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Reporting Conflict by Paul Moorcroft 
A 1999 Vauxhall Lecture Reporting conflict Dr Paul Moorcraft was a senior lecturer at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst from 1973 to 1975. He taught international politics at universities in Africa, Europe, USA and Australasia, but most of the last two decades have been spent as a freelance war correspondent in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. He has worked for Time magazine, BBC radio and the major TV networks, while also producing a series of books on wars, particularly guerrilla conflicts. He currently specialises in military-media relations at the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College. "Miserable parent of a luckless tribe" - that's William Howard Russell's description of his role as the father of modern war correspondents. Russell started it all during the Crimean war in the mid-nineteenth century when his revelations about the army's poor performance helped bring down the British government. Perhaps today's journalists, despite all their fancy hardware, have less influence than Russell's hand-written dispatches. Besides describing the dangers war correspondents face, as well as the problems they sometimes create, I want to talk about a delusion of grandeur which afflicts many of them: namely, the belief that dramatic TV reporting can drive international politics. Although I shall try to give a little of the historical background, I want to discuss the difficulties of contemporary war reporting. There are often bullets and chaos, and of course the paradox: when you see thousands of refugees fleeing in one direction, you often see a small bunch of weirdoes going the other way. Some are experienced war correspondents - hacks they call themselves; others might be foolhardy novices or even celebrity journalists, parachuting into the latest episode of the 'docusoap' we call the new world disorder. Conversely, war reporting can be highly organised: a sternly regulated and slick military operation as in the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein. I spent much of the last 25 years reporting wars as a freelance, and the last year or so working from the military side, with the British armed forces. From this perspective of 'poacher-turned gamekeeper,' I have often thought how similar British officers and their frequent antagonists, war correspondents, really are - despite the innate contradictions of military-media relations. For both, war is usually 95% tedium or hard slog, and then, suddenly, 5% terror. In response to which I have often seen almost identical reactions in both British contingents: determination, initiative, courage as well as crude cynicism and idealism. In addition, humour - often black humour - is a prerequisite for survival. The best camerapersons seem to specialise in it. In Afghanistan, during a major Soviet offensive, while traversing a precipitous mountain pass on horseback, I grew irritated with a Mujehadin guerrilla who was playfully trying to dislodge me by poking a stick up my mount's rear. The cameraman, who happened to be an equestrian champion, shouted at me: "If you can't take a joke you shouldn't be in Afghanistan." Eventually, I learned you always have be prepared to see the funny side, even in Bosnia, which seemed to be almost entirely populated by gun-toting madmen. This story is probably apocryphal, but it sums up the essence of many incidents which actually happened. When a Bosnian Muslim had raved endlessly about some Serb crime in the dark mediaeval past, in utter exasperation the journalist finally said: "But that was in the fourteenth century!" "Yes," the Muslim soldier replied, "but I heard about it only last week." Sadly, the Bosnian nightmare looks like it is being replayed now in Kosovo. As in nearly all contemporary conflicts, Kosovo is a complex internal war. How do we report so many domestic wars - interstate conflicts are rare now - without swamping Western audiences' ability to understand them, let alone transcend their compassion fatigue? In Bosnia, many committed journalists worked long and hard to persuade the great powers, but in particular the USA, to do something, anything, to stop the carnage. Apart for the Band-Aid of undermanned peacekeeping, the key states of NATO will not intervene unless it is in their clear national interest. And when they do react, as in the Gulf, intervention has to be rapid and with overwhelming strength. No more Vietnams, says Washington. US casualties must be light, and above all public opinion has to be kept on sides by massaging the media. This is, at least, my take on the so-called CNN factor. Do the media drive diplomacy, or are governments and their militaries really in control? For journalists this raises the traditional question of censorship. When globalisation of news runs smack into national allegiance during wartime, the even more corrosive issue of self-censorship emerges. Let me put these dilemmas in brief historical context, even though it will be like rollerblading through the Imperial War Museum. Since the days of Homer and Vergil writers have been mesmerised by war, although surprisingly few of these poets, literary types and even today's military historians had actually been in a battle. You can always tell by the absence of a sense of smell in their accounts. Wars stink - of cordite, fear, sweat and the awful reek of death. Until the mid-nineteenth century most newspaper accounts of war were second-hand and rather fanciful, and even when they were first-hand they were often based upon belated and self-serving letters from officers. But when Russell went to report on the Crimean war in 1854 he started a tradition of factual reporting rooted in his own observation. His reporting unnerved the British military and he was branded a traitor and even a spy, but his editor at The Times backed him up. His conscientious modern journalism, allied to the use of the telegraph, frightened the government and the military into a various forms of censorship. Nevertheless, the period from the