War Pictures: Honorable or Unbearable?

Should the horrific pictures of terrorism be broadcasted on the news and the front page of the paper on a daily basis or should the news industry show some ethics and courtesy to the dead? This is the main question raised between Sydney H. Schanberg’s and Mark Bowden’s papers. Schanberg's and Bowden's use of rhetorical strategies help bring across both prominent yet drastically different views on news censorship and its affect on the public eye. Schanbergs use of diction, pathos, logos, and author credibility help to bring out the emotion in his paper, while Bowdens use of the same rhetorical strategies help form a bridge between him and the audience.
Schanberg’s use of diction in his paper brings out emotion in his readers. Take for example the first line of his paper where he calls “history a slaughterhouse” (684). He immediately draws in his audience by using the word “slaughterhouse”(684) because it pulls on the reader’s imagination to view history as a blood stained house of death. Right from beginning it is easy to see that he uses word choice in order to paint that image of war as an unjust slaughter and that if we as a nation are going to allow it to happen then we should stomach the results that come from it. By using words like “slaughter”(684), “grisly crime”(685), “gruesome pictures”(685), and “gruesome horror”(685) throughout his paper he keeps this image fresh in the minds of his readers. He also pulls on the readers already boiling anger towards the government by stating that the government “blocks”(684), “prevents”(684) and even “intimidates”(684) the press into being compliant. The government doesn’t allow media at soldiers’ funerals’, it pushes to show that they are only protecting the privacy of those families in their time of grief. Another point to make would be when he actually gives a name to the government. In the sixth paragraph, once he has fueled the public rage towards the government, he puts a label to it and calls it the “Bush administration”(684). His strong diction also provides a backbone to his use of logos. His word choice makes the statistics interesting and keeps the anger while informing the audience.
His fourth, fifth, and sixth paragraphs are full of statistics and facts that he uses to fuel the readers rage towards the government for suppressing these images from the news. He tells the reader that these pictures are becoming more and more sparse, then continues to state that “five GI’s die every two days”(684), thus making the reader feel uninformed and lied to. Then he adds on to this by asking how American voters are supposed to make “informed decisions”(684) when they have no knowledge of what is truly going on. During these three paragraphs the reader can also get a sense of what seems like a hidden agenda because the hatred for the government really comes out here. It’s almost like his paper switches topics from censoring of “gruesome pictures”(684) to the corruption of the “Bush administration”(684).
In the midst of these statistics and name-calling, Schanberg solidifies his position by stating that he was in the military and has covered plenty of war stories as a reporter. This is where he uses his own credentials to sway the audience into believing him further. He continues this by stating later in his paper that a reporters or photographers “primary mission has to be one of getting the story right”(685). Stating that nothing should be omitted due to “timidity”(685) or “squeamishness”(685). Here he brings back his appeal to pathos by saying that he always tried to make the reader smell, feel, see, and touch what he had witnessed that day. This helps build on the connection between Schanberg and his readers.
His last paragraph hones in on his appeal to pathos by using the answers that his photographer (David Lesson) gave him when he asked him some questions. Throughout the entire paper the reader’s attitude has been one of rage towards the government but in the end Schanberg try’s to change it into love and compassion for our fellow man. Lesson states “the greatest dignity and respect you can them (the dead) is to show the horror they have suffered, the absolutely gruesome horror.”(685) and by doing so brings the audience to believe that these aren’t just “gruesome pictures”(684), but stories of the gruesome horror these people had to endure. Schanberg is also very picky about the label he gives those people. He doesn’t classify them by race, religion, or even sex because he knows that by doing so he will help form a bias against them and that is not what he wants the reader to see. Instead he states: “…..these human beings lying crumpled at the scene of the slaughter”(684). By doing this he is trying to show the reader that these human beings could be anybody. With these statements he changes the tone of the paper from anger and rage into a more compassionate one showing that he just wants to show respect by displaying these pictures, that by allowing these pictures to be shown on the 6 O’ clock news, we will be honoring the dead and justifying their death. The last paragraph is like a subtle call to action because he wants his audience to be moved by the pictures, moved enough to protest against war and the “Bush administration”(684). It’s almost as if he uses pictures as a cover to showing the corrupt government and the war it leads the American people into.
