A prominent figure in the federal government contemplates the viability of his political future after disclosing that he suffers from multiple sclerosis, and a reporter for a major national newspaper was killed when taken hostage by anti-American factions in a war-torn country. Fans of The West Wing might assume I'm recapping recent episodes of NBC's award-winning political drama; on the contrary, I pulled these stories (about Senator Paul Wellstone and Wall Street Journal rep-orter Daniel Pearl, respectively) from the pages of last weekend's New York Times. The television show storylines have been shockingly similar to real events.
As they say, art imitates life. Or, is it: life imitates art?
Recent reports about the federal government's public relations campaigns indicate that the line between art and life is rapidly being blurred. Two examples are particularly obscuring the difference. The first involves the announcement last week by the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence, a division established by the Department of Defense in November to orchestrate information dissemination during the War on Terrorism. On Feb. 20, the OSI revealed its proposal to plant pro-American propaganda and deceptive stories in international media outlets.
That this plan poses ethical quandaries is clear, but many of the plan's supporters have taken an "all's fair in love and war" stance: the military has a responsibility to protect this country and if the only way to do that is to spread pro-American propaganda in anti-American strongholds, so be it. In this situation, however, the means supposedly ju-stified by the end are count-er to the end itself.
A primary argument in the War on Terrorism is that many potential terrorists come out of oppressive societies with little freedom of education or the press. That being the case, is it appropriate to further disturb freedom of the press by planting misleading stories? What will that teach readers in these anti-American corners about America? What it will not teach them is that America represents freedom of thought and speech. It will teach them that Americans will not hesitate to suspend these rights for certain categories of individuals.
The second example involves the Pentagon's involvement in both a new reality television series profiling American troops abroad, and a VH1 program showing footage from 60 soldiers filming themselves on digital cameras provided by the cable network. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Pentagon has pre-screening rights of both programs for "national security reasons." However, it should not be left unsaid that Jerry Bruckheimer, co-producer with Bertram van Munster of the military reality show, and well known for his previous production credits Top Gun, Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down, already has a well-established relationship with the Pentagon originating with his military-themed films.
Van Munster, whose production resume includes Cops, explained to CNN that it is Bruckheimer's relationship with the Pentagon that initiated the project. Furthermore, van Munster told CNN that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has yet to issue any restrictions on the project, adding, "Obviously we're going to have a pro-military, pro-American stance. We're not going to criticize."
Bruckheimer and van Munster's assurance to the Pentagon should be troubling to citizen-viewers of the new programming. As we have learned from years of reality television, days of taping is turned into one 30-minute episode. With Hollywood editing our wars, how are we supposed to accurately judge the actions of our government and military? This situation, however, is worse than simply Hollywood editing our wars; this is Hollywood editing our wars with hands tied by the Pentagon. Furthermore, according to the L.A. Times, the Pentagon sees its cooperation with the producers of these two series as a way of providing information about the war effort to the American public, while it continues to maintain strict restrictions on war reporting for actual journalists.
Unless the Pentagon removes these restrictions, the Hollywood-edited war is the only war we'll really get. This is no longer a case of art imitating life. This is art distorting life. This is life replaced by art posing as life. And if that's how politics and government are going to be run under this administration during this war, why not just watch The West Wing instead of the news? The stories are the same and at least we know it's only art. Julie Straus is a Wilson School major from Potomac, Md. She can be reached at straus@princeton.edu.
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