Abu Ghraib follow-up stories: Political climate and construction of a legitimate controversy within the cultural-ideological boundaries of the U.S. press

Abu Ghraib follow-up stories 1

Abu Ghraib follow-up stories: Political climate and construction of a legitimate

controversy within the cultural-ideological boundaries of the U.S. press

The Abu Ghraib breaking stories by CBS and The New Yorker scooped the news media with reporters on the ground in Iraq. The study drawing on Hallin’s (1986) model of American journalism shows why and how the elite newspapers missed the lede on Abu Ghraib and then goes on to show how after being scooped The New York Times and The Washington Post, working within the norms of the dominant paradigm, transformed the “outrage” and “deviance” that was hallmark of the CBS and The New Yorker breaking stories into “a legitimate controversy” in follow-up stories. In addition, this paper shows that the dominant journalistic paradigm (Reese, 1997) works best in the sphere of legitimate controversy in which cultural-ideological boundaries of the elite press are maintained. Key Words: Abu Ghraib, war reporting, cultural-ideological boundaries, journalistic paradigm, models of American journalism, follow-up stories and content analysis.


Abu Ghraib follow-up stories: Political climate and construction of a legitimate

controversy within the cultural-ideological boundaries of the U.S. press

The Abu Ghraib news event has attracted a lot of scholarly attention (Anden-

Papadopoulos, 2008; Bennett et al., 2006, 2007; Entman, 2006; Jones and Sheets, 2009; Porpora

et al., 2010). The studies have provided mixed support for the event-driven indexing (Bennett

and Livingston, 2003) and the cascading activation (Entman, 2004) models of news framing.

However, the issue that this paper addresses– what does Abu Ghraib news coverage tell us about

how political climate and cultural-ideological boundaries in American journalism influence the

social production of news– has not attracted much attention from scholars (Hallin, 1986; Reese,

1997). The paper hopes to show that the social artifacts of frames and source attributions in the

news can be explained as outcomes of macro levels influences on the journalistic standards that

determine who gets to be heard and what merits to be legitimized as public knowledge.

Thus the purpose of this paper is to show how Hallin’s model (1986) and Reese’s (1997)

theory of journalistic paradigm provide a useful conceptual framework to understand and explain

the reporting on Abu Ghraib in America. Why it took almost a year for the Abu Ghraib story to

break in the American media, and after the story broke how the journalists reconstructed, in the

follow-up stories, what had happened in the prison and who was to blame. Even though on the

surface their arguments appear to originate from different premises, there are similarities in how

they explain the social process of production of news as an exercise of power and boundary

maintenance, especially with reference to sources— who and what is worthy of being heard in

the mainstream news media (Shoemaker and Reese, 1991).

To understand how the U.S. media first resisted and then pursued the scandal, the paper

will focus on the lagging coverage in The New York Times and The Washington Post after the


two newspapers were scooped by CBS Sixty Minutes II and The New Yorker. The rationale for

focusing on the coverage of the Times and the Post are: 1) The newspapers had committed large

resources to cover the war in Iraq and had reporters on the ground, yet they failed, in the first

place, to bear witness and shine light on the scandal (Cirillo and Ricchiardi, 2004; Ricchiardi,

2004); 2) the newspapers are viewed as the upholders of the journalistic standard in American

journalism (Hindman, 2005).

Additionally, the paper suggests that the follow-up stories, lagging coverage, must be

seen as a distinct category of news stories like “developing story” or “continuing story”

(Tuchman, 1973). Over a long period of time a news story inevitably gets intertwined with other

developing events (Bennett, Gressett and Haltom, 1985; Reese, 1997). For example, over time

Abu Ghraib news story got entangled in the developing events such as the torture of unlawful

combatants from the Afghanistan War and the detainees in the secret CIA prisons. Thus the time

period is important for what is being described here as “follow-up stories” and is an important

factor from the perspective of data collection (more about it later). In a follow-up story a

journalist is driven by insatiable curiosity and moral outrage that inspires her/him to reconstruct

the past, i.e. what happened in Abu Ghraib.

The CBS and The New Yorker breaking stories placed the blame for the abuse/torture of

the detainees on the senior commanders. To control the fallout of the scandal the U.S.

