It is well documented that television is the predominant mass medium to which audiences turn for information (Larson, 1982; Iyengar & Kinder, 1987; Iyengar, 1991), and, that with respect to international affairs, "television becomes a particularly important source of international news during periods of crisis and the accompanying saturation coverage" (Larson, 1984, 12).
Media analysts also attest to the influence which government sources in particular have on TV reporting. Larson maintains that "the policymakers who most directly affect the foreign policy of the United States not only utilize the content of network television news, but also influence and contribute to that content in several ways" (1984, 136; see also Mermin, 1997). Issues raised in presidential news conferences, for instance, usually receive coverage on major network news broadcasts, and the majority are reported during the early portion of the broadcast, "an indication of their importance relative to other news items" (1984, 137; see also Morales, 1982; Geyelin, 1990).
Moreover, according to Gans, reporters tend to be captives of government, especially presidential sources. "Washington's agency beat reporters virtually live in and with their beat, and thus develop close relationships with their sources.... Being on the inside enables beat reporters to gather information that lends itself to dramatic inside stories; but at the same time they must concentrate on stories that please their sources, since angering them would endanger their closeness and rapport, thus ending the reporter's usefulness on the beat" (1979, 133).
Although this symbiotic relationship does not necessarily mean that reporters share the political viewpoints or approve the objectives of their sources, they do often come to "understand the troubles they face and to cooperate with them" (Strentz, 1989, 16), and "they accept agency practices and let themselves be used to advance agency objectives, particularly when the result is†a dramatic or exclusive story" (Gans, 1979, 135).
While these analyses indicate that generally we should expect much of the foreign policy footage seen on television news broadcasts to originate with official sources, this research focuses specifically on whether the type of international news event (crisis or on-going story), has a discernable impact on the mix of sources used by American television news networks in constructing a news story. As well, the balance of pro-American/anti-American positions expressed by those sources in their commentary on the events under scrutiny will be examined.
Methods
This paper compares news coverage by ABC, CBS and NBC of two well defined crisis events involving the commitment of American military personnel in hostile situations, the U.S. invasions of Grenada (from October 25 through November 3, 1983)†and Panama (from December 15, 1989 through January 6, 1990), with the coverage of two important on-going but non-crisis stories Cuba, (from 1988 through 1992) and Haiti (from December 1990 through July 1993).
It is our hypothesis that, due to the "patriotism" factor, news coverage of U.S. military operations in a crisis lasting a relatively short period of a few weeks will show a much narrower range of primarily American news sources, and a more pronounced pro-American stance in the information provided by them, than will be characteristic of reporting on non-crisis stories extending over a period of several years (Kern, 1981, 124-126).
The study is based on an analysis of video recordings of major network television news stories loaned by the TV Archive at Vanderbilt University.1 Included in the study are 380 distinct news stories: 59 on Grenada, 134 on Panama, 148 on Cuba, and 39 on Haiti. In all four instances, the first three sources (either appearing on-camera or cited) in each news story were coded as to their identity.2 As well, the information offered by all sources appearing or cited in the story was coded as to whether it provided support for or opposition to the foreign policy positions associated with the United States.3
Background
Grenada, 1983
The earliest case of TV coverage of international events examined is the U.S. invasion of the southern Caribbean island of Grenada in the Fall of 1983. While U.S. troops had been deployed in the Civil War in the Dominican Republic in 1965, ostensibly this involved a peace-keeping intervention rather than a hostile invasion. In the case of Grenada, there is no question that a military force was deployed in a combat role to rid the island of a government distinctly out of favour with the United States.
The invasion of Grenada took place in the context of the renewal of the Cold War which characterized the early Reagan presidency. The early 1980s saw not only a revival of tensions between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. globally, but also the development in the Western Hemisphere of civil war/revolutionary situations in El Salvador and Nicaragua, which added to the on-going tensions associated with Fidel Castro and Cuba.
