The Dangers Of TV's Tunnel Vision

Those of us outside the war zones are all bystanders, TV witnesses of the tragedy as it is unfolding. We are watching the deadly game of tit for tat slowly ratcheting up the crisis in the Middle East. It has become, in network parlance, BREAKING NEWS, with images that are sickeningly familiar to us all. Unfortunately, TV coverage focuses on violence and action more than politics and peacemaking.

Image #1: People are running. Ambulances are arriving. Squadrons of bearded men wearing the vests of emergency personnel are on the scene looking for bodies and body parts. It is the aftermath of a suicide bombing. The crime scene is confused. We hear a body count, which is certain to rise when everyone is accounted for. The event seems beyond rational explanation, the work of mad people. The horror is numbing and infuriating at the same time.

Image #2: Tanks roar through a Palestinian camp. Planes streak overhead. We hear the sounds of war, of bombings, and occasionally see people running through the streets and bodies being lifted into ambulances. From time to time, there is a soundbite from some often unintelligible and unidentified victim. Images this week have revolved around the escalating violence and Israel's invasion of Arafat's compound. We rarely see what happens to ordinary people.

Image #3: A meeting of Israel's cabinet. Ariel Sharon is sitting like a bullfrog, sometimes scowling at the cameras. This is a photo-op, a staged few seconds of footage before the actual meeting begins. Later we learn what did happen with voiceover narration explaining why government leaders say they must retaliate. Occasionally a government spokesman is heard briefly. He is denouncing Arafat and demanding an end to terrorism.

Image #4: Palestinians are marching through the streets. A few men are holding a flag-draped coffin. There is chanting and singing, and talk, when we hear it, of martyrs and the need for revenge. The scene cuts to images of young people throwing stones and soldiers firing guns.

Cut to: Washington. A State Department official or senior government leader denounces the violence. Indicts Arafat and suicide bombers. Announces no new initiatives.

Cut to: The U.N. Security Council appeals for a ceasefire. Men around a table raise their hands to support one motion or another. No one refers to the decades of unimplemented resolutions.

Day after day, night after night, the same imagery, often offered up without much information of context or explanation.

I can hear Americans saying: "There they go again." "When will they ever learn?" "How horrible!"

And: "What else is on?" On Sunday night, Easter, it was the "Ten Commandments," a film that many take as literal history. "Behold the > >will of God," says actor Charlton "Moses" Heston (now the gun-supporting president of the National Rifle Association). Perspectives about this conflict seem shaped by images. Many supporters of Israel refer to films such as "Exodus," chronicling the formation of the Jewish state, or "Schindler's List," which exposed the horrors of the Holocaust. The Palestinians identify their battle in Third World terms, like the guerilla uprisings depicted in the "Battle of Algiers." On each side, histories of oppression and dispossession fuel anger and righteousness.

Media analyst Eric Alterman, writing on MSNBC.com has a point when he speaks of the coverage in terms of "competing narratives. Both sides inflict inhuman cruelties on one another. Both sides blame the other for forcing them to do so. ... In most of the world, it is the Palestinian narrative of a dispossessed people that dominates. In > >the United States, however, the narrative that dominates is Israel's: a democracy under constant siege."

A Roller Coaster Of Images And so it goes, a roller coaster of endless conflict and conflicting images, with the American public often tuning out and turning it off in part because little of the coverage encourages viewers to get to know why the conflict continues or to become more empathetic to the people caught in the crossfire.