AFTER THE STORM : Covering the war

In Iraq, Japanese TV networks drew from a mind-boggling array of sources and got even closer to the action. Still, critics are wondering if they got the whole picture. `I couldn't get a real feel for the value of people's lives.'HIROMI IMAIZUMI An NTV reporter ``embedded'' with a U.S. artillery unit during the Iraq war

With the dust nearly settled in Iraq, attention in Japan is shifting to how the media-especially television-covered a war that in some places offered unprecedented access to the front line.

The fundamental questions seem to be: How much of this war did we really see, and how much should be seen?

Big television networks are producing programs looking back at their coverage of the conflict, and viewers' opinions are flooding in.

On May 11, Nippon Television Network (NTV) ran a 90-minute late-night panel featuring reporters who covered the war, production staff, academics and analysts. Two central issues were how appropriate it was to show corpses and whether coverage relied too much on U.S. military briefings.

In response to the show, NTV was swamped with 8,740 e-mail messages and other viewer responses.

Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) also plans to re-examine its war coverage in a special program, though it has yet to set the date. The May issue of the network's monthly report on broadcast research, published by the NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute, analyzed how differently Japan, the United States and the Middle East covered the same war.

The July issue is expected to examine details such as where news reports originated.

Debate, of course, is not limited to the TV set. Upcoming symposiums include a June 21 gathering cohosted by a media research group and a federation of commercial broadcast workers unions, as well as a public discussion planned by the social sciences faculty at Hosei University late this month. Both events are in Tokyo.

No matter what the medium, media experts appear to agree that a distinguishing feature of this war's coverage was the nearly constant flow of on-the-spot footage. During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, CNN was in effect the sole source of live coverage. This time around, Japanese networks picked up feeds ranging from Iraqi national television to the FOX News Network, known for its pro-White House coverage.

NTV, for instance, relied heavily on round-the-clock television and wire dispatches from The Associated Press and Reuters as well as footage from the United States' NBC and Arab network Al-Jazeera, in addition to its own crew in the Middle East. The station also turned to the BBC from time to time for footage.

Other networks took similar steps to make sure they could tap into a wide range of sources.

NHK had as many as 82 foreign media organizations piping footage to its programs.

Fuji Television Network, a commercial network based in Tokyo, signed contracts with five foreign stations to provide footage, including Abu Dhabi Television of the United Arab Emirates, to supplement Fuji TV's several overseas bases.

``We aired live reports by our correspondents while selecting images sent by foreign media for our programs,'' recalled Sumio Hasegawa, who heads Fuji TV's foreign news department.

``Our primary duty was to show our viewers the newest information and let them make their own judgments.''

Despite the tsunami of images, he admitted that ``it was difficult to provide comprehensive reporting on the war.''

That paradox was perhaps most embodied by the controversial ``embedding'' of Japanese reporters with the U.S. military, in which correspondents were allowed to travel with specific units wherever they went. While being fused to units enabled reporters to get closer to the action, it also meant they became dependent on the subject of their reporting for their very survival.

Despite criticism of such reporting as press tours run by the military, NHK, NTV and Fuji TV all decided to embed reporters and camera crews so they could get original first-hand reports.

``I was allowed to interview anyone within the unit to which I was assigned, and freely entered meetings on war affairs, which I reported in our programs,'' said Hideki Yui, 33, an NHK reporter who was embedded. But since he was constantly on the move with his unit, he added, he could not stop to shoot footage of bodies he saw on the side of the road.

NTV's Hiromi Imaizumi, 40, who was attached to an artillery unit, watched the soldiers firing at distant targets but could never see where the shells landed.

``I couldn't get a real feel for the value of people's lives,'' Imaizumi said.

Spending a long time with troops in such close quarters, moreover, made it difficult for her to press them about the lives they might be taking from afar.

Fuji TV's Masami Ogawa, 33, said, ``When it was time to attack, many soldiers said they wanted to keep firing away, but when things calmed down, they said they questioned the validity of the war.''

Summing up the war coverage, NHK's Yui said, ``The significance of the word `war' is now different to me.''

Ogawa said he still keeps in touch with U.S. soldiers he befriended during the war, while Imaizumi is penning a book on her experiences due to hit stores in July.

Akihiro Nonaka is a member of Asia Press International, a group of freelance journalists. Nonaka, who has a wide range of experience covering wars, stressed the importance of reporters placing what they see with their own eyes within the bigger picture.

``It is the duty of the journalist to get close to the action. Being embedded with the military was naturally a good way to do that, and even though information was controlled, there are things that you can see and feel only when you are on the spot,'' Nonaka said.

He noted, however, that most of the coverage on Japanese TV was of war updates released by the U.S. military, sprinkled with feel-good reports on the morale of U.S. troops. Nothing, he commented, was reported on what Iraqi soldiers were feeling, something that could have been followed up on later.

``A war correspondent must be aware of positioning what he or she sees within the context of the entire war. It is important to train reporters to assume such a stance,'' Nonaka said.