Government (White House) responded by placing the blame on a handful of soldiers seen in the

pictures (a few bad apples). The Columbia Journalism Review (2004: online) in a commentary

stated, “Since the story broke, the press has pursued it aggressively— and with a much-needed

dose of skepticism, as the administration attempts to lay the blame on a handful of soldiers.” The

Times and the Post, like many others, scrambled to catch up and reconstruct what had happened


in the Abu Ghraib prison. Thus the focus of a follow-up story often is on investigating and

reconstructing the past with the objective to shine light on who should be blamed for a scandal

(Belvens, 1997; Ettema and Glasser, 1989; Marron, 1997; Protess et al., 1991). This paper hopes

to show that through quantitative content analysis of follow-up news stories, for sources and

attribution of blame, we can show how the model proposed by Hallin (1986) helps us understand

the lagging coverage in the Times and the Post. Now let us first review what we already know

from the earlier studies.

Earlier studies on Abu Ghraib

The past studies on Abu Ghraib present a complex picture of the government’s attempt to

manage the scandal. The studies have mostly focused on the descriptive labels/frames, e.g.

abuse/torture and a handful of soldiers/a few bad apples used by the sources to explain what had

happened in the Abu Ghraib prison. Bennett et al. (2006) tested their hypotheses drawn from the

event-driven indexing news model (Bennett and Livingston, 2003), the indexing model (Bennett,

2003) and the cascading activation model (Entman, 2004). They found that the hypotheses drawn

from their indexing model were supported and the journalists were not successful in using non-

official sources (e.g., independent sources and reports by human rights groups) to challenge the

official frame of “abuse” and assigning of blame on “a handful of soldiers.” In another study,

Entman (2006) compared the reporting on Abu Ghraib with the killings and hanging of dead

Americans in Fallujah. However, in this study Entman (2006) was primarily interested in testing

homogeneity in news (New Intuitionalism), and found that the reporting on Abu Ghraib was

diverse. Anden-Papadopoulos (2008) has argued that the pictures were a compelling feature of

the news stories on Abu Ghraib as they showed soldiers treating Iraqi detainees in demeaning,


humiliating and sadistic manner. The power of the photographs to establish “a torture frame”

made it difficult for the official to minimize the damage.

Building on Bennett et al.’s (2006) findings on “politically descriptive labels”

(abuse/torture/mistreatment) Jones and Sheets (2009) performed a content analysis of Abu

Ghraib news from seven countries and found that the U.S., British, Australian and Canadian

press “avoided torture” and often used “innocuous terms such as abuse or mistreatment” to

describe what had happened in the Abu Ghraib prison, whereas, Germany, Italy and Spain used

the label torture. They explained the difference as a consequence of macro factors such as

cultural differences among the countries. Porpora et al. (2010) have challenged the findings

reported by Bennett et al. (2006), specifically about coverage in The Washington Post. They

found that the Post did succeed in presenting a counterframe to the “a few bad apples” frame

pushed by the government. Their study supported Entman’s (2004) cascading model rather than

Bennett’s (2003) indexing model.

Indexing, cascading activation and cultural-ideological models

The indexing model (Bennett, 2003) argues that the media frames, especially in the

domain of foreign affairs, are indexed to the frames sponsored by officials. The officials quickly

“get on top” of the news-event and lead the news, rather than follow it. Whereas, the cascading

model (Entman, 2004) explains how the power of sources influences cascading of dominant

news frames. The power is determined by where a source is situated in a stratified power

structure with White House and Pentagon sources on the top, Congress in the middle and outside

independent sources at the bottom. In Entman’s model a counterframe sponsored by independent

sources succeeds when there is a breakdown of consensus among the political elites. Entman

(2004) developed the notion of breakdown of consensus from Hallin (1986). However, much of


Hallin’s model of macro-level cultural-ideological influence that explains who gets to be heard,

and when, has largely eluded empirical studies.

Maintaining cultural-ideological boundaries in journalism

The social process of production of news as public knowledge stands on legitimization of

news sources and their viewpoints (Fishman, 1980; Gans, 1979; Hallin, 1986; Reese, 1997;

Schudson, 1995, 2003; Sigal, 1973, 1986; Waisbord, 2000). Hallin (1986) in his path breaking

study of war reporting showed that the maintenance of the cultural-ideological boundaries in

journalism mirrors the political climate and shapes the journalistic standards for legitimacy of

sources. Hallin argued that during an ongoing war, a news story such as the one on My Lai

killings that exposes moral bankruptcy and possible criminal conduct of the military, sourced

from independent sources faces stiff resistance from the bureaucratic structures in the

mainstream news media. The My Lai killings became public knowledge after about a year when

the photographs were published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in November 1969 and after

months of resistance Seymour Hersh succeeded in filing a series of follow-up stories in The New

York Times. The publication shattered the silence in the U.S. media on the killings. Similarly, the

story of abuse/torture in Abu Ghraib prison faced resistance for months in the mainstream news

media, despite the fact that the story was out there (See Ricchiardi, 2004).

