Copyright by Deborah Lynn Jaramillo 2006 The Dissertation Committee for Deborah Lynn Jaramillo Certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Ugly War, Pretty Package: How the Cable News Network and the Fox News Channel Made the 2003 Invasion of Iraq High Concept Committee: Mary C. Kearney, Supervisor John Downing, Co-Supervisor Robert Jensen Michael Kackman Charles Ramirez Berg Ugly War, Pretty Package: How the Cable News Network and the Fox News Channel Made the 2003 Invasion of Iraq High Concept by Deborah Lynn Jaramillo, B.S., M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2006 Dedication I proudly dedicate this dissertation to my biological family (Dora, Frank, JR, and Alex), my Austin family (Rose, Mark, Holly, AJ, and Susan), and the family I fell in love with in Tucson (Rodolfo, Alba Nora, Albin, and Jerry). Acknowledgements As the completion of this dissertation took a full two years of my life, I have a number of generous people to thank. First and foremost, I wish to acknowledge the inspired guidance of Dr. Mary Kearney, who encouraged me to “embrace the crisis” and find the dissertation topic that held meaning for me. Fortunately, two Ford Foundation fellowships funded the embrace, the research, and the writing, while Dr. Kearney and Dr. John Downing facilitated the improvement of that writing. A million thanks to three different sources of news tapes: Dr. Jacqueline Sharkey at the University of Arizona, who, without having met me in person, went out of her way to provide me with tapes of Fox News; the amazing staff at the media library in the UT College of Communication, who provided me with tapes of CNN; and the staff at the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, who filled in the gaps. The two years of creation necessitated a great deal of personal help, as well. At the top of the list is Rodolfo Fernández (a.k.a. the most brilliant and patient man in the world), who lovingly tolerated my moods and my erratic sleep schedule in the LGA, and who was an incredible sounding board for my ideas. I do not deserve him. Frank and Dora Jaramillo always supported my educational pursuits, never underestimated me, and continue to be profound inspirations. Their successes in life—mutual and individual— v dwarf my achievements. I can only hope to be half as amazing as they are. Dr. Susan McLeland has been a role model for me since my undergraduate years, and I would be lost without her compassion and unpretentious intellect. Rosamar Torres, better than any sister could be, made my third and fourth years of doctoral work two of the greatest years of my life. Holly Custard and Adrian Johnson have been constant and selfless sources of support, love, wisdom, and housing. I am humbled by their profound humanity. Mark Cunningham, my angel and co-conspirator, astounds me with his writing and blesses me with his very existence. My University of Arizona mentors—Dr. Beretta Smith- Shomade, Dr. Caryl Flinn, and Dr. Eileen Meehan (now at LSU)—will always represent the personal generosity and intellectual rigor to which I aspire. Finally, I thank my beautiful and reliable Mac, which desperately needs a break. vi Ugly War, Pretty Package: How the Cable News Network and the Fox News Channel Made the 2003 Invasion of Iraq High Concept Publication No._____________ Deborah Lynn Jaramillo, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2006 Supervisor: Mary C. Kearney and John D. Downing Analyses of war coverage address its relation to historical fact, propaganda, and bias, but I see a great need to position war coverage within the context of the industry that produces and distributes news content. To divorce televised war coverage from the entertainment industry is to decontextualize it in the most fundamental way. This dissertation investigates the way in which Cable News Network (CNN) and Fox News Channel (FNC) positioned and packaged the U.S. military’s invasion of Iraq in March 2003 for a domestic audience. I place those two networks and the 2003 invasion of Iraq within the context of post-classical Hollywood filmmaking, one offshoot of which is high concept. I argue that high concept—a filmmaking practice inextricably linked to conglomeration, new technologies, and an incessant, self-preserving drive to market— can be applied productively to the study of television news. When infused with critical vii theory, high concept is a valuable way to understand the politics and construction of entertainment-driven war coverage. The industrial development of television news has yielded a media artifact that mimics the practice of high concept filmmaking narratively, stylistically, ideologically, and commercially. By using high concept as an alternative approach to television news, I propose that studies that disregard or marginalize visuals, sound, narrative, and the industry that profits from the spectacular packaging of those elements cannot fully capture the thrust of television news. By stripping television news of its stature as somehow divorced from and above the rest of television programming, I aim to re-insert it into the entertainment industry. My intent is to bring together theoretical and practical insights from different disciplines so that I can contextualize contemporary television news in a unique and compelling way. In doing so, this dissertation aims to contribute to the pursuit of democratic media. viii Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction: The Spectacle of Televised War................................ 1 Media, Spectacle, and Reality..................................................................... 7 The Mediation of War, Past and Present: .................................................. 14 Radio during World War I....................................................... 14 Cinema during World War I and World War II........................ 18 Television News during the Vietnam War and the 1991 Persian Gulf War ................................................................................ 20 The Style and Narrative of Televised War Coverage................................. 25 High Concept............................................................................................ 34 Chapter Breakdown .................................................................................. 49 Chapter Two: Conglomeration and Commercial News ...................................... 55 Conglomeration: The Economic, Regulatory, and Industrial Roots of High Concept News.................................................................................. 57 Media Organization and the State............................................ 57 Media Mergers and Acquisitions ............................................. 60 Television Journalism and Media Conglomeration .................. 63 Contemporary Television News: CNN and FNC....................................... 68 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 74 Chapter Three: The High Concept War Narrative.............................................. 76 Narrative Theory and Audio-Visual Media ............................................... 78 The Presence of Narrative in Television News.......................................... 85 Narrative and Ideology ............................................................................. 94 The War Narrative on CNN and FNC....................................................... 99 The Government’s Story ......................................................... 99 The Networks’ Story ..............................................................102 “Decapitation”‘ ......................................................................106 “Shock and Awe”...................................................................111 “Celebrations” at Safwan........................................................119 ix Umm Qasr..............................................................................131 Al-Najaf Chemical Weapons Facility .....................................146 U.S. POWs.............................................................................154 Conclusion ..............................................................................................160 Chapter Four: Intertextuality, Genres, Stars, and Character Types ....................165 Intertextuality in 2003 War Coverage ......................................................168 References to U.S. Military History........................................169 References to Film Genres......................................................178 U.S. Movie Stars ....................................................................181 Stars .......................................................................................................183 Presidential Stars....................................................................185 Military Stars .........................................................................201 In-House Stars........................................................................204 Characters in War....................................................................................215 The Good Guys: Heroes .........................................................217 The Good Guys: Sidekicks .....................................................221 The Bad Guys: The Villain.....................................................222