[Media] Covering the Iranian Hostage Crisis

I think that everyone should watch the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. It is the only source I really trust because Lehrer never utilizes suspect linguistics to deliver the facts. And all of the facts, he will deliver. That's why when I see coverage of British soldiers being detained by Iran on other stations, I keep thinking back to the early coverage about it on NewsHour.

What was so revealing about Lehrer's broadcast wasn't so much what he said, but what others weren't saying. Clearly, a great deal of the coverage regarding the crisis is about the Iranian's use of video footage that aired showing the hostages. NewsHour was not afraid to show this footage. And while, yes, it is a violation of the Geneva Convention for hostage takers to air video of prisoners, the video was very telling.

The video shows the only female soldier among the captured describing their situation. She said: "'Obviously, we trespassed into their waters,' Turney said in the tape, smoking a cigarette. 'They were very friendly and very hospitable, very thoughtful, nice people. They explained to us why we've been arrested, there was no harm, no aggression.'"

While I believe that Turney may have been compelled to say that they had "obviously trespassed," I do believe she was being sincere about their treatment. That is solely my judgment, but it is the video that gives me an outlet from which to form that judgement. What no other news source I've seen has said is that Turney describes their treatment as "friendly, hospitable and thoughtful." This is one fact that every other news source covering the story conveniently omits.

Why? I think it is because those news sources want us to see the Iranians as nothing more than monsters, and unfortunately for them, Turney's description humanizes them. Humanizing the enemy, for every journalist out there but Lehrer, is a complete taboo.

The fact is, they are not necessarily monsters. They are humans; humans who find themselves at war, same as we do. Is it possible that Turney made these statements under duress and coercion? Certainly. Do I think that video taping hostages is a cruel violation of the Geneva Convention? Absolutely. But seeing this video at least provided me with the understanding as to why the Iranians did it (if in fact they are being hospitable to the hostages). They wish to humanize themselves to the West, and that is an understandable desire.

Humanizing the enemy is not the same as giving them comfort or being sympathetic to their cause. Many in the public sphere (politicians, pundits, etc.) would like to conflate the ideas of humanizing someone and comforting them. They are very different (thus the two different words in our language). It is my belief that humanizing the enemy, in this day in age, in this war on terror(ism), is the only way to win. By humanizing the enemy you can at once begin to understand them and their motives. Demonizing them only serves to give us a blank check of comfort in our efforts, but it is a false comfort at that. We can no longer play the "they are the anti-thesis of us" game. If we are to achieve victory, it will be because we begin to see every gray area our current time has created. Anything less will only ensure complete failure, if not in the present then in the near future.