In 1979, Grenada's first Prime Minister, Sir Eric Gairy, who had demonstrated signs of authoritarianism, corruption and eccentricity, was overthrown in a coup d'etat orchestrated by the leader of the New Jewel Movement, Maurice Bishop, a London-trained lawyer who held leftist political views. From 1979 to 1983, the People's Revolutionary Government of Bishop followed contradictory domestic policies (some authoritarian, some progressive) and a foreign policy that generally followed a pro-Soviet position. In the Spring of 1983, the construction of a new airport, featuring a 10,000-foot runway, brought Grenada to the full attention of the Reagan administration. Although Bishop travelled to the U.S. in the Summer of 1983 in an attempt to better relations with the American government, his efforts were rebuffed. This left him vulnerable to hard-liners in his own government, who wanted to move Grenada closer to an ideologically pure form of Marxism. The hardliners, led by Bernard Coard and General Hudson Austin, forced Bishop into a power sharing arrangement in early October. When this failed, he was placed under house arrest on October 15th, and, when released by his supporters on October 19th, he was murdered by government forces. The American military invasion of the island began on the morning of October 25, 1983 (Soderlund & Surlin, 1988).
Cuba, 1988-1992
By the time the second study of TV coverage of international affairs begins, just over four years later in 1988, Mikhail Gorbachev's accession to power in the Soviet Union had relaxed overall Cold War tensions considerably. However, given the unique and vitriolic history of the United States and Cuba since the 1959 revolution on the island, it should not be surprising that the thaw seen in U.S.-U.S.S.R. relations was not duplicated with respect to those between the United States and Cuba.
As is characteristic of all news reporting, international reporting tends to cluster around significant events (Galtung & Holmboe Ruge, 1965; Larson, 1984). In the case of Cuba, while there was no overt U.S.-Cuban crisis between 1988 and 1992, there was a series of significant events which focused the attention of the American media on the island: the drug connection with Manuel Noriega in Panama; the Cuban military withdrawal from Angola; Mikhail Gorbachev's state visit (1989) (during which all three major U.S. networks sent their anchors to Havana); the trial and execution of General Arnaldo Ochoa (one of Cuba's leading military heroes); the hosting of the Pan American Games (1991); the on-going coverage of Cuba's growing economic crisis (as Soviet/Russian aid was withdrawn); human rights abuses, and, of course, Cuba's enigmatic leader himself, Fidel Castro. The study of coverage of Cuba ends at the end of 1992, by which time Boris Yeltsin had consolidated power in Russia, had cast Cuba adrift, and was pressing the West for foreign aid. In short, by the end of 1992, the Cold War had passed into history, almost everywhere except for Cuba (Soderlund, Wagenberg & Surlin, 1998).
Panama, 1989
When the United States launched a military invasion of Panama in December 1989, the Soviet Union still remained intact, but the control it had exercised over Eastern Europe since the end of World War II had largely ended. Thus Communism was waning as a global force, and anti-communism, used earlier as justification for the invasion of Grenada, no longer served as a primary motivating factor in U.S. foreign policy. The United States policy of ridding Panama of its military dictator, General Manuel Noriega, was, in effect, the first post-Cold War U.S. military operation. However, the Panamanian invasion shares with Grenada characteristics of a clearly delineated crisis situation.
Panamanian relations with the United States go back to the early 1900s, when the U.S. helped to secure the country's independence from Colombia in order to secure rights to an inter-oceanic canal. Following the opening of the Canal in 1914, the fate of the two nations was intertwined to an even greater extent. In 1964, there were extensive riots centred on the display of the Panamanian flag in the Canal Zone. In 1977, the Carter Administration, overcoming considerable opposition in Congress,†succeeded in gaining approval of treaties which would see Panama take control of the Canal by the year 2000.
As mentioned, the 1980s brought into play the issues of a Marxist-style government in Nicaragua and a pro-Soviet insurrection in El Salvador. As well, the decade saw the emergence of a new issue, the "War on Drugs" in the United States. In 1983, General Manuel Noriega assumed control of Panama. An avowed anti-Communist, Noriega cooperated with the U.S. in its efforts to destabilize the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. At the same time, he displayed a particular genius in the drug trade, working with both the "trafficantes" and Fidel Castro on the one hand, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency on the other.
