FRAMING CONFLICT: THE LITERARY WAR JOURNALISM OF JOHN SACK By JOHN KEITH SALIBA A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2008 1 © 2008 John Keith Saliba 2 To My Mother 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the members of my doctoral committee for their support in the writing of this dissertation. I would especially like to thank my committee chair, William McKeen, for his extraordinary support and guidance throughout my time at the University of Florida. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 ABSTRACT.....................................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................................8 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................................................14 Literary Journalism.................................................................................................................14 Literary War Journalism.........................................................................................................16 Framing...................................................................................................................................22 Methodology...........................................................................................................................26 3 FROM HERE TO SHIMBASHI ............................................................................................28 Background.............................................................................................................................28 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................31 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................35 4 M.............................................................................................................................................37 Background.............................................................................................................................37 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................40 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................45 5 WHEN DEMIRGIAN COMES MARCHING HOME AGAIN (HURRAH? HURRAH?) ............................................................................................................................47 Background.............................................................................................................................47 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................48 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................52 6 LIEUTENANT CALLEY ......................................................................................................54 Background.............................................................................................................................54 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................58 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................63 7 COMPANY C.........................................................................................................................66 Background.............................................................................................................................66 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................69 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................74 5 8 THE DOGS OF BOSNIA.......................................................................................................76 Background.............................................................................................................................76 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................78 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................83 9 ANACONDA .........................................................................................................................85 Background.............................................................................................................................85 Analysis ..................................................................................................................................88 Conclusion ..............................................................................................................................94 10 CONCLUSION.......................................................................................................................95 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................100 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................................................................................107 6 Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy FRAMING CONFLICT: THE LITERARY WAR JOURNALISM OF JOHN SACK By John Keith Saliba August 2008 Chair: William McKeen Major: Mass Communication My study employed qualitative framing analysis to examine and identify dominant frames within the war reportage of John Sack. One of the only people to cover each of America’s wars over the last 50 years, Sack was also a leading practitioner of literary journalism, a genre that eschews the objectivity ideal set forth by traditional journalism in favor of interjecting a subjective point of view informed by the journalist’s observations, life experiences and worldview. Sack and other practitioners of literary journalism generally argue that this approach, more so than traditional journalism, helps reveal a “higher truth” about the issues in question. Sack’s literary war journalism–four books and three major magazine articles–was frame analyzed for this study, and several dominant and master frames were revealed. The study found a marked framing difference between Sack’s Vietnam War coverage and that which followed. Literary journalists, while long hailed for their ability to artfully tell true stories, are still journalists first and foremost, charged with conveying an accurate portrayal of the nonfiction events they cover. Few studies have attempted to analyze how literary journalists like Sack frame the issues and people they write about, the role of subjectivity in that process, and its implications for the conveyance of truth. I hope this study will be the first step toward filling that void. 7 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION John Sack was born in New York to middle-class Jewish parents in March 1930. That humble beginning, however, belies the extraordinary life that followed. A stringer for the Mamaroneck (N.Y.) Daily Times at 15, Sack would go on to graduate cum laude from Harvard, even while managing to edit The Harvard Crimson and string for United Press and the Boston Globe during his time in Cambridge. Eventually, such heavy hitters as Esquire, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Playboy and others would routinely come calling for his literary services. He authored hundreds of magazine articles and 10 books during his long career, including The Butcher: The Ascent of Yerupaja (1952), based on his experiences as a UP correspondent covering the 1950 summit of Yerupaja, at the time the highest unclimbed peak in the Americas; Report from Practically Nowhere (1959), a humorous account of his travels through the world’s 13 smallest countries; The Man-Eating Machine (1973), a collection of previously published Esquire articles; Fingerprint (1983), a philosophical tome reflecting Sack’s take on man and modern society; and Dragonhead: The True Story of the Godfather of Chinese Crime – His Rise and Fall (2001), a 12-year odyssey in which Sack ate, traveled and sometimes lived with some of the world’s most ruthless criminals. But Sack also proved more than willing to take on controversial subject matter, as well. This is perhaps best evidenced by his book An Eye for an Eye: The Story of Jews Who Sought Revenge for the Holocaust (1993). Sack uncovered the story quite by accident when he met a woman named Lola Potok in 1986 who claimed to be a Jewish Auschwitz survivor who had gone on to run a brutal internment camp for the Office of State Security in post-war Poland. Initially believing the camps were intended for former Nazis and their collaborators,