Crimean war to 1914 is often regarded as a golden age of war reporting, when government censorship felt it could not always keep up with the technological advances in modern communications, the growth of newspapers and the spread of literacy. Also, the battles were colonial conflicts which were not wars of national survival. Governments were happy to allow soldiers to become heroes as journalists romanticised their imperial exploits. Writers such as Rudyard Kipling transformed Wellington's 'scum of the earth' into noble defenders of the white man's burden. Famous writers such as Edgar Wallace, Arthur Conan Doyle and Kipling were drawn to the Boer war in South Africa, where movie cameras also made an appearance. British audiences were shown a Red Cross ambulance under fire from the dastardly Boers. This was dramatic footage indeed, except it was filmed on London's Hampstead Heath. Britain gained an early reputation as a world leader in propaganda and censorship. Then it all changed dramatically for the worse. The golden age was tarnished by the draconian lies of the Great War. And the great conspiracy to keep from the general public the mass slaughter caused by the unholy trinity of trenches, barbed wire and the machine gun. How long would that war have lasted, I wonder, if modern lightweight cameras could have been smuggled into the trenches? In reality, the penalty for unauthorised use of a camera was execution. By and large, journalists went along with this massive confidence trick; some even became enthusiastic propagandists. Humble hacks and famous authors worked overtime to make the Germans into beasts. The classic lie was the assertion that the 'Huns' used enemy corpses to make glycerine for munitions. This was an early precedent for the demonisation of Saddam Hussein and the equally false allegation that his troops removed babies from incubators in Kuwait. The military minders, the centralisation of news and the modernisation of disinformation were pioneered by the British, although the French and Germans did their best to keep up. Worst of all was the self-censorship of hacks who were propelled by ambition, fear or patriotism to go along with the received wisdom of the time, the 'wisdom' of generals enmeshed in a strategy of victory by mass attrition. Then followed the Russian revolution and its appalling coverage, with few honourable exceptions such as the American John Reed, played by Warren Beatty in the film Reds. The Western lies about the early Bolsheviks played no small part in the creation of the cold war and the suspicions that fester even in Yeltsin's Russia. The problem with such big lies was that millions had actually seen what it was like in the trenches and in Russia, and yet so little of the truth was reflected in the media. Journalism's surrender to this massive con trick is the historical reason why hacks are today rated so low in public esteem, alongside estate agents and second-hand car salesmen. In the 1930s the lies and forgeries continued in Abyssinia where it was so brilliantly parodied in Evelyn Waugh's Scoop. In the Spanish civil war acclaimed writers on both sides prostituted their vocation. Arthur Koestler worked as a British correspondent for the London News Chronicle, but also as a spy for the Comintern. Kim Philby went for The Times and the KGB. This was advocacy journalism at its most sinister. In the second world war, Western journalists were again expected to be patriots with pens. During the London Blitz in 1940, sympathetic American journalists such as the great Ed Murrow almost quit the country because of local censorship, even though Winston Churchill's principal aim was to embroil the USA in the anti-fascist crusade. A massive UK propaganda effort was launched in America, but frequently it was hamstrung by Whitehall paranoia. For example, some Jewish film moguls volunteered to produce anti-Nazi films, but the project was torpedoed by unimaginative and secretive bureaucrats in the UK Ministry of War. Meanwhile, the real war on the Eastern Front was hardly reported. Once America did enter the war Washington developed a control freak tendency which still undermines media-military relations. The mood was captured by a military censor in Washington who said, perhaps in jest: "I wouldn't tell the people anything until the war is over, and then I'd tell them who won." Even journalists of the stature of Murrow became mere cheerleaders. They were trusted by the military because they usually went along with Allied censorship or censored themselves. Their talents and the new technology, especially radio, were harnessed to the strategies, or whims, of generals and politicians. This is my theme: very little has changed since 1945. Let me paraphrase the essence of current Western military doctrine: increasingly information - the so-called 'media flank' - is being viewed as a non-lethal weapon which must be fused with other military systems and applied against a number of targets: the enemy's military and population, their own citizens and international opinion. That was true of the cold war, and it is just as true in 1999, despite the John Pilgers of this world. Investigative journalism might work domestically - sometimes - but when it comes to foreign affairs 'Wag The Dog' beats Watergate every time. I spent much of my time reporting in the cold war context. Berlin was the centrepiece of the world divide but all the action took place on the peripheries. One of the western clich}s of that time was: "The Russians keep their people in the dark by telling them nothing. We do the same by telling them everything." I don't think that's entirely true. Where the British governments could keep the lid on media coverage of wars, and hope to get away with it, they did. For the media, Korea was a replay of the anti-Nazi war; correspondents were given rank and uniform and expected to be patriots with pens again. In 1962, during the Cuban missile crisis, Washington enforced total news control. But then things started to go all wrong for the control freaks. In Vietnam the military expected journalists to be as partisan as they had