A reporter who came of age during the Vietnam and Cold War eras shared his own war stories Tuesday afternoon with a generation of budding journalists who have yet to face the national security assignments that will define their careers.
About 45 people-the majority of whom were visiting media fellows from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Russia-gathered in the Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy to hear Bob Zelnick, a 21-year veteran of ABC News, speak about the trials and tribulations faced by national security correspondents in both the United States and, relevantly, emerging democracies.
The first pitfalls a national security correspondent encounters are government and military officials' attempts to manipulate and spin the politically sensitive information they receive.
"In time of war," Zelnick said, "truth is the first casualty... even before there is an armed conflict."
This situation makes the national security correspondent's job more difficult, Zelnick said, but not impossible. When working in countries governed by information-controlling regimes, he continued, local journalists who are not able to broadcast certain information often will leak the news to U.S. journalists in order to publicize otherwise suppressed information.
One of the most notable distinctions between reporting on national security and reporting on other areas is that "the reporting of national security can impact policy immediately and seriously," Zelnick said. Television images of degradation and violence often prove to be powerful and provocative, he added, interesting the American public in issues they otherwise might ignore.
Zelnick-who currently is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace and has covered numerous beats for ABC News, including the Pentagon during the Gulf War-explained how he established "a certain space" wherein he was able to cover effectively the nation's security concerns.
First, Zelnick stressed the need to develop contacts at all levels of military command, from the four uniformed services' press officers to senior members of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense.
"As a national security correspondent," noted Zelnick, who also has covered the Soviet Union, the Middle East and, most recently, Capitol Hill, "you've got to travel before a crisis."
The First Amendment, Zelnick emphasized, aids a national security correspondent both directly and indirectly.
"It's a constitutional tradition," he said, "as opposed to a rule that simply allows me to state my report." A general may grant a reporter access to the front lines not because he legally is required to do so but because he values highly the principles of freedom of information and of the press. "The most important is the underlying value," Zelnick said.
The hardened newsman also stressed to the less-experienced audience that national security correspondents sometimes are forced to believe in themselves when no one else does.
"There are times when, as a correspondent covering national security, you're going to be lonely," Zelnick said. "You know more about your subject than anyone else who may be editing or who may be responsible for putting it on the air."
Following his hour-long speech, Zelnick fielded questions from the audience. In response to a question posed by Oli Holsti, George V. Allen professor of political science, Zelnick said he believes the degrees of animosity and cynicism between the military and the press have definitely decreased during the years since the Vietnam War.
"The raw ideological divides are largely gone," Zelnick said, citing the end of the Cold War as a primary cause.
Although he admitted both that "in time of war, reporting can aid the enemy" and that he previously has chosen to withhold stories in the interest of national security, Zelnick said "more often than not, little that you do really is going to adversely affect your country's security.... The public has a right to know what you report."
Replying to a question from Dee Reid, program director for the DeWitt Wallace Center for Communications & Journalism, Zelnick called the media's recent coverage of foreign affairs "shameful." Zelnick said many news agencies have eliminated their foreign bureaus since the collapse of the Soviet Union, thereby making themselves incapable of covering adequately overseas conflicts.
Zelnick, who has won two Emmy Awards, was a lawyer for two years before venturing to and writing about Vietnam in 1969. In addition to ABC News, Zelnick has worked for The Christian Science Monitor and National Public Radio.
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