To understand how the relationship between cultural-ideological boundaries and political

climate influences news Hallin (1986) proposed his model. The model argued that American

journalism operates in three spheres– sphere of consensus, sphere of legitimate controversy and

sphere of deviance– that are separated by cultural-ideological boundaries. Each sphere upholds

varying journalistic standards for legitimating sources and their viewpoints. He differentiated the

spheres from the perspective of who (source) and what viewpoints are “worthy of being heard”


or being legitimized as public knowledge in the mainstream news media (Hallin, 1986: 117-118).

In the sphere of consensus official view dominates, in the sphere of legitimate controversy there

is a balance between official and non-official sources and in the sphere of deviance journalism

relies on sources unworthy of being heard. Moreover, the spheres are not viewed as watertight

compartments. Hallin wrote, “… each ‘sphere’ has internal gradations, and the boundaries

between them are often fuzzy” (Hallin, 1986: 117). Hallin further argued, “Which of these

various models of journalism prevails depends on the political climate in the country as a whole”

(1986:118). For example, he suggested that in a regular political climate the majority of news

stories fall within the sphere of legitimate controversy, but during war most stories fall in the

sphere of consensus. The varying journalistic standards and the professional norms in Hallin’s

three spheres function as a means of boundary-maintenance, and the boundaries separating the

spheres help disengage with perceived threatening values in social production of the news. We

will come back to this momentarily in the discussion on Reese’s notion of breach in journalistic

paradigm. But before that let us understand how journalism in the three spheres is “governed by

different journalistic standards,” and how it influences source attributions and news outcomes,

i.e. the frames that direct meaning (Hallin, 1986: 118).

Varying journalistic standards for sources

Journalists celebrate subject matter, sources and values that are not controversial in the

sphere of consensus. In the American context, Hallin (1986: 118) had used an innocuous

metaphor, “motherhood and apple pie,” to explain the subject matter that falls in the sphere of

consensus. This sphere includes firmly held believes and values of a nation/community that most

journalists perceive as being beyond controversy. For example, it is an overarching truism that

America is a beacon of democracy in the world and this country wages wars to get rid of tyrants


and bring peace to the world. In this sphere journalists report what is said by official sources and

take it as a standard of objectivity and celebrate the official view of the world. They do not feel

compelled to present views challenging the official consensus, especially by independent

sources. They view restating of official pronouncement as a standard of objectivity. ). For

example, we saw that the Times relied on official sources in the WMD stories and never bothered

to report contrary information coming from independent sources (Boyd-Barrett, 2004; Massing,

2004).

Hallin (1986) argued political climate plays an important role. For example, in post-

September 11 political climate, journalism in the mainstream press operated in the sphere of

consensus. The administration had successfully framed the war as a response to an existential

crisis being faced by America and the western way of life (Börjesson, 2005; Zelizer and Allan,

2004). The news media contributed in constructing a national consensus in favor of first the

invasion of Afghanistan, in 2001, and then the invasion of Iraq in 2003 (Coe, et al. 2004; Pfau et

al., 2004, Toledano, 2003).

The sphere of legitimate controversy is the region in which journalistic norms of

objectivity, balance and fairness are upheld and reporters see their role as that of disinterested

observer. Journalists give space to sources, on either side of the political spectrum, to air their

views. A controversy in a news story is bounded by quotes from “established major actors” in

the political process. In this sphere information provided by an official source is contrasted with

the quotes coming from other official sources and sometimes even non-official sources such as

independent experts, public documents, and victims. But in the post 9/11 political climate of

consensus the subject matter and sources that challenged the official view were considered

“unworthy of being heard” and fell in the sphere of deviance (Hallin, 1986). For example, the


conduct of American government can be questioned, but the conduct of troops in war often falls

in the sphere of consensus and is beyond “political debate” (Hallin, 2003). In the prevailing

climate of consensus for the Abu Ghraib story to break in the news the journalists had to operate

in the sphere of deviance, rely on leaks, beyond the acceptable social boundary of legitimate

controversy. This does not mean that the subject matter and sources falling in the sphere of

deviance never get reported in the mainstream press, but when they do, they face resistance from

the gatekeepers. The publication dates are pushed back and the stories are placed in the inside

pages of newspapers, in the magazine sections, and these days in books or the blogosphere.

Perhaps that is why many journalists today are writing books even while the story is alive in the

news cycle.

