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War Correspondence, Help Or Hinderance?
As the dust of the battlefields settles, Israelis take stock of the events of the recent conflict. Attention falls onto high ranking army commanders who sent troops over the border with little sign of the professional know-how that one might expect.
Anger and dismay is also targetted towards the press as it became abundantly clear that video reports produced by the Israeli television channels may have been active in providing vital information to the enemy.
Israeli casualties escalated as deserted houses were hit with lethal anti-tank missiles. The night before an Isreali reporter interviewed troops taking refuge in empty houses left by fleeing Lebanese refugees.
The intent was to relay back home a message that the boys are safe and well, the reality was soon to become all too different.
Now, it became a mere game of hide and seek for the Hizbollah. All they had to do was to look at the windows of deserted biuldings for the tell-tale signs of cigarettes burning, coffee being make on a camping stove and torches looking at maps.
In a war that they knew that they could not win, to the Hizbollah it now became a case of inflicting as much pain as possible on Israel in the shortest possible time.
They knew that a single missile would kill all the soldiers resting in a room of a house. It was an opportunity too good to miss.
Out of one hundred and twenty soldiers killed over thirty fell pray to hits on houses.
Reporting facts is vital, no arguement there, the problem arises when ill thought out video journals present weaknesses to the enemy.
This leaves us with the question; how much freedom should the press be allowed. By proctecting the public’s “right to know”, could it be that, unwittingly, mistakes with tragic consequenses were being made.
It would appear that when focus on detail is vital to survival, such as on the battlefield, emotional initiatives must be restrained to prevent further unnecessary loss and suffering.
How can the weight of doubt not be on the mind of those journalists who may have given the enemy the key to inflicting unbearable pain and suffering on the families of the fallen soldiers. A pain and sense of loss that will never subside.
