Debate about how news coverage affects foreign policy swings between those who claim that the media have little impact on the policy-making process and others who argue that press influence is significant-sometimes helpful, sometimes harmful. Each side has its partisans, but neither view is absolutely correct. Reality incorporates both.The press, as Walter Lippmann noted, has power partly because it can act as "the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision." Foreign-policy makers have to live with this fact, regardless of their belief that many elements of their craft are not suited to the searchlight's glare. At times, due to negligence, lack of skill or interest, or news-business priorities of the moment, the press will keep its searchlight away from foreign affairs-trained instead on a White House sex scandal, for example. But policymakers should still work under the assumption that their efforts may attract and be profoundly affected by journalists' attention. When the news media take notice, policy priorities can quickly change.

The political response to the situation of the Kurds in northern Iraq at the end of the Gulf War underscored the power of the media's influence on policy. Longtime victims of Saddam Hussein's persecution, the Kurds were unsuccessful in their attempts at insurrection and became refugees, pursued by the Iraqi army and pressed against the mountainous border with Turkey. Unwilling to be drawn into further military action, President Bush said the US-led coalition was not prepared "to settle all the internal affairs of Iraq." Administration policy was to let the Kurds fend for themselves.

But refugees make for good TV. Suddenly the Kurds no one had heard of were in America's living rooms. Secretary of State James Baker made a quick trip to the refugee encampments and witnessed their misery and vulnerability; administration policy shifted as a result. National Public Radio commentator Daniel Schorr noted that opinion polls showed public support for helping the Kurds and wrote, "Within a two-week period, the President had been forced, under the impact of what Americans and Europeans were seeing on television, to reconsider his hasty withdrawal of troops from Iraq." Bush himself said at a news conference, "No one can see the pictures or hear the accounts of this human suffering and not be deeply moved." Schorr observed that television had spurred "an official plebiscite that force[d] a change in policy." The United States proceeded to provide humanitarian assistance to the Kurds and to create a safe haven to keep Saddam's forces away from the refugees.

Media Hubris

This incident appears to have been a media triumph with good results: news coverage induced a change in policy and innocent people were saved. But New York Times television critic Walter Goodman has asked an important question: "Should American policy be driven by scenes that happen to be accessible to cameras and make the most impact on the screen?" This question has arisen repeatedly during the past decade, from Somalia to Kosovo. News coverage strikes at the somnolent American conscience, polls reflect the change in attitude, politicians take note, and ultimately policy shifts-incrementally or drastically. As chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Lee Hamilton remarked: "Televised images quickly become a central part of the foreign policy debate. They affect which crises we decide to pay attention to and which we ignore. They affect how we think about these crises, and I have little doubt these televised pictures ultimately affect what we do about these problems." Hamilton's words came to life in the coverage of Kosovo in 1999. Opinion polls showed national support for intervention rising when television networks displayed heart-wrenching pictures of fleeing Kosovar civilians.

Perhaps this is the new media-driven reality, but media influence will not necessarily produce wise public policy. George Kennan, commenting on the 1992 US intervention in Somalia, wrote, "If American policy from here on out, particularly policy involving the uses of our armed forces abroad, is to be controlled by popular emotional impulses, and particularly ones provoked by the commercial television industry, then there is no place not only for myself, but for what have traditionally been regarded as the responsible deliberative organs of our government."

News coverage can produce a ripple effect on policy by shaping public expectations. Despite convenient mythology about journalists causing disarray through irresponsible reporting, much foreign-affairs coverage follows the lead of policymakers, who determine themselves what public expectations will be. During the Vietnam War, the press was accused of undermining public support for the war by inaccurately appraising the fighting, such as during the 1968 Tet offensive. Clark Clifford, Defense Secretary during the waning days of the Johnson administration, wrote in his memoirs that those who blamed the press were wrong: "Reporters and the antiwar movement did not defeat America in Vietnam. Our policy failed because it was based on false premises and false promises." The administration had incessantly claimed that the war was being won. Journalists reported those claims, and when they proved inflated, coverage reflected the truth on the ground as well as reporters' growing skepticism.

Reporters, however, are not always skeptical; skepticism of policy pronouncements takes time to build. During the Gulf War, coverage was largely uncritical (and uninformed), and the war ended before many journalists had time to get their bearings. Perhaps the coverage would have grown tougher and more sophisticated if the war had been longer and more costly. In war and other foreign-policy crises, the press is likely to give the government the benefit of the doubt, but only briefly. This underscores the importance of Colin Powell's thesis that if a war is to be fought, it should begin only when such decisive force is amassed that the fighting will be quickly successful. In this case, good military strategy is good media strategy.

Who Owns the Camera?

War captures the public's attention, but many other aspects of foreign policy do not. In those instances, news coverage is less intense and has less effect on the public and on policymakers. Important global economic and environmental issues elicit yawns from much of the public unless political leaders and the news media display the leadership needed to help people realize their stake in such matters. American society's television dependency is a major culprit. Baghdad under missile attack makes for compelling video, but how does television find a moving picture of a balance of payments deficit or the ozone layer? Creative reporting and graphics can help, but stories about environmental and economic topics are unlikely to win viewers' rapt attention. Low audience interest means diminished coverage, which means greater leeway for policymakers.