In Important Ways, NPR is Keeping the War on the Agenda
Ken A. Bode
December 27, 2007
For the better part of the last four years, the Iraq and Afghan wars have been the driving force of American public opinion. Now, however, at a most inconvenient time, these have slipped down the list of voter concerns. In the final two weeks leading to the Iowa caucuses, most of the media reporting on Iraq has been unremitting good news for the Pentagon and for Mr. Bush. If this means a new course has been set for the future in Iraq, it's also good news for America.
Newscasts and newspapers have reported on Iraqi families returning to a safer Iraq (albeit many don't have homes), celebrating Christmas at Camp Liberty, overflowing Iraqi churches for Christmas celebrations, and General Petraeus cautiously promoting the success of the surge. In the final Republican and Democratic debates sponsored by The Des Moines Register, the Iraq war was not even on the agenda.
The good news, for me, is that it has never slipped off the agenda at National Public Radio.
On All Things Considered, earlier this month Melissa Block put some direct, thoughtful questions to General David Petraeus about how he is putting his counter insurgency ideas to work:
Q: Melissa Block: "There have been statements from some of the U.S. forces working with these concerned local citizens that they know full-well that among those people who they are now paying and trusting are people who, not so long ago, were setting IEDs and targeting U.S. troops. Doesn't that imply that there's some real problem with how much you can depend on them and how their allegiances might sway?"
Ms. Block got a considered response from General Petraeus, revealing that America's supreme commander in Iraq fully understands the risk he is authorizing.
A: General David Petraeus: "There are legitimate concerns that we share with our Iraqi counterparts. But beyond that … you don't end the kind of conflict you've had here by killing everybody who shot at you. You end it by reconciling with as many of those as you can and making them part of the solution to deal with the remaining problem of the real, so-called hard-core irreconcilables. And that category would certainly include many of the al-Qaida (in) Iraq fighters."
So the surge has taken the edge off of public concern about Iraq, taken some of the anger out of the issue. As a result, the polls (especially those taken by news organizations) are showing that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are being nudged aside by other concerns. On Day to Day, an NPR program hosted by Alex Chadwick and Alex Cohen, two congressmen appeared, each making his second visit to talk about the war and constituent concerns.
James Walsh, a New York Republican from the Syracuse area, told listeners that in the 2006 election, President Bush was "wildly unpopular," and the election itself was "all about Iraq." Now, said Walsh, while Iraq is still on their minds, he's getting fewer constituent questions and comments about Iraq. Now, he said, it's taxes, health care and toys from China, with immigration being the most passionate issues.
Rep. Jerry McNerney is a first-term Democrat from the Stockton area of California who rode an anti-Iraq war wave into Congress in the last election. His position then was simple: we need to get out. Now, he's shifted his focus to how we are treating our veterans. What he's hearing from voters at home is immigration, health care, global warming and foreclosures. "We had a foreclosure workshop in Stockton," says McNerney, "and 500 people showed up."
NPR is reporting the change in public mood, but to their credit, they also are keeping an eye on the state of the war and the Army beyond the headlines about surge and security. And that is the point of this posting. NPR is on the radio in my home for two hours of Morning Edition and two hours of All Things Considered every weekday. I have come to consider these morning and evening NPR broadcasts as the crown jewels of their worldwide reporting team.
Over the two-and-a-half years I have served as Ombudsman for CPB, I have developed a great appreciation for how much news can be served up during these four hours of reporting. As I watched network news broadcasts swing with the latest polls and White House handouts, I also developed greater admiration for the steady coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- and their consequences -- especially for America's servicemen. The reporters, producers and assignment editors really do appreciate that the war has consequences for the Army. And, for those who serve, it doesn't always end when the tour of duty is over.
On All Things Considered, NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman regularly covers the casualties of war on the home front. He recently reported on the consequences of deployments of 15 months on the troop morale. Using Pentagon statistics, Bowman chronicled the rise in divorce within the ranks of the active service Army. He reported that one-third of all privates and corporals now say they intend to divorce. Soldiers on their third deployment report only 15 percent with high morale. The cumulative effect of combat stress has caused more and more soldiers in the field to consider suicide, a little known fact about Iraq. The situation is so serious that the Army is sending suicide prevention teams to combat zones.
On December 20, Daniel Zwerdling reported on what he called "the forgotten troops," those soldiers and Marines with mental health problems, who came back from combat, couldn't get adequate help, "flipped out" and misbehaved in some way -- and as a result were kicked out of the military without the medical benefits veterans normally receive. With his usual in-depth reporting style, Mr. Zwerdling put a human face on this story, and NPR wisely gave him 10-plus minutes to tell it.
NPR's coverage of this subject has been consistent since it did four lengthy reports in December of 2006, with the following headlines:
Soldiers say army ignores, punishes, mental anguish
Soldiers face obstacles to mental health services
Do soldiers receive adequate mental health care?
Pentagon to investigate mental health treatment
This year there were (at least) six more:
Veterans encounter hassles on road to recovery
Senators call for inquiry into mental care for troops
Researchers gauge mental health of Iraq vets
Army dismissals for mental health, misconduct rise
Effort builds to help "forgotten" troops with PTSD
These are the hidden costs of the wars we now fight, the sure sign that Iraq will be on the national agenda long after the fighting stops. The folks at NPR know this and they deserve a lot of credit for making their listeners remember, for giving us a lot to think about as we turn our calendars to 2008.