When journalism operates in the sphere of deviance, Hallin explained, “Here neutrality

once again falls away, and journalism… plays the role of exposing, condemning or excluding

from public agenda those who violate or challenge the political consensus. It marks out and

defends the limits of acceptable political conflict” (Hallin, 1986:117). Working in the sphere of

deviance allows the journalists to express outrage and condemn the people in power without

holding on to the ritual of objectivity. Thus it seems that that the standards in the sphere of

legitimate controversy come closest to what Reese (1997) described as the dominant journalistic

paradigm, a cognate concept that explains boundary maintenance in American journalism.

Cultural-ideological boundaries and journalistic paradigm

Since early years, it has been known that the values and professional norms of journalism

perform the function of sustaining and maintaining the social order (Roscho, 1975; Schutz,

1967). The journalistic paradigm shapes norms, practices and routines of journalism as a

profession. The norms represent a cultural-ideological consensus. Legitimization of sources and


their viewpoints within the paradigm is a play of power and a social process of enforcing

cultural-ideological boundaries and journalistic standards that empowers news as a form of

knowledge (Bennett et al., 1985; Reese, 1997). For example, in the post 9/11 world of consensus,

sources such as the Iraqi detainees and the U.S. soldiers in the lower ranks, who were outraged at

the treatment of detainees, were not viewed as being worthy of being heard. The editors of the

Times and the Post even said that the sources and evidence could not be independently verified

(Ricchiardi, 2004). Often independent verification is a euphemism for verification by official

sources (Sigal, 1973; Tuchman, 1978). Despite information coming from the multiple

independent sources the mainstream elite press still requires “independent verification”— also

sometimes described as “bureaucratic legitimacy of sources” (Fishman, 1980). Moreover, the

Abu Ghraib breaking stories (CBS and New Yorker) exhibited threatening values that were

contrary to the values enforced by the dominant paradigm in American journalism. For example,

the Abu Ghraib breaking stories relied on leaked photographs, reports and use of anonymous

sources whose motivations were unknown. Thus, CBS and The New Yorker breaching the

cultural-ideological consensus reported the story and put the photographs in the public domain.

The editor of the Times reportedly said: “It's the pictures; that's what did it. But it shouldn't

require visual drama to make us pay attention to something like this.” (Ricchiardi, 2004: online).

The pictures were received by many news organizations, but only CBS put them in the public

domain after months of wrangling with the Pentagon and withholding the story for weeks, which

allowed the officials to get on the top of the story (Berry, 2004). Not surprisingly, the

government exploited the “legitimacy” factor to its advantage. Donald Rumsfeld, the then

defense secretary, made the claim that it was the military and not the press that exposed the

abuse of the detainees (Ricchiardi, 2004).


But when the dominant paradigm is breached there is an attempt to “repair” the breach

(Berkowitz, 2000; Reese, 1997). The notion of “breach” is similar to what the others scholars

have described as journalism of “outrage” or “deviance” or “anomaly” (Ettema & Glasser, 1985;

Hallin, 1986; Reese, 1997). The CBS and The New Yorker breaking stories represented what

Ettema and Glasser (1985) described as “journalism of outrage”– the journalism that condemns

and breaches the placid terrain of objectivity and official view of the world enforced by the

dominant journalistic paradigm. Reese (1997) mentioned three specific strategies that repair the

breach– “disengage threatening values,” “minimize the man and his message,” and “reassert

journalistic routines” that give primacy to official sources. Thus in the follow-up stories the task

of “repair” had to be undertaken to restore the cultural authority and to maintain cultural-

ideological boundaries in which the mainstream media operates.

In the light of the above discussion, by knowing who and what gets to be heard (sources

and their viewpoints) we can learn how the follow-up stories dragged the scandal into the sphere

of legitimate controversy. The analysis hopes to show that blame for the abuse/torture in the

follow-up stories repaired the breach by spreading the blame around: a handful of soldiers

(sponsored by White House), senior commanders (breaking story on CBS and New Yorker), and

systemic crisis (Explanation in official Pentagon investigations). Later, in the method section we

will discuss how the descriptive labels, blame frames, were operationalized.

To explain the problem at hand the following specific RQs were formulated for this

study:

Q1: How were the three blame frames – “a handful of soldiers,” “a systemic

crisis” and “senior commanders”– is distributed in the follow-up stories?


Q2. From the perspective of sources and frames the journalism in the follow-up

stories was operating in which of the three spheres?