By 1987 the U.S. had decided that General Noriega's liabilities had begun to outweigh his usefulness and began a campaign to have him removed from power. This involved encouraging popular resistance to him, imposing economic sanctions, and offering him a generous "early retirement package." Noriega resisted U.S. efforts to remove him and raised the pitch of anti-American rhetoric. Following the annulment of presidential elections in May of 1989, President Bush, already smarting from the "wimp" tag applied to him in the 1988 campaign, decided enough was enough. In the early hours of December 20, the United States launched a massive military strike aimed at the capture of the Panamanian General, who faced a variety of drug-related charges in the United States (Soderlund, Wagenberg & Pemberton, 1994).
Haiti, 1990-1993
United States interest in Haiti, as with Cuba and Panama, dates to the turn of the last century. A military invasion and occupation, begun in 1915, did not end until 1934. United States' strategic and economic interests in the island continued after the occupation ceased in the latter year, with relations between to two countries turning sour only during the dictatorship of Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, as of 1957. When the elder Duvalier died in 1971, he was succeeded by his son, Jean-Claude (Baby Doc). Popular unrest with the continuing dictatorship developed in the mid-1980s and Duvalier was forced from power in February 1986 (flown into exile on a U.S. Air Force transport).
Following his departure, there was a transition period in Haiti characterized by military rule, a new constitution, an aborted election in 1987, an election of questionable legitimacy in 1988 (resulting in the election of Leslie Manigat) and two coups d'etat in 1988, one overthrowing Manigat and the other the General who had deposed him (Soderlund & Nelson, 1990).
The third post-Duvalier election, held in December 1990, which saw Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a popular and controversial priest enter the political arena as a presidential candidate, marks the beginning of the period of TV news coverage of Haiti analyzed in this study. Aristide, clearly representing Haiti's poor and calling for revolutionary change in the country's social, economic and political systems, won the 1990 election with over 65 percent of the vote. While he had not been the favoured candidate of the United States, when the results were announced the United States government pledged itself to ensuring that democracy in Haiti took root.
As one might expect, given Haiti's lack of experience with democracy, the process of building a viable democratic system did not go smoothly. Aristide took power in February 1991, and in September of the same year, the Haitian generals, with the backing of the country's economic elite, staged a coup d'etat, forcing Aristide into exile. This coup is the second event which drew American TV news networks to cover Haiti. The third event is the negotiations, brokered by the United Nations and held on Governorís Island in New York in the summer of 1993, aimed at restoring the elected President to power. As a result of this series of meetings, the Haitian military government headed by General Raoul Cedras, upon gaining amnesty for their actions in the coup, agreed to step down in October 1993 and allow Aristide to return as President. Although outside of our study period, in the end General Cedras refused to abide by the agreement. A U.S. Navy ship bringing military engineers to Port-au-Prince was refused permission to land, and an economic embargo of the island was reinstated. A year later, in October 1994, under threat of an immanent American military invasion, the Haitian Generals finally gave up power, left the country, and President Aristide was allowed to finish what was left of his term of office (Nelson & Soderlund, 1995).
Findings
Leading Sources in Crisis Reporting
Data in Tables 1 & 2 show the first three sources appearing or cited in TV news stories on the Grenadian and Panamanian invasions. Similarities here far outweigh differences, and, as expected, U.S. government sources far outnumber others in both cases. Clearly the Pentagon, U.S. military forces in the field, and the American President (Reagan and Bush) emerge as dominant in coverage of both crisis situations, though somewhat less so in Panama. Also common to both invasions is the access given to the post-invasion domestic governments supported by the U.S. invasion forces; Governor General Sir Paul Scoon in Grenada and the Panamanian government of Guillermo Endara. In addition, the lack of access given to opponents of the U.S. invasions is striking. only in the case of coverage of Grenada, where Cuban construction workers provided the bulk of armed opposition to the American forces invading the island, were Cuban government spokespersons used sparingly as third sources.
