courtesy of the Pentagon. After the war, the enthusiasm for pool journalism began to wear off, as some reporters finally realized that they had been used.
ISBN 0-8090-8517-8

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