CNN coverage of the Gulf War
CNN's coverage of the Gulf War marked a significant evolution in wartime journalism, characterized by real-time reporting and a unique perspective from within Baghdad. As the U.S. and coalition forces launched their operation to liberate Kuwait, CNN defied military restrictions by sending reporters directly to the Iraqi capital, allowing them to provide live updates as the conflict unfolded. Notably, CNN was the first outlet to report the initiation of the war, ahead of official military announcements, and its continuous coverage from Iraq brought unprecedented visibility to the conflict.
Despite operating under Iraqi censorship, CNN's reporters, including Peter Arnett, delivered compelling narratives about the war's impact on civilians, often contradicting U.S. military accounts. This led to polarization in reactions; while some criticized CNN for perceived bias and reliance on Iraqi propaganda, many American journalists felt constrained by the U.S. military's strict media pool guidelines. The situation highlighted the complex dynamics of information dissemination during wartime, as CNN's reporting not only informed the public but also influenced U.S. foreign policy discussions.
The term "CNN effect" emerged, reflecting the network's impact on both media coverage and military strategy. Ultimately, CNN's innovative approach and commitment to real-time reporting significantly reshaped how wars are covered and consumed by global audiences, establishing it as a leading news organization during the Gulf War era.
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Subject Terms
CNN coverage of the Gulf War
The Event The Cable News Network defies U.S. military guidelines restricting independent news coverage of the Gulf War
Date January 17-February 27, 1991
When the Cable News Network first began broadcasting news twenty-four hours a day in 1980, critics referred to it as the “Chicken Noodle Network.” However, the network was able to establish itself as a major competitor with the three major U.S. news networks with its extensive live coverage of the 1991 Gulf War.
As journalists arrived in Saudi Arabia to cover the impending attack on Iraq by the United States and its U.N. allies in an effort to liberate Kuwait, they discovered that the U.S. military was not allowing the same level of independent reporting they had when they covered the Vietnam War. Journalists now were required to follow strict media pool guidelines limiting what information they would be permitted to report. Military public affairs officers would shepherd journalists on guided tours of coalition troops, deciding where the reporters could go and whom they could interview. However, the Cable News Network (CNN) refused to be confined by the military’s restrictive media pool guidelines. Instead, the network sent reporters to Baghdad to do what had never been done before—cover the war live from the enemy’s capital city.
When the first allied bombing raid on Baghdad began on January 17, 1991, CNN was the only news outlet able to broadcast live telephone voice reports of the attacks. Hiding under beds and desks in a Baghdad hotel, CNN reporters Peter Arnett, Bernard Shaw, and John Holliman were the first to tell the world that war had begun, thus scooping the U.S. military’s official announcement by twenty-seven minutes. During the initial hours of the invasion, with no video available for another twenty-four hours, even the competing U.S. networks were broadcasting CNN reports, complete with the CNN logo on the screen. U.S. general Colin Powell, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged in his first two media briefings that the Pentagon, too, was watching CNN.
The Iraqi military temporarily stopped CNN’s nonstop war coverage by banning all live broadcasting from the country, forcing CNN’s Baghdad team off the air after sixteen intermittent hours. Iraq later expelled all the foreign media except for CNN’s veteran war correspondent Peter Arnett and his team, producer Robert Wiener and engineer Nic Robertson.
CNN was beyond the reach of the U.S. military censors, but now the network had to abide by Iraqi media-censorship rules. The Iraqi government selected CNN’s reporting locations and monitored Arnett’s interviews. As a result, many of Arnett’s stories focused on bombing damage to civilian areas and the suffering of the Iraqi people. Two weeks after the war began, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein granted CNN’s Arnett his first television interview, which was beamed to millions of viewers in 106 countries.
CNN’s war coverage would contradict information provided by military officials during their daily televised media briefings. In one story, Arnett reported that military cruise missiles had destroyed a baby powdered milk factory in Baghdad and not a chemical weapons plant as the military had stated.
Despite pressure from the U.S. government to leave Iraq, CNN stayed in Baghdad throughout the Gulf War and dominated the war coverage by providing a continuous flow of information from Baghdad, Riyadh, Amman, Tel Aviv, and U.S. military and White House news conferences.
Reaction to CNN’s War Coverage
Many Americans, including members of Congress and even fellow journalists, severely criticized CNN for airing reports about the war that had been provided or censored by the Iraqi government. Arnett was called a traitor and an Iraqi sympathizer, and his reporting was labeled as a propaganda tool by Hussein. CNN’s competitors called its round-the-clock war coverage biased, amateurish, inaccurate, and simplistic. However, at the same time, hundreds of U.S. reporters sent to Saudi Arabia felt censored because they did not have easy access to the troops on the ground and were not allowed to go with the fighter jets that bombed Baghdad. The Pentagon explained that the media pool guidelines were necessary to protect U.S. troops, military operations, and even the journalists because U.S. enemies were watching CNN.
Because the U.S. military knew that Iraqi government leaders were watching CNN’s live war coverage as a source of intelligence, it used CNN and other television news organizations as part of its strategy to confuse the enemy. The military allowed worldwide television coverage of its warships practicing a landing off the coast of Saudi Arabia, giving the impression that the military planned to attack by sea, but never let on that the practice landing was staged to deceive Iraq. When allied forces attacked on February 24, 1991, the attack came by land instead. One hundred hours after the ground war began, President George H. W. Bush ordered a cease-fire, and it was CNN that broke the news of Hussein’s offer to withdraw from Kuwait.
Impact
CNN’s continuous presence in Baghdad, along with the technology that allowed its reporters to get its war coverage to viewers around the world, catapulted the network past the three major U.S. networks for the first time in its history. CNN’s lasting impact on the Gulf War even led Pentagon officials to coin the term the “CNN effect” to describe the impact of the new global media with twenty-four-hour, real-time news coverage on U.S. foreign policy decision making.
Bibliography
Allen, Thomas B., F. Clifton Berry, and Norman Polmar. CNN: War in the Gulf: From the Invasion of Kuwait to the Day of Victory and Beyond. Atlanta: Turner, 1991. A documentary of CNN’s coverage of the Iraqi-Kuwait crisis, including the 1991 Gulf War.
Arnett, Peter. Live from the Battlefield: From Vietnam to Bagdad—Thirty-five Years in the World’s War Zones. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Arnett’s memoir detailing his experiences covering the Gulf War for CNN as well as his thirteen years as a Pulitzer Prize-winning Associated Press reporter covering the Vietnam War in which he compares the controversy surrounding his Gulf reporting with the criticism he received for his reporting during Vietnam.
Wiener, Robert. Live from Baghdad: Making Journalism History Behind the Lines. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002. Wiener’s account of the six months he spent as the CNN executive producer with Peter Arnett in Baghdad reporting on the Gulf War.