On the other side of the ledger, one difference between the two crises stands out: Panamanians on the street were the most frequent second and third sources of information, and they even ranked as the fourth most frequent first source. There was, of course, none of that in Grenada as a result of the exclusion of the media from covering the invasion during the early days of fighting on the island. As a result, pained outcries of censorship were frequent enough to make "media commentators" rank third in importance as a first source for stories, (in 15%) and second in importance among the second sources (in 10%). It is also possible that military censorship accounts at least partially for the relative prominence of Americans on the street as a source in the Grenada case; media personnel were certainly appealing for public backing of their "watchdog" role, though there may also have been some element of recognition that the whole affair was controversial on a number of grounds and a desire to test public opinion with respect to these. But another important factor was the presence of American medical students on the island. Their safety and ultimate return to the United States occasioned a good deal of the domestic interviewing that occurred.
In contrast, it is perhaps surprising that Americans on the street do not rank among the most important sources of coverage of Panama at all. Reporters were present in Panama in small numbers during, and in large numbers shortly after the invasion began. This presented an opportunity for on-the-spot interviews with citizens of the country invaded that did not exist in Grenada until comparatively late in the operation. It did not, however, prevent a similar attempt to probe American public opinion with respect to an initiative in Panama which might have been considered only slightly less controversial than the Grenada one. This strongly suggests that the prominence of domestic interviews in coverage of Grenada can be attributed mainly to the censorship and medical student factors.
The censorship factor also probably explains the fact that U.S. government/military sources were not only the primary first sources for stories on Grenada, but almost the only source. There is slightly more variation in the sources used in the Panama case, especially for secondary and tertiary citations. The fairly prominent use of "expert" commentators should bear mention. This may reflect the relatively greater availability of people knowledgeable about Panama, or it may indicate that changes in the style of TV news reporting occurred between 1983 and 1989. On the other hand, it could reflect a perceived need to establish a rationale for the Panama operation which was less necessary in Grenada where the Cold War rhetoric resorted to was already familiar and, in general, accepted (Norris, 1995). The Vatican appears as an important source in Panamanian coverage due to the fact that General Noriega sought sanctuary in the Vatican’s diplomatic compound.
Leading Sources in Non-Crisis Reporting
Tables 3 & 4 present analogous information on leading sources used in long-term reporting of non-crisis situations in Cuba and Haiti. In examining this data we see an echo of the similarity between the data on Panama and Grenada, though the range of sources on Haiti is far more limited than on Cuba. But in both cases what stands out is the fact that it was Cuban and Haitian sources which were relied on to a much greater extent than American ones.
There are differences as well. Cubans "on the street" seem to have enjoyed considerable attention from the U.S. media, while this was much less true with regard to Haiti, and even then foreigners living in Haiti were given equal prominence to Haitians. We can only guess at the reasons for this, but among the factors involved may be differences in levels of education in the two countries, the greater difficulty of American journalists working with Haitian creole than Spanish, and perhaps a reluctance of Haitians to appear before the cameras, given the propensity for violent reprisal by forces opposed to the country's democratization. In this connection, however, it should be remembered that the Haitian and Cuban situations were different in that the latter was primarily a matter of U.S.- Cuban relations, while the former focused on internal reforms. Cubans could safely comment on events as long as they were sufficiently anti-American (as most were probably inclined to be anyway), but there was little a Haitian could say without marking him/herself as a target for either reform or reactionary factions.
____________________________________________________
Table 1
Major Sources of TV News Stories on Grenada
N %
1st Source - Appearing or cited in 59 stories
Pentagon 16 27
U.S. forces in field 11 19
Media commentators 9 15
Ronald Reagan 8 14
Americans on street 4 7
82
2nd Source - Appearing or cited in 52 stories
U.S. forces in field 13 25
Media commentators 5 10
Sir Paul Scoon 4 8
American medical students/administrators 4 8
Americans on street 4 8
59
3rd Source - Appearing or cited in 47 stories
Pentagon 6 13
U.S. forces in field 6 13
State Department 5 11
U.S. Administration 4 9
Cuban Government 4 9
U.S. Congress 4 9
64
____________________________________________________
Opponents of the Castro government, both dissidents within Cuba and defectors living in the United States are also sought out for their opinions. Prominent Americans (ex-presidents and other high-ranking officials of past administrations) as well as American academic experts find their way into news reporting of Cuba, as do Mikhail Gorbachev (largely in the context of his visit to the island) and the Russian government more generally.
