The Civil War Behind "Civil War"

By James Poniewozik

When Katie Couric took over the CBS Evening News, some viewers wondered whether a Today show anchor could claim Walter Cronkite's mantle. Turns out we were wondering about the wrong Today anchor. When Matt Lauer announced that NBC would start referring to the conflict in Iraq as a "civil war," media observers hailed it as a "Cronkite moment," referring to the CBS anchor's 1968 declaration that the Vietnam War was unwinnable, upon which L.B.J. realized he had lost Middle America.

The backlash to Lauer's Cronkitization was quick, for several reasons. First: dude, we're talking Matt Lauer here. Second: Cronkite's language--"We are mired in stalemate"--was far stronger. Third: some newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and the Christian Science Monitor, quietly started using "civil war" earlier (as did TIME). Last: polls and common sense indicated that most Americans already believed Iraq's sectarian fighting was a civil war.

So, O.K., NBC's declaration may have no effect on the war in Iraq. But it was a signal moment in the war between the Bush White House and the media. If the issue seems like pointless semantics, it is hardly so to the Administration, which has been fixated on framing issues and politicizing language. It (and Fox News) renamed suicide bombers "homicide bombers." It cast the fight against al-Qaeda as a "war on terror," even though the struggle was unlike old-fashioned wars between armies. Now it wants Iraq not to be a "civil war"--ironically, on the ground that it is unlike old-fashioned civil wars between armies--and has suggested that anyone who calls it one is taking political sides.

The White House got its way for a long time, and that's not surprising. The period from 9/11 through much of the Iraq war was often shameful for the media, especially TV news. There was plenty of excellent, tough, heroic reporting. But from the production offices, where the tone and packaging of the news are set, came hints that, in wartime, the Fourth Estate was on the side of the good guys. Newscasts were adorned with American flags, and press outlets (including, initially, TIME) prematurely made a John Wayne figure of Private First Class Jessica Lynch.

This was not because the media were jingoistic but because the media business was, and is, existentially scared. TV audiences and print readerships are shrinking, along with media payrolls; nightly newscasts and newspapers wonder how much longer they will exist, much less thrive. The Administration has played on that fear of irrelevance, freezing out big institutions in favor of friendly local outlets and allies. A Bush aide told reporter Ron Suskind that journalists were an ineffectual "reality-based community." Were the mainstream media dying? The ebullient Bushies seemed to answer, They're already dead!

Layered on this was the sense of a conservative swarm sweeping the country. War supporters and "values voters" were coming out of the woodwork in elections, lining up for The Passion of the Christ and making Fox the sole TV-news success story of the era. They were collecting scalps--Bill Maher, Peter Arnett, Dan Rather--and taking names. They had blogs and remotes and money, and they hated the press. Journalists might not slant stories to show their loyalty, but what was the harm in hanging a little bunting on the screen?

The ideology of scared media is me-too-ism: straining to show the audience you like what it likes, be it Harry Potter or Donald Rumsfeld. (He's tough! He's funny! He's a sex symbol! The Philadelphia Inquirer dubbed him a "stud muffin.") With the worsening of Iraq, however, coverage became more assertive, and after Hurricane Katrina, reporters found they could question the Administration without being struck dead. With the "civil war" fight--as with erstwhile stud muffin Rumsfeld--the momentum has reversed. It's less important what the press is calling the war than that the White House is no longer calling the terms.

Of course, all this proves is that me-too-ism knows no party. NBC took its public step only after Bush's midterm thumpin'. Middle America may have been led by Cronkite, but now the reins are firmly in the other hand. In a perfect world, the media would be led by the facts, and the audience by its own mind. But if the public is giving the news permission to be more, well, reality-based, then lead on, folks, lead on.