Q3: How did the official explanation that it was a case of a handful of soldiers

play out in the follow-up stories?

Method

Data Collection

The follow-up stories from The New York Times and The Washington Post served as the

population for investigation. The period selected was about five weeks, from April 28, 2004 to

May 31 2004, following the initial breaking story on CBS and in New Yorker (See Graph 1). The

time period of five weeks selected was because, as mentioned earlier, over a long period of time

a news story inevitably gets intertwined with other developing events (Bennett, Gressett and

Haltom, 1985; Reese, 1997). After about five weeks the Abu Ghraib story got entangled with

other developing news events about torture in the prisons such as Guantanamo in Cuba, Bagram

in Afghanistan and secret CIA prisons in other countries. The period of about five weeks to study

the follow-up stories seemed to be just about right. The number of follow-up stories in the two

newspapers on Abu Ghraib peaked in the second week, when there were about 60 stories on Abu

Ghraib in the two newspapers. The trend continued in the third week and by the end of the fourth

week the number stories started declining. In the fifth week the number of stories on Abu Ghraib

dropped to the same level as in the first week.

The news stories were accessed from Lexis Nexis Academic using the search term “Abu

Ghraib.” The search pulled up more than 200 stories for The New York Times and about 200

stories for The Washington Post. As the social process of production of news is different in news

reporting from editorials and opinion, it was considered that a sample that includes opinions by


media pundits would skew the data. After excluding the editorials, opinions and reports that were

not about prison abuse but just referred to Abu Ghraib in a sentence or two, 107 news stories

were eventually analyzed from the Times and 115 news stories from the Post making a total of

222 news stories (excluding 30 news stories that were used for training the coders).

Coding scheme

The focus of the content analysis of the follow-up news stories was on (a) type of sources

(attributions), and (b) type of “blame frame.” For each attribution, the news sources were

identified as (1) official sources, (2) non-official sources (independent sources), or (3)

anonymous sources. White House officials, members of the Congress, Pentagon officials and

senior military commanders in the field were counted as (1) official sources. The accused

soldiers, accused civilian contractors, Iraqi prisoners, attorneys for the accused soldiers, family

and friends of the accused soldiers, Arab (Iraqi) sources other than the prisoners, and experts

were coded separately and were later clubbed together in the category of (2) non-official sources

(independent sources). The (3) anonymous sources or whistleblowers, often coming from inside

the government, were coded separately from the category of official sources as they did not

follow the official line. As often journalistic expose challenges the official public position by

drawing information provided by insiders anonymously they were later added in the category of

non-official sources. Additionally, each news story was coded for presence or absence of

references to documents and reports. The documents included official reports of the

investigations done by the military, leaked internal documents, and reports of the International

Committee of the Red Cross on war detainees.

Bennett et al. (2006) had found that the White House was successful in placing the blame

on a handful of soldiers/a few bad apples. The breaking stories had placed the blame on “senior


commanders” (Hersh, 2004). The investigations by the Pentagon and Congress had put the blame

on systemic crisis and the reports were cited in the follow-up stories (See the list of official

reports in the references). Briefly recapping the concept of framing— Media frame is a social

construct, an artifact, which explains the “central organizing idea” in a news story that is used to

analyze how meaning is constructed and structured in the news (Entman, 1993; 1992; Gamson

and Modigliani, 1989, 1992; Iyengar, 1991; Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007). A news frame

structures and organizes the most salient aspects of news that highlight “particular problem

definition, moral evaluation, and/or treatment recommendation” (Entman, 1993, p. 52). In this

study the dominant frame of moral evaluation was labeled as the “blame frame” (Perkins, 2005;

Tilley & Cokley, 2005). In the coding scheme the overall attribution of blame in a story was

operationalized for the following blame frames: (1) “a handful of soldiers,” (2) “senior

commanders,” and (3) “systemic crisis.” Each story was assigned one “dominant frame” out of

the three competing blame frames (Scheufele and Tewksbury, 2007). If more than one blame

frame was present and none of theme emerged as dominant, then a code of (4) “no dominant

frame” was assigned. A dominant frame in reporting emerges as a consequence of how a frame

is emphasized in the inverted pyramid structure and narrative of a news story. Thus each story

was assigned a central dominant blame frame by examining the emphasis in the headline, the

lead and the body of the story and seeing who was being blamed for the prison abuse.