____________________________________________________
Table 2
Major Sources of TV News Stories on Panama
N %
1st Source - Appearing or cited in 134 stories
Pentagon 18 14
George Bush 17 13
U.S. forces in field 17 13
Panamanians on street 14 10
Panamanian government 11 8
Vatican 9 7
65
2nd Source - Appearing or cited in 105 stories
Panamanians on street 16 15
Pentagon 14 13
U.S. forces in field 14 13
Panamanian government 14 13
American Experts 9 9
U.S. Administration 8 8
71
3rd Source - Appearing or cited in 71 stories
Panamanians on street 9 13
American Experts 8 11
U.S. forces in field 7 10
Panamanian government 7 10
George Bush 6 9
Pentagon 5 7
60
____________________________________________________
Table 3
Major Sources of TV News Stories on Cuba
N %
1st Source - Appearing or cited in 120 stories
U.S. Administration 16 13
Fidel Castro 15 13
Cuban Government 15 13
Cubans on street 14 12
Prominent Americans 8 7
Cuban dissidents 6 5
Russian Government 6 5
Mikhail Gorbachev 6 5
73
2nd Source - Appearing or cited in 92 stories
Cubans on street 11 12
Fidel Castro 9 10
Prominent Americans 9 10
Cuban Government 8 9
American experts 8 9
Cuban defectors 7 7
57
3rd Source - Appearing or cited in 68 stories
American experts 16 24
Cubans on street 11 16
Latin Americans on street (7 10
Prominent Americans 5 7
U.S. Administration 5 7
Fidel Castro 4 6
Cuban Government 4 6
76
____________________________________________________
Sources used in TV news reporting on Haiti are far more limited: President Bush, the United Nations and the Organization of American States (both organizations working with the U.S. in attempts to restore Aristide to power), as well as prominent Americans, constitute a pro-Aristide lineup of sources dominated by the Haitian President himself. Academic experts were not featured prominently as news sources, probably because there was no foreign policy issue involved other than the degree or type of American effort to restore the elected President to office. The access to American media given General Cedras, the leader of Haiti's military government, is quite limited and associated entirely with his participation in the Governor’s Island negotiations.
Clearly the sources relied upon in the Cuban and Haitian cases do differ in some obvious ways from those in Panama and Grenada. Not only is the range of sources considerably greater in non-crisis situations, military or pentagon sources are absent, and all American official sources, including the White House, are less visible. The U.S. administration is the most frequently cited first source of stories on Cuba, but it outranks Castro by only a single instance, and otherwise it ranks only a distant fourth in third source citations. With respect to Haiti, no American governmental source, except for the President, is featured at all.
____________________________________________________
Table 4
Major Sources of TV News Stories on Haiti
N %
1st Source - Appearing or cited in 29 stories
Jean-Bertrand Aristide 6 21
George Bush 5 17
United Nations 5 17
Organization of American States 4 14
Haitian Government 3 10
Raoul Cedras 3 10
89
2nd Source - Appearing or cited in 16 stories
Jean Bertrand Aristide 6 38
Organization of American States 3 19
Foreigners in Haiti 2 13
70
3rd Source - Appearing or cited in 10 stories
Jean Bertrand Aristide 2 20
Haitians on street 2 20
Organization of American States 2 20
Prominent Americans 2 20
80
____________________________________________________
Table 5
Favorable/unfavorable Source Balance with
Respect to U.S. Invasions of Grenada & Panama
Grenada Panama
(N=279) (N=307)
Sources Favourable to U.S. position 54% 78%
Sources Unfavourable to U.S. position 46% 22%
____________________________________________________
Pro-/Anti-American Balance in Source Commentary
In calculating the balance of pro and anti-American commentary of sources, the information offered by all sources used in a news story was coded. In calculating the percentages in Tables 5 & 6, source commentary that was judged to be either neutral or ambiguous was not included, yielding pro and anti-American commentary equalling 100 percent.For the military crisis situations in Grenada and Panama, the coding of pro or anti-American commentary was relatively simple: obvious support or opposition for the operation (strategic) or for the way in which it was being conducted (tactical). For the non-crisis coverage of Cuba and Haiti, coding of pro- or anti-American commentary focused on evaluations of the Cuban revolution (opposed by the United States) in the case of the former, and on evaluations of President Aristide (supported by the United States) in the case of the latter.
