Boston University journalism professor Fred Bayles and three other local panelists will be turning the media’s critical eye on itself in the new television series Critical Focus: A Forum on Media Today, set to air its debut episode on the topic “Media and War” on Dec. 14.
The show, a collaborative effort between Somerville Community Access Television and Cambridge Community Television, will film six episodes.
According to CCTV Operations Director John Donovan, the technology connecting the two stations is a new development in cable infrastructure.
“We know for sure that the show will be available to anyone with cable TV in Cambridge and Somerville,” he said.
The show will also be available to access stations around the country and any station willing to purchase a $10 DVD. Bayles will be appearing on the first episode and said he had many reasons for agreeing to be a panelist.
“One is to hear myself talk,” he joked.
Donovan said the purpose of the show is to help people understand how much the media influences their perception of reality.
“We’re surrounded by media,” he said. “What we understand about the world comes to us largely through the media. We really don’t understand the way they’re shaping the discussion.”
SCAT Director Wendy Bloom said the public should know more about how much the media influences people.
“The media is so ubiquitous in our environment,” she said, “and people aren’t aware of the effect it has on thoughts and behavior. The mass media is so controlled by corporate interests that it supports a certain point of view, and there are other points of view that we don’t hear.”
Bayles will also share his views on the difficulties reporters face when covering wars.
“I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding about press coverage and covering war,” he said. “I don’t think the public understands the intricacies of what affects coverage, particularly what’s going on in Iraq these days or how hard it is for reporters to get access to information. They need to understand how understaffed most news organizations are and the dangers that people face.”
Bloom said she wanted to have a diverse group of people on the program who would express a wide range of interests. The first show on “Media and War” features four panelists, including Bayles, two professors from Emerson College — journalism department acting chair Janet Kolodzy and visual and media arts department chair Michael Selig — and Northeastern University journalism professor Dan Kennedy.
Bloom said she chose the panelists for their expertise in researching war and personal experience in wartime reporting. She sought Bayles for the show because of his Gulf War coverage.
Donovan said the show on “Media and War” will focus on the war in Iraq, specifically why the media did not discover that the government did not have weapons of mass destruction.
“I mean, we’ve got media up the ‘wazoo’ here,” he said, “and they basically just walked the party line.”
Bayles said most people do not understand the difficulty of discovering definite information in a war zone.
“In any war, you have a large area involved,” he said. “There are hundreds of thousands of troops, and various things are happening at once in different places. It’s hard to say with any finality that we’re giving you a thorough and accurate description of everything that’s happening.”
According to Bayles, many people thought the media simply refused to report the number of Iraqis who died in the first Gulf War.
“The fact was that the media didn’t know — it wasn’t an attempt to hide anything,” he said. “I don’t know that anybody knew that, including the government.”
Bayles said reporters in Iraq face the problem of not being able to interpret military terminology accurately.
“Reporters sent to Iraq don’t have much of a background in the military,” he said. “That changed after 1972 when the draft ended. Not many papers have full-time military writers. Even in large newspapers, when you do have a war, they bring in a lot of reporters to help cover it.”
When reporters mistakenly use incorrect ranks or nomenclature in questioning soldiers, they are unlikely to get eager responses, Bayles said.
“The military is suspicious of the media,” he said. “When a reporter is plainly uninformed, the military personnel are less inclined to want to talk to that person, because they’re afraid he or she is going to get [the story] wrong.”
But Bayles said he appreciates the sacrifice reporters make in covering Iraqi violence.
“I have a lot of respect for the people out there,” he said. “Reporters can’t be out there for more than half-an-hour without being in danger.”
Having dodged enemy fire several times, Bayles has faced many risks for his stories, including getting caught in an ambush in Saudi Arabia and the end of a fire fight in Haiti.
“It’s an incredible rush,” he said. “You’re really reporting on life and death issues. It can be very addictive.”
Bayles quit reporting in war zones because of his family’s growing concern for his safety.
“As my daughter got older, these little adventures of mine really affected her,” he said. “There was a period of time where nobody knew where I was for four or five days. You have to make a choice at a certain point about what sort of toll this takes on your family.”