On the Media 3: Under the Wall

I decided to listen to the podcast "Under the Wall", which was about CBS and NBC's coverage of people from Wast Berlin who were attempting to tunnel under the Berlin Wall to get to East Berlin and free their friends and families. The podcast also discusses the Kennedy Administration's attempts at stifling the story and preventing the journalists from publishing their stories. NBC and CBS both sent journalists to Berlin to video tape the tunneling and get live action of the events as they were transpiring. The news organizations funded two tunnels in exchange for exclusive rights for video of the escapes.

The main ethical issues that arose from the podcast were whether or not it was justifiable for the journalists to try to help these people escape, and whether or not to air their footage. Additionally, the Kennedy administration's attempts to suppress the journalists raises questions. The physical context of the podcast is, most notably, Berlin, Germany, and more specifically, under the Berlin Wall. The psychological context is, in my opinion, the most important context to consider in this case. At the time, fear was widespread. Nuclear war was a very real possibility, and people, including John F. Kennedy, feared anything that might cause conflict between the United States and the Soviets, as the wall was located deep within Soviet territory. The cultural context is also important. The journalists, as Americans, represented the United States, in a sense. Documentaries of these journalists aiding tunnelers in Berlin were seen as dangerous because they could incite tension and lead to a nuclear war. The cultural context of Greg Mitchell, who Bob Garfield talks to in the podcast, is also important because Mitchell wrote a book about the Tunnels, which boosts his credibility. Further, his background as a journalist could lead to an inherent bias that would result in him advocating for journalistic freedom and against prior constraint by the government.

Whenever nuclear warfare is a serious threat, the government has to take extra precautions when it comes to international relations. The proposed documentaries could have been extremely dangerous if released to the public. While I wouldn't normally advocate for prior constraint, I think that war and international relations warrant different rules. In 1961, both the United States and the Soviets were testing nuclear weapons. This was a crucial point in history and desperate times call for desperate measures. I can see why the Kennedy administration thought it was best to stifle American journalists in Berlin. Even though the journalists' primary goal was to get footage of the tunnelers for documentaries, they were part of the movement and they were essentially aiding and abetting people who were participating in criminal activity (criminal in the eyes of the Soviets, that is). To play devil's advocate against my own argument, these people were just trying to be reunited with their families and friends. As the podcast pointed out, tunneling under the wall was the difference between enslavement and freedom for some. These were the grounds on which the journalists justified their behavior. I would argue that in the eyes of the President of the United States, the welfare of a small number of people in Berlin is not worth compromising the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans. President Kennedy took an oath to serve the people of the United States, not the people of East Berlin, Germany.

Hindsight is always 20-20. I think this phrase is relevant in this situation because the documentary "The Tunnel", made by NBC, went on to win Emmy awards. Most notably, it was the first documentary to win the Program of the Year Emmy. The release of the documentary did not end up fueling a nuclear war, so it's easy to say that the Kennedy Administration was wrong as we look back in history. At the time, however, the threat of nuclear war was very real. In a blog article on ScientificAmerican.com, David Ropeik details the rise of "Nuclear Fear" in the early 1960's. This fear made some people irrational, but I think that whether or not the threat was real is irrelevant, because the fear was very real. People wanted to feel safe and secure, and although Kennedy may have sequestered journalistic freedom, I think his stance was justifiable and defensible.