As preliminary examination did not show significant differences, and the purpose was not

to compare the coverage in the two papers, the stories from the two papers were added for the

purpose of analysis. Three coders were randomly assigned stories to code. For the reliability of

the coding scheme an inter-coder reliability test was done using Scott’s π. The coefficient of

reliability was 0.98 for sources and 0.89 for frames. Even though in the initial breaking story the


photographs were central to its impact, we did not code photographs, as the two newspapers did

not publish the photographs with the overwhelming majority of Abu Ghraib follow-up stories.

Three trained coders coded the reports for sources and the dominant blame frames. The units of

analysis were the news stories (n= 222) and source attribution (n= 1190). When coding,

attributions within each news story were identified by the coder, with an average of 5.36

attributions per story.

Analysis

It can be concluded from the number of stories that after being scooped the two papers

exhibited a robust and vigorous response to the Abu Ghraib scandal. The dogged pursuit of the

scandal took place in a news cycle that extended for about five weeks following the day CBS and

New Yorker broke the story (See Graph 1). The analysis of the dominant blame frames showed

that in the follow-up stories the two newspapers exhibited the much needed dose of skepticism

and reported information from independent sources that challenged the official explanations as

they reconstructed what actually had happened in the Abu Ghraib prison. Out of the 222 stories

coded, a dominant blame frame could be identified only in 164 (73.80%) stories. In the other 58

(26.20%) stories none of the three blame frames emerged as the clear dominant frame. The fact

that all three competing blame frames (“a handful of soldiers,” “senior commanders” and

“systemic crisis”) were present in the 58 stories suggests the reporting of the two newspapers

often presented a complex picture contrary to the truism that journalism tries to simplify complex

issues.

<Place Graph 1 here>

To answer the first question: the distributions of the dominant blame frames in the 164

stories were as follows. About 42 (25.6%) stories adopted the official frame that blamed a


handful of soldiers for the abuse. In 57 (34.76%) stories systemic problems in the military’s

handling of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and a lack of proper procedures for questioning the

detainees for intelligence purposes emerged as the dominant blame frame. However, in plurality

of follow-up stories, 65 (39.64%), the dominant frame blamed the senior commanders (See Table

1). Thus if we add the number of stories that blamed the “senior commanders” and the “systemic

problems in the military” it was concluded that follow-up stories successfully presented a

counterframe to the “a handful of soldiers” frame sponsored by the administration. It can be

concluded from the analysis of frames in the follow-up stories that there was a legitimate

controversy in the reporting over who was to blame for the scandal.

To answer the second question and understand the results in the context of the sources

and frames vis-à-vis Hallin’s spheres: If journalism in the follow-up stories was working within

the (1) sphere of consensus there will be more official sources than non-official sources. In

addition the point of view (blame frames) of the officials will be privileged. If journalism in the

follow-up stories were to be working in the (2) sphere of legitimate controversy, which closely

identifies with the dominant journalistic paradigm, there will be widespread distribution of

sources, both official and non-official. This will also lead to presence of all the three competing

blame frames: senior commanders, systemic crisis, and a handful of soldier (a few bad apples).

This will suggest a breakdown in the consensus and construction of a legitimate controversy. If

journalism were to be working in (3) sphere of deviance the follow-up stories will rely more on

the information coming from independent sources such as the critics of the war outside the

government, politicians on the fringe of political parties, anonymous sources, human rights

activists, sources among the enemy and other foreigners, victims (Iraq detainees) and accused


soldiers. This will also lead to privileging of the blame frame “senior commanders,” and to some

extent the “systemic crisis” frame.

To answer the third question: the fact that only about quarter of the stories went along

with the administration and reflected “a handful of soldiers” blame frame tells us that news work

in the follow-up stories was not functioning in the sphere of consensus− the sphere in which the

official view dominates the news. It can also be concluded from the number of stories with the

“systemic problem” and “senior commander” frames that there was a breakdown of consensus in

the official circle on the explanation sponsored by the administration (White House, Pentagon

and Congress). We may recall that the blame frame of “systemic problem” was outcome of the

investigations conducted by the Pentagon and Congress. The breaking stories (CBS and The New

Yorker) had put the blame on the senior military commanders and erring soldiers, which appears

to have been toned down in the follow-up stories. Mostly because large number of stories had

“systemic problem” blame frame. Thus once again it can be concluded that the overall

distribution of the blame frame suggests that the follow-up stories presented a complex picture of

who should be blamed for the Abu Ghraib scandal, which in turn suggests that journalism was

now operating in the sphere of legitimate controversy.

The evidence coming from the content analysis of blame frames supports what is learned

from sources in the follow-up stories. Expectedly, the number of sources went up and down as

the number stories increased and then declined, but the important thing was that the pattern

official and non-official sources were similar over the five weeks period (Graph 2). Suggesting a

balance between official and non-official, i.e. the official versions were contrasted with accounts

from non-official and independent sources.

