Communication in the public sphere: The ‘war on terror’ and the news media

London, July 7, 2005

Photographer Tim Hetherington, killed in Misurata, Libya, April 2011

Reporter Marie Colvin, Killed in Homs, Syria, February 2012

Iraq invasion, March 18, 2003

London, February 15, 2003

Apologies for Iraq coverage

• New York Times, May 26, 2004 – apology to readers

• “Editors at several levels who should have been challenging reporters and pressing for more skepticism were perhaps too intent on rushing scoops into the paper.”

• “Accounts of Iraqi defectors were not always weighed against their strong desire to have Saddam Hussein ousted.”

• “Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.”

• Front-page article: Iraqi defectors described a secret Iraqi camp where Islamic terrorists were trained and biological weapons produced

• Front-page article: an Iraqi defector said he personally worked on secret facilities for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as recently as a year ago

• Front-page article headlined: "U.S. Says Saddam Hussein Intensified Quest for A-Bomb Parts“

• “Other stories pushed Pentagon assertions so aggressively you could almost sense epaulets sprouting on the shoulders of editors.”

Examples:

NYT reporters

Judith Miller and

Michael Gordon

BBC apology – to the government

• January 29, 2004: “On behalf of the BBC I have no hesitation in apologising unreservedly for our errors” – Lord Ryder, Chairman (the “regime change tape”)

• A BBC reporter had accused the government of “sexing up” the case for war on Iraq

• The insistence by the government that this report was flawed led to the suicide of its source and a public inquiry that ruled against the BBC

• The BBC’s leaders resigned and their replacements apologised to the government

Weapons of mass destruction deployed by a Middle East regime are a threat to this country, Britain’s prime minister has warned.

The regime is training al-Qaeda terrorists for 9/11-style revenge attacks on London, it has a huge capability to commit spectacular atrocities abroad.

It is racing to produce a nuclear weapon – and there is a 1,000-page dossier to prove it.

This rogue state is interfering across the Middle East, arming our enemies and threatening our allies.

The regime uses genocidal rhetoric. Its leaders are hardline, backward fanatics committed to the destruction of Western civilisation.

The country’s military is using its control over global crime networks to push heroin and other hard drugs into Western countries to damage our young people.

Its terrorists planned an attack on the 2012 London Olympics.

Western rulers are looking on in horror, debating whether to use military force to stop the threat once and for all - aware that if they leave it too late the consequences could be catastrophic

Who are they writing about? (UK media, 2011-2012)

Lance corporal Mathew Ford.

440 British soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far.

Jugroom Fort rescue, Helmand, January 2007

Headlines• “It was an extraordinary tale of heroism and bravery of our airmen,

soldiers and marines” – Ministry of Defence

• “Daring operation showed this was ingenuity and bravery of the highest order” – BBC

• “Rescue bid by heroes strapped to helicopters” – Daily Mail

• “Heroes of Helmand”, “a mission that carried echoes of Saving Private Ryan”, “a mercy mission that has already etched itself into contemporary military folklore” – the Observer

• The Guardian said the mission evoked “the heroes of the second world war”

Mathew Ford’s rescue dramatised as a video game

• Ford was shot by a British soldier, who shot 4 other soldiers too

• They lost the body

• The soldiers were badly briefed, didn’t know what they were doing

• Commanding officer was sacked

• There was no need for a daring rescue

• Helicopters expended £1.5m of ammunition during the rescue

• Mission “bore all the hallmarks of a classic clusterfuck” – pilot of helicopter who rescued Ford

What really happened:

The ‘rescue’ of Jessica LynchApril 2003:

• The Pentagon claimed Lynch had been seized after an ambush by Iraqi troops, had stab and bullet wounds, interrogated in hospital

• Navy Seals stormed the hospital under fire, rescued Lynch and took her away by helicopter

The first televised war

Associated Press photographer Huynh Cong "Nick" Ut took this photo on June 8, 1972. Crying children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, run down Route 1 near Trang Bang, Vietnam, after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places

Vietnam, 1963-75

• Liberals AND conservatives in the US believe the media played a decisive role in turning the public against the Vietnam War and thereby influenced its outcome

• Belief: any war that is televised will lose public support

• Conservative version: the media were villains by covering it in a negative way

• Liberal version: the media were heroes by covering it in a negative way

Daniel Hallin, professor of media studies in California, author of “The ‘Uncensored War’: The Media and Vietnam”, 1986

• 1. Coverage was actually highly supportive of the war in the early years, up until the TET offensive in 1968 – “the free world against communist totalitarianism”

• 2. Coverage was in fact highly sanitised: only very few occasions when viewers saw the “true horror” on their TV screens

• 3. Until the My Lai trial in 1970, atrocities were absent on television

• 4. There was a clear change in tone in news coverage from about 1968, more sober, more sceptical, greater emphasis on casualties

• 5. The media were followers, not leaders, in opinion change

• 6. Extremely important factor was the change in elite opinion

• 7. Collapsing morale of American troops

‘Embedding’ – for and against

600 journalists were embedded with troops in Iraq during the invasion

You only see one side of the story

Ross Kemp: I get my first opportunity to talk with the locals. [To the interpreter] Ask him what he would like to see done?Afghan man: Our question is: what have you done for us since you have come here? You have destroyed our homeland, you have killed our people and demolished our houses. We have supported you, but what have you done for us?Kemp: [clearly frustrated] Obviously the battle to win hearts and minds is not going to be an easy one…(from Ross Kemp in Afghanistan, Sky, 2008)

Arguments against embedding

• Screening - 2009: US officials in Afghanistan admitted that any reporter seeking to embed with US forces is screened to see if it is “positive,” “negative” or “neutral” towards the army

• Censorship - In Helmand, embeds are required to email their copy to the British army’s press information centre for inspection

• Self-censorship - Seymour Hersh: “It is very hard when you're with a group of guys for two weeks or three weeks or a month before they go into combat, and the third day of combat, they panic and shoot up a carload of people at an intersection. You're not going to tell that story.”

More arguments against embedding

• Danger - Terry Lloyd, unembedded British television news reporter, was killed in Iraq by US troops (March 22, 2003)

• Now almost impossible to cover conflict independently without being embedded

• It is the only way to see what is happening, even if it is only a partial picture

• Sometimes you need to be there to get the story

• When the army is in crisis, soldiers want the truth to get out

Reasons to be an embed:

• Christina Lamb was embedded in Helmand in July 2006 when she was nearly killed in a Taliban ambush

• Her report for the Sunday Times newspaper revealed to the country that the British army was involved in a real war

Photographer Jason P Howe was present when a British soldier lost his legs, March2012. Since the photo was published, the army has banned him from embedding

The ‘war on terror’ at home

• September 2005 – Danish newspaper publishes cartoons mocking the Prophet Mohammed

• Protests across the Islamic world lead to 200 deaths

“Islamophobia”:• Resentment at Muslims getting “special treatment” • A feeling of superiority of white British culture over Asian Muslim culture• Fear of a “Muslim threat”, all Muslims become a potential threat• “The terms moderate and extremist are not much use to us when

considering Islam; they sort of merge with one another”

The Sun (Britain’s best-selling newspaper), editorial comment, July 23 2011:

“We must ask ourselves whether – like Norway – we offer too cushy a life to bogus asylum seekers.”

cushy = easy

bogus = illegal

London, July 7, 2005