Sound like a figure no democracy could rationally tolerate? More to the point, sound like anyone else you know? (Hint: replace "whiskey and wine" with "vodka," "Kosovo" with "Chechnya" and "bomb his military and communications infrastructure" with "desperately support his reelection and secure him billions in IMF loans.")

On one hand, I worry about criticizing the media for "making Milosevic into Hitler," as if Hitler represents some sort of minimum benchmark of evil below which we all need to be relativists. But there's ample information in the man's résumé to cloud his record without resorting to this sort of belles-lettristic mustache painting and Temperance League indignation. Putting Milosevic on the cover as "the face of evil" in, oh, 1993 might have been adventurous; today it's bandwagon-jumping. Newsweek might at least acknowledge the curious fact that it and the rest of the American press have suddenly decided to crown Milosevic Miss Lebensraum 1999 when he has in fact led the swimsuit and talent competitions for years running.

Now, cable news has often spun the war just as badly or worse. There have been plenty of our-kids-over-there glory stories (e.g. an embarrassing CNN profile on a submarine crew: "There is no celebration ... just the satisfaction of knowing they've done the job they were trained to do. And done it well"); anchors calling NATO troops "we"; dehumanizing rhetoric (John Gibson, just for one, calling Serbian actions in Kosovo "inhuman"); and lengthy Pentagon and State Department press conferences when the cable networks essentially become NATO-TV. (Small wonder NATO demanded that Serbian TV allot air time to Western news, just before blowing up Serbian transmitters in a particularly forceful act of media criticism.) But by retooling the Monica-era shoutfest for combat, the cable networks may, ironically, have made their one positive contribution to war coverage.

The evaporation of public and journalistic opposition in Yugoslavia has been made a prime exhibit against the Bastard of Belgrade, yet consider how easily press circumspection has dried up during wartime in the U.S. -- where, excepting Pearl Harbor, enemy bombs have been as common in this century as typhoons. (Just imagine what a single Oklahoma City-style Iraqi strike in January 1991 would have done to the already emasculated U.S. press.) Cable news today is playing to a relatively divided public; it's anyone's guess if it'd hold up amid renewed Gulf War-style jingoism. Still, it's made a start. Dialogue may well beat argument. But argument at least beats a yellow ribbon tied around your mouth.
salon.com | April 19, 1999

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