THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 20, 1994 TAG: 9409200291
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Marc Tibbs
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines
So, Lt. Gen. Henry Shelton, you've started the successful U.S. occupation of Haiti. What are you going to do now?
``I'm going to Disneyworld.''
Of course that not's how it happened, but while watching the journalistic spectacle that was the U.S. intervention in that island nation, I half expected such a Mickey Mouse question from one of the journalists at Port-au-Prince's International Airport.
An army general was about to undertake command of a major military operation, and hovering all around him were pesky reporters scratching on notepads, and photographers setting off their shutters, all seemingly searching for ``Hard Copy.''
It was embarrassing.
Granted, the Haitian military never was considered a real threat to U.S. forces, and the brokered agreement by former President Jimmy Carter's delegation had paved the way for a peaceful entry. But for an infantryman, weighed down with equipment and overcome with anxiety, war is still war.
You'd think that would be enough to stave off even the irrepressible U.S. press corps.
Welcome to the information age.
As the helicopters came in, television reporters and their hired military specialists described their troop capacity and their armaments.
Soldiers, whose mission it was to secure the airport for their commanders, scrambled on their bellies on the tarmac, assault weapons at the ready.
Yet, the press, rather than respecting the troops' mission and giving them wide berth, besieged them with questions and thrust cameras in their faces.
``What's going through your mind?'' a television correspondent asked one of the troops.
Maj. Gen. David Meade, who had been the advance man for in-theater commander Gen. Shelton, held an impromptu press conference even before it seemed clear that Shelton would be setting foot on safe soil.
Meade quickly was surrounded by a gaggle of reporters, as if he were a movie star and this invasion was a ritzy Hollywood premiere.
Meanwhile, troops, still in the early stages of the operation, scattered about the airport trying to pinpoint their location with futuristic devices that looked sort of like Star Trek tricorders.
Since Vietnam, the American press has played an important role when the U.S. military goes into action. Some believe that the flickering pictures of carnage in Southeast Asia contributed to the high unpopularity of that war, and hence its termination in 1975.
CNN's Peter Arnett took war coverage to another level in 1991 with his coverage from Bagdad.
But while Arnett may have garnered for himself a reputation as a hard-nosed war correspondent, he set off a ``can-you-top-this'' competition that is making responsible journalism oxymoronic.
Dan Rather of CBS scored a few days ago with his exclusive interview with Haitian military Gen. Raoul Cedras, then sent a scare into some of his viewers when he erroneously speculated that a U.S. invasion already was under way.
NBC's Tom Brokaw anchored the Nightly News from Port-au-Prince, determined that Rather wouldn't outdo his network.
Thankfully, none of these new-age journalists had to report any U.S. or Haitian casualities during the peaceful occupation Monday. And as the crisis moves to the back burner in the days and months to come, fewer of the tabloid types will remain on location.
After all, someone still has to be the first to report on the contents of that envelope in the O.J. Simpson case. by CNB