<Place Graph 2 about here>


The follow-up stories contain a wide range of sources— official and non-official

including independent sources. Overall there were more non-official sources, including the

accused soldiers in the lower ranks and military contractors, than official sources (See Table 1 &

Graph 2). When all the sources, excluding the officials, were added up then it was found that

there were more non-official sources (61.20%) than official sources (38.80%). The fact that there

were relatively few anonymous sources (6.50%) also suggests that the journalists in the follow-

up stories tried to work within the professional norms of journalistic paradigm showing

preference for named sources. Moreover only about 36% of the follow-up stories used the leaked

official documents that were so central to CBS and New Yorker story, despite the fact that there

were numerous official investigations that were on going during the same period.

<Place Table 1 about here>

Thus the wide distribution of sources indicates that the journalist did not rely solely on

the official accounts and went out of their official routines to find independent sources for their

story. However, on taking a closer look at the number of different type of sources (Table 1) it

becomes evident that there are very few sources that would fall in the category “not worthy to be

heard.” For example, the number of detainees/victims quoted in the stories (4.42%). Compared

to the detainees (detainees/victims) there are far more other Arab/Iraqi sources (9.34%), which

suggests that the journalists might not have had direct access to the victims. Moreover, they are

far less compared to official American sources. Access could be an explanation why the accused

(16.3%), including the soldiers and the civilian contractors, are quoted more often than the

detainees. The fact that a number of family members and friends were quoted suggests that in

cases where the journalists did not get the opportunity to talk to the accused soldiers or victims,

they made an extra effort to trace the family members and get their side of the story. Among the


non-official sources there were some lawyers (4.8%), mostly because the Abu Ghraib story

involved potential criminal conduct and the laws of war. The lawyers were used as sources to

help construct the legal side of the story. Once again it can be concluded that the pattern of

sources suggests that follow-up stories were not working in the sphere of consensus where

official sources dominate.

<Table 2 about>

The follow-up stories that blamed the senior commanders more often had anonymous sources,

documents, accused soldiers, and Arabs. In comparison, the stories blaming a handful of soldiers

or a systemic problem in the military had preponderance of official sources. In stories that did

not have clear dominant blame frame the sources were equally distributed among official,

anonymous, and non-official sources. The journalists sought out independent sources who

sponsored a counterframe to the one sponsored by the administration. A cross tabulation of the

presence of types of sources and the three dominant blame frames indicated a significant pattern

in the establishment of the frame and presence or absence of official sources (See Table 2). Thus

it appears that when the official sources were present in a story there was a stronger chance of

the official frame to emerge in the story. The non-official sources were not significantly related

to the presence of a dominant frame in the stories. Breaking of unofficial source type into

different sub-types also did not show any significance in the cross tabulation, perhaps due to

small number of cases. However, we need to keep in mind that mere inclusion of a source does

not mean that her/his perspective will get across in the story.

Conclusion

The follow-up stories constructed the scandal as a legitimate controversy and also

highlighted the systemic problems such as the military’s handling of the detainees in Iraq and the


culpability of the senior commanders. The important thing to note is that in the follow-stories

journalism did not revert back to the sphere of consensus, which was the hallmark of reporting in

the political climate after September 11. The content analysis of the sources and the attribution of

blame (i.e. blame frames) suggests that journalism operated in the sphere of legitimate

controversy. However, there was no significant pattern found in the movement of the blame

frames, all three frames were spread over the five-week period. The journalists of the two

newspapers did not entirely buy the administrations’ view that Abu Ghraib was an aberration and

a case of “a few bad apples” or “a handful of soldiers.” This finding is different from the one

reported by Bennett et al. (2006) and similar to the one reported by Porpora et al. (2010). The

primary reason could be the difference in the data set. In this study only follow-up news stories

from the two newspapers (The New York Times and The Washington Post), in the first five weeks

after story was broken by CBS and The New Yorker, were analyzed. The focus on the two

newspapers with reporters on the ground in Iraq was important. This meant that the journalists

had opportunities to seek out independent sources outside the official Washington routines.

However, the finding that when official sources were present in a story it led to the establishment

of the dominant frame reinforces the power of official sources. The mere presence of non-official

sources will not lead to alternative explanations or outcomes in the news.