Bowdens view, yet completely opposite, pulls on the same rhetorical strategies to amplify his point as well. Bowdens diction helps portray him as a man of intelligence. Throughout most of his paper he seems as if he is talking to an audience of people who can easily be swayed and try’s to use it to his advantage. When he uses the words “traditionalists”(688), “sober”(688), “reputable”(688), and “sensationalism”(688), they give his paper that sense of education. This is important to point out because the only credible he seems to give would be that he was a reporter and therefore he is speaking from experience. Other than that he doesn’t seem to have much credibility when it comes to terrorism and its effect on the public eye. This would point out why his word choice is so strong in making him seem more educated in the topic than he really is.
In the first two paragraphs he uses pathos to bring the audience closer to himself. He uses the examples of the videotapes of grisly beheadings and the emotions that arise in the audience to make a connection with his audience. In the third paragraph he begins to show his purpose and almost seems to plead with the audience to understand his point of view. Now in this paragraph Bowden has two points, that the news industry has changed from “resisting sensationalism”(688) to “whatever grabs the most attention leads”(688). This helps in his point to prove that the news doesn’t always point out the important news but rather whatever makes the bigger buck. The second point he brings out is that the American people (his audience) has enough common sense to sort out what is more important, and he does this by using the following example: “Scott Peterson murder trail stacks up against uranium enrichment in Iran”(688). He continues to bash on the news industry by showing that by broadcasting these images and making them top news, we are only indulging the terrorists and that when we finally do become accustom to it they will just find something more gruesome to broadcast.
In the middle of his paper he switches from pleading with the audience to trying to convince the audience by using logos. For example, paragraph four starts out with: “Must we help them?”(688), which is a question that he is pleading to the audience to give an assumed answer to. As the paragraph continues, however, so does his attitude and thus his tone. In the next paragraph he is now telling the audience that we don’t have to make these pictures top news. He follows this by using examples of past incidents where certain items were withheld out of respect for the situation. The following paragraphs are full of statistics where he try’s to prove that these pictures aren’t the “most important events in the world on the days they occurred”(689). He try’s to outweigh the beheadings of two Americans with three thousand deaths in Haiti from hurricane Jeanne. He brings out the five points that make beheadings of Americans by terrorists effective: “graphic news coverage, tearful vigils with family members, high-visibility funerals, commentary, and analysis.”(689) All these examples that he throws at the reader are just to show that one persons death is no less significant than another’s. Now he does keep the audience on his side by displaying pathos and word choice to state that the beheadings are “newsworthy”(689) and that the press should never censor or bury bad news. However, he focuses on logos and uses diction to push and prove that one death is the same as another’s and we as a nation shouldn’t allow one to stand above the others.
A final point to show is his change in tone and diction in his last two sentences. He seems to dumb down his diction and his tone seems to be directed at a group of kids: “They led because the cold men behind them wanted them to. I think we should consider the consequences of continually giving those men their way.”(689) The use of “cold men”(689) makes the statement seem childish. He loses that educated tone he carried throughout the paper and turns his audience into a group of young kids, which basically destroys the ending of his paper.
On judging the effectiveness of these two papers, Schanberg’s paper is definitely more effective because of his diction, credibility, and use of logos. Bowdens downfalls aren’t many but major. His last two sentences, as stated above, cost him much credibility among his readers, and his change in tone also hurt him due to the fact that it was a switch that made the audience lower than him. When he switched his tone he was no longer level with his audience, yet above them. Schanbergs paper, however, was one that didn’t make him seem bigger than his audience. He made a connection with the audience, gave them an emotion, fueled that emotion, and then gave the audience a direction to blast that emotion. Bowden’s paper, although effective, doesn’t portray these aspects and thus he loses the audience here and there in his paper.
Now the only true question left to ask is: where do you stand?








Work Citied

1. Bowden, Mark. “News Judgment and Jihad”. Writing Arguments, 7th Ed.
John D. Ramage, John C. Bean, June Johnson. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.
2. Sydney H. Schanberg. “Not a Pretty Picture”. Writing Arguments, 7th Ed.
John D. Ramage, John C. Bean, June Johnson. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007.