War Coverage: TV Takes Round One
by MJ Bear
Wednesday March 19, 2003

Washington, D.C., --- A friend said tonight that someone sharing an elevator asked if she was going home to watch the war. She laughed. It was a nervous giggle, because it was true. While America’s confrontation with Iraq had not yet begun, we were waiting, wondering and watching. Would the war be the best thing on TV tonight?

In the midst of the East Coast’s primetime entertainment line-up; just minutes before dawn in Iraq; at a time military experts said was not good to launch a strike; “The Bachelor” reunion show was interrupted.

The picture was live from Baghdad. Viewers could see flashes. Viewers could hear booms. Within minutes White House spokesman Ari Fleischer jumped onto the podium in the press room and said, “The opening stages of the disarmament of the Iraqi regime have begun.”

Washingtonpost.com, 9:51 p.m., 3-19-03

You could see President Bush’s address on every network, hear him on the radio and if you happened to be burning bandwidth you could play streaming media from the Web. But if you are like me, it was easier to keep the TV on. I spent a lot of time online, but I was just glimpsing at the headlines and not stopping at any content long enough to really read anything.

Americans are at work. For many us without TVs and radios in our cubicles, the Web is one of the best tools to stay informed. That will be our security blanket in the days ahead. We’ll search out great online stuff. We’ll get breaking news text messages. We’ll be connected anytime, anyplace.

But for now, we must give credit where it’s due – to the broadcasters in our crowd. Even in this digital age, they beat out the techies. Round one coverage of the Iraq war goes to the broadcasters in a knockout.


Read the second story in this series, The War Round Two: The New Reality TV.

MJ Bear is an Assistant Professor of Journalism at American University and runs an online consulting firm, mjbear.com. She is a founding board member of the Online News Association and is the former Vice President for Online at NPR.