The findings suggest that the Abu Ghraib breaking story seemingly created a political

climate in which it became possible for the news media to question the policies of the senior

Pentagon officials and the military commanders on the ground in Iraq by seeking out contrary

information from independent and non-official sources. Hallin’s (1986, 2003) argument that the

oppositional stance of the media during any war is often a product of the breakdown of

consensus among the officials/administration rather than a sudden realization among journalists


that they have an oppositional/watchdog role appears to be only part of the explanation. For

example, we see that for the journalists to play the oppositional/watchdog they had to reach out

to soldiers, including accused soldiers, Iraqi detainees, military contractors, family members, and

Arabs, who are at the bottom of Entman’s power structure (2004), in addition to exploiting the

opportunity that opened up with the breakdown in official consensus following the expose.

The distribution of sources suggests that the reporters not only followed the routine

hearings and press conferences, but they also went out of their daily routine to seek independent

non-official sources such as Arabs and family members. However, it can be argued that the small

number of prisoner/detainee and Arab sources in comparison to official sources suggests that the

reporters did not vigorously pursue the victims and who largely remained sources not worthy to

be heard. No doubt there were issues with access to victims. The journalists were restricted to the

Green Zone for security reasons and could not go looking for the Iraqi victims. During the times

of war, in addition to cultural-ideological boundaries and political climate, lack of access to the

sources on the other side also leads to overreliance on the officials on your own side.

Thus the journalists from the two newspapers pursued all possible sources to reconstruct

what had actually happened inside the infamous Saddam era prison. In contrast to the

condemnation and the outrage in the CBS and New Yorker breaking stories the follow-up stories

constructed a much more nuanced picture. Reese (1997) discussing “repair of the paradigm”

mentioned three specific strategies adopted by the news media: “disengage threatening values,”

“reassert journalistic routines,” and “minimize the man and his message.” In the follow-up

stories the journalists also restored the professional norm of bureaucratic legitimacy by giving

officials the opportunity to respond to the evidence that came from leaked photographs,

documents, and non-officials sources.


This study has tried to show that by undertaking systematic analysis of news sources and

outcomes or frames how news is produced within the cultural-ideological boundaries. The study

also suggests that Reese’s (1997) notion of journalistic paradigm works best in the sphere of

“legitimate controversy;” in a way both “consensus” and “deviance” breach the paradigm.

Finally, it also shows the importance of looking at follow-up stories as a distinct category. By

conceptualizing follow-up stories, as a separate category, we can better understand the

performance of the press in pursuing scandals once they fade from the headline or get muddied

by getting entangled with other issues.

Limitations

Nevertheless, as the study analyzed only the reporting done by two newspapers, the

findings cannot be generalized. Moreover, the Abu Ghraib scandal during had inspired this

study, however, to understand how sources and viewpoints are blocked out, because of cultural-

ideological factors and political climate, and later under what circumstances their voices get

heard, we need study other cases. Additionally, in the age of blogs and online news to what

extent the mainstream news media still hold the cultural authority over who is worthy of being

heard and what gets legitimized as public knowledge. To learn more about this, further studies

need to be done on how the mainstream news media pursue blocked stories in their follow-up

coverage after bloggers and citizen journalists break the silence on them in the cyberspace.

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Tables & Graphs

Graph 1: Number of combined follow-up stories in The New York Times and The Washington Post (N==222).

Stories per week

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

1 2 3 4 5

Week

Num

ber o

f sto

ries

Stories per week

Graph 2: Distribution of official and non-official sources in the follow-up stories (N=1190).

Source distribution

0

50

100

150

200

250

1 2 3 4 5

Week

Num

ber o

f sou

rces

Official sourcesNon-official sources

Table 1: Break-up for sources (N= 1190)


Source Type Percentage

Official ......... 38.8% (462)

Unofficial 61.2% (728) Anonymous 6.5% (78) Accused* 16.3% (194) Detainees/victims 4.42% (52) Lawyers 4.8% (57) Family members 8.0% (95) Experts 11.84% (141 Arabs/Iraqis 9.34% (111) *Accused includes soldiers and civilian contractors accused of abuse/torture of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib. Table 2: Cross tabulation for sources and the three blame frames

Source Type Frames χ2 1= Present A handful of Senior Systemic problem 0= Absent soldiers commanders (42) (65) (57) Official sources 8.16* 1 37 42 45 0 5 23 12 Non-official sources 1.43 1 26 47 37 0 16 18 20 * N= 164, df= 2, p=.017

Documents

Abu Ghraib follow-up stories: Political climate and construction of a legitimate controversy within the cultural-ideological boundaries of the U.S. press