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American Morning
Newseum Displays Work of War Journalists
Aired May 28, 2001 - 09:01 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And on that note, we're going to begin with the celebrations and somber remembrances of Memorial Day. Across the country, Americans will pause today to pay tribute to the nation's fallen warriors. At the White House this morning, President Bush signed legislation for the World War II Memorial to be built on the National Mall.
That's where we find our Jeanne Meserve this morning, on the Mall in Washington, D.C. with more.
Jeanne, good morning.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Daryn.
You see behind me the Washington Monument, probably this city's most visible landmark. And then, let me walk you - walk around here and show you that there's a wide open space between that monument and the Lincoln Memorial. And the World War II Memorial will be smack in the middle of that where you see these fountains. This is called the Rainbow Pool. The location and the design of the memorial, which is quite large, had been quite controversial. But with the signing of that legislation this morning, President Bush has effectively ended the controversy. The construction will go forward.
We know the stories of the men and women who fought in World War II and other conflicts because of the journalists who covered those wars. At the Newseum in Arlington, Virginia, a new interactive exhibit has opened up, telling the stories of those journalists and the work they do with photographs, artifacts and first person interviews.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): The exhibit is about the conflict in covering conflicts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire.
MESERVE: Sure, the icons are mentioned here: Edward R. Murrow, Ernie Pyle, Ernest Hemingway. But there is plenty to contradict the dashing image of the roving wartime reporter.
DONATELLA LARCH, REPORTER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": The biggest part of being a war correspondent is the boredom, because you sit for days. Afghanistan, my God, you'd walk for weeks and sit for days.
MESERVE: There is also the conflict between the military's quest for victory and a reporter's quest for a story. The exhibit explores professionalism versus propaganda with the story of Englishman Roger Fenton, the first war photographer. During the Crimean War, he wouldn't show British troops in disarray, much less death. Compare him with Paul Watson, whose camera shot an American soldier being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, Somalia.
JOE URSCHEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, NEWSEUM: People interpreted it as disrespecting a soldier and to, you know, exploiting the violence of the situation. What Watson says he was trying to do was just show people how real this conflict was over there and how dangerous it was.
MESERVE: Eddie Adams' famous image from Vietnam was similarly misinterpreted when it fueled the anti-war movement. The South Vietnamese officer with a gun was exacting retribution from a Vietcong who had just killed a family, but it made him a hounded man.
EDDIE ADAMS, PHOTOGRAPHER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: But I think that two people died in that picture. Not only the man he shot, but him. The photograph destroyed his life, and this was not the intentions to destroy his life.
MESERVE: Covering war produces many internal struggles. They can involve the role one plays and the things one sees. While covering Vietnam for CBS, a visit to an amputee ward on a hospital ship was one of Dan Rather's most vivid recollections.
DAN RATHER, ANCHOR, CBS NEWS: The whole time we were in there, maybe 15, possibly 20 minutes, there was only one word spoken the whole time: mother.
MESERVE: Why would anyone undertake this? They believe there is no bigger story than war.
URSCHEL: If we didn't have them, we wouldn't know what was going on. We wouldn't know the truest story of a military conflict, and we would then be powerless to intervene.
MESERVE: Today, combatants often don't want that truth told, so journalists have, themselves, become targets. Since the war of 1812, more than 700 reporters have died covering wars.
CLARK TODD, CANADIAN TELEVISION CORRESPONDENT: Beirut is a powder keg with a fast-burning fuse.
MESERVE: Canadian television correspondent Clark Todd is one. When his body was found in Lebanon, this inscribed blood-soaked pillowcase was with it -- his last words not for his audience but his family.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MESERVE: War stories tracing 150 years of war reporting remains on display through September 30th. Daryn, back to you.
KAGAN: Jeanne Meserve in Washington, thank you.
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