Table 5 shows a dramatic difference in overall source support for the two invasions. In the Cold War case of Grenada, 54 percent of sources supported the invasion, while 46 percent opposed it. In contrast, in the far more ambiguous post-Cold War circumstances of Panama, fully 78 percent of sources supported the invasion, while only 22 percent opposed it.
Reasons for this discrepancy are many and varied. In the case of Grenada, the most important appear to be as follows: (1) the decision to bar the media from covering the military operations in Grenada instantly turned the press into a hostile critic; (2) there was considerable international opposition to the Grenadian invasion, especially among America's allies in Europe; (3) there was some domestic opposition to the invasion in the United States, both among Democrats in Congress and by the public at large; (4) the timing of the Grenadian invasion, occurring as it did only a few days following the deadly bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, found Americans in no mood to get involved in a situation where their soldiers might be killed or wounded; and (5) the failure on the part of the American military to deliver what everyone had expected to be a quick and easy outcome given Grenada’s tiny size. Overly optimistic predictions for an early end to the fighting faced a continuing reality of an island not subdued.
____________________________________________________
Table 6
Favorable/unfavorable Source Balance with
Respect to Cuban Revolution & President Aristide
Sources Favorable to Cuban Revolution 39%
Sources Unfavorable to Cuban Revolution 61% (N=190)
Sources Favorable to Jean-Bertrand Aristide 89%
Sources Unfavorable to Jean-Bertrand Aristide 11% (N=28)
____________________________________________________
Reasons for the relatively high level of support offered by sources for the Panamanian invasion are not as easy to identify. however, the following factors seem important: (1) a build-up period prior to the invasion, during which anti-American rhetoric and actions on the part of the Noriega government were featured prominently; (2) an effective "demonization" of Noriega as a thug and drug trafficker; (3) little international or domestic opposition to the invasion; (4) an overwhelming application of military force that determined the military outcome within hours; and (5) relatively free access on the part of journalists to a Panamanian population that expressed happiness that the invasion had removed Noriega from power. If the Americans made one mistake, it was setting the capture of General Noriega as a primary objective of the operation. While Noriega's avoidance of capture was embarrassing to the Americans, his reputation was so blemished that he was unable to muster any great indignation for the rather clumsy and high-handed way in which the Americans pursued his capture and transfer to the United States to face drug charges.
The balance of pro- and anti-American source commentary in coverage with respect to on-going events in Cuba and Haiti as seen in Table 6, is also quite different, although in both instances sources again line up in support of the American positions. First, in the case of Cuba, 61 percent of sources expressed opposition to the Cuban Revolution, thus adopting a pro-American posture. Somewhat surprisingly, 39 percent expressed points of view supportive of the revolution, a position not favoured by the United States. This distribution indicates that, overall, the sources selected by the U.S. networks to provide information on Cuba, while predominantly supportive of the thrust of U.S. government policy, certainly were diverse enough to give reasonable exposure to the Cuban point of view.
The source balance with respect to U.S. policy in Haiti, somewhat curiously, is the most skewed in favour of the American position of all the cases which we have examined. This no doubt stems from the extraordinary use of Aristide himself as a source, obviously advocating his own return (which also was the policy promoted by the United States). This can be explained partially by the fact that the reputation of Aristide's opponents, the Haitian military, was obviously tarnished beyond redemption. It is interesting, however, that Aristide had a history of advocating social violence in Haiti and of holding anti-American positions internationally. Thus, it is somewhat puzzling that there was not a greater representation of sources expressing at least misgivings about American support for a policy calling for his return to Haiti as President. This may, however, have been an instance in which the principle of democracy triumphed over its particular representative.5
Conclusion
Turning attention back to the hypotheses which guided this inquiry, we find evidence both confirming and disconfirming expected findings. On the confirming side, it is evident that the range of lead sources used in crisis situations is quite limited, giving the president, his administration, as well as the Pentagon and military forces in the field, extraordinary opportunity to define these situations for the American public. Conversely, opponents of the United States appear to have little opportunity to get an alternative version of reality presented on U.S. network television news programming. Non-crisis situations do appear to open up the range of sources to include greater non-American participation in defining the news. Somewhat problematical in the two cases which we examined, however, is that the respective leaders of Cuba and Haiti enjoyed predominant access to American television news programming, thus limiting points of view expressed, especially with respect to Haiti.
When we address the second part of the hypothesis, that pro-American stances would be offered to a greater extent by sources in crisis than in non-crisis situations, the evidence is non-confirming. While the balance of all source commentary dealing with the four situations examined is supportive of American policy positions, in fact, sources were least supportive of the U.S. invasion of Grenada and most supportive of American attempts to restore Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency of Haiti.
Coverage of Panama demonstrates that crisis situations appear to present extraordinary opportunities for the presentation of a pro-American version of events. However, as coverage of Grenada points out, idiosyncratic factors associated with each crisis may lessen this obvious advantage. Thus, in particular, the decision to bar the press from covering the fighting on Grenada in hindsight stands out as a monumental blunder on the part of the Reagan Administration. Given the tremendous natural advantage held by the administration and the military in providing information on such crisis situations, and the generally favourable reception official sources have been accorded by journalists, it is difficult to imagine how media coverage could have been any less supportive had journalists been allowed to accompany American military personnel when the attack on Grenada was launched.
Notes
1. The TV News Archive furnished unedited news stories and is in no way responsible for the analysis of the material or the interpretations given to those analyses.
2. The Panamanian invasion is reported in W.C. Soderlund, R.H. Wagenberg and I.C. Pemberton, "Cheerleader or Critic? Television News Coverage in Canada and the United States of the U.S. Invasion of Panama," Canadian Journal of Political Science 27 (1994):581-604; the Cuban coverage in W.C. Soderlund, R.H. Wagenberg and S.H. Surlin, "The Impact of the End of the Cold War on Canadian and American TV News Coverage of Cuba: Image Consistency or Image Change?" Canadian Journal of Communication 23 (1998): 217-231; the Haitian coverage in R.H. Nelson and W.C. Soderlund, "Creation and Development of Media Image: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, 1990-1993," paper presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association of Puerto Rico, San Juan, December 1995, and the Grenadian invasion in W.C. Soderlund and E.D. Briggs, "The Price of Censorship: Television Network News Coverage of the 1983 U.S. Invasion of Grenada," Paper presented at the 14th Annual Intercultural/International Communication Conference, Miami, FL, February 1997.
3. Intercoder reliability for source identification for the Grenadian data was calculated at 95%, the Panamanian data at 94%, the Cuban data at 96% and the Haitian data at 96%. For evaluation of source content, intercoder reliability for the Grenadian data was calculated at 86%, the Cuban data at 88%, the Panamanian data at 83% and the Haitian data at 89%. See Ole R. Holsti, Content Analysis for the Social Sciences and Humanities (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1969), 140.
5. It is evident from on-going research, that beginning in Fall 1993, continuing through his restoration to power in 1994 and during the remaining year of his presidency, alternative viewpoints regarding both Aristide and the wisdom of American policy promoting his return did achieve greater prominence in American television reporting on Haiti.
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Soderlund & Briggs are Professors in the Department of Political Science at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. Research for this article was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Grant 410-91-0221). The authors wish to thank the SSHRC for its support of their work.