been in both world wars and Korea. In fact, nearly all Western journalists were on side. They swallowed the containment and domino theories whole, although they sometimes questioned the tactical means to implement those strategies. After the Tet Offensive of 1968 the American military wallowed in the Vietnam myth: an unfettered media lost them the war they could have won. It is simply not true, but most American top brass came to worship this false gospel. During the cold war most of the conflicts were barely covered by media increasingly dominated by American interests - unless US troops were directly involved or unless US hostages were taken. Much of the proxy fighting between the US and USSR - whether in Cambodia, Ethiopia or Angola, for example - were largely ignored, even though the conventional tank battles in Ethiopia and Angola sometimes resembled the great battles against Rommel. These wars were sometimes reported by freelance 'bang-bang' specialists. They were dangerous conflicts to cover, but you could usually get access because the guerrillas did not have the technical sophistication to manipulate the media. Indeed they often welcomed the occasional journalist who dared to accompany them. Usually you had to work with one side, unlike Bosnia where you could switch from one faction to another. This poses an ethical question: when you live alongside combatants, share food and experiences under fire, you tend to bond with them. Often your survival depends upon this sense of comradeship. Camaraderie, however, can lead to bias, especially when in skirmishes in the bush, desert or jungle your camera kit and their weapons become entangled. Should war correspondents ever carry weapons? It was a major issue in Rhodesia where the guerrillas never asked for press cards before ambushing you. My strong feeling is that war correspondents should wear neither uniform nor carry weapons. They must be seen to be neutral, both for ethical imperatives, and for the practical reason that if you are caught you are less likely to be shot or imprisoned as a combatant (or spy). In the piece of video footage I am showing you another ethical issue is raised. This looks pretty realistic; in fact it is a scene of Renamo guerrillas on a training exercise in central Mozambique. When it is was broadcast, it should have been captioned as an exercise. Because it is time-consuming and technically complex to film close combat (and avoid getting killed yourself), sometimes training footage or simulated combat is sold as the real thing. The big networks have been caught out and they are very careful to avoid anything that has been staged. And rightly so. Sometimes it is almost impossible to draw a line, however. The film Network News revolved around the morality of asking reverse questions and deploying 'noddies.' Every camera crew with a single camera (and that's the norm) must deploy this piece of theatre to produce nearly every TV interview. It is acting; it is not, strictly speaking, journalism. Let's take another example. The very presence of cameras can 'create facts.' During the South African township revolts of the mid-1980s, time and time again the street kids - young freedom fighters if you prefer - would spot a foreign TV crew and immediately start throwing stones at the police (and sometimes the film crew) and often the police would react by firing at them with tear gas or with shotguns. Lots of 'bang-bang' television resulted but it wouldn't have happened, at least then, without the presence of the cameras. Apartheid raised many moral quandaries for the media, but let me mention two. Firstly, hacks' comfort zones. The anti-apartheid epic and Israel both lured US networks. Both were good running stories, with fine hotels, excellent communications, people who spoke English and, for the resident hacks, acceptable schools and nice houses for their families. It was much easier to be based in Jerusalem or Johannesburg than in the opposing Arab and African countries. Both fortress states were convenient to work in and the story, especially for newcomers, looked fairly straightforward. Both, however, were fiendishly complicated, especially once Yasser Arafat was no longer a terrorist, and once Nelson Mandela was released and violence in South Africa assumed the shape of what was wrongly termed 'black-on-black' warfare. Both stories could no longer be simplified as black-and-white morality tales for a US audience. There were many differences, of course: not least the sophisticated way the Israeli authorities, especially the military, treated the media. Under apartheid, Pretoria's PR henchmen handled the media in the most ham-fisted manner. This leads to my second point. Pretoria, often correctly, interpreted media hostility as part of a moral 'jihad.' Apartheid was so manifestly evil, why shouldn't journalists support its overthrow? Papa Doc's regime in Haiti was also utterly wicked, and Pol Pot's regime was unspeakably evil too. In the end, advocacy journalism inspires all sorts of exceptions to the golden rule: objectivity may be impossible, but it is the prime directive. If you start consciously to take sides, you should seek another assignment or maybe change your profession. Take up PR; it's more profitable than journalism anyway. May I shift my argument from race to religion? Islam has replaced communism for those Americans who need a foreign bogeyman. Professor Samuel Huntington has made this intellectually respectable. In the new Millennium we face the clash of civilisations, he says, particularly across the tectonic plates of Christendom and Islam. This is crystallising as received wisdom in foreign ministries, military staff colleges and foreign desks of news organisations. Osama Bin Laden is the new devil, one to compare with even the great Satan, Saddam. Many of the present difficulties stem from Afghanistan. I'd like to show you a short section of a film I made around Kabul at the height of a major Soviet offensive in 1984. Looking back now, this was reported very much in cold war terms. As it happened, I was wrong then: I didn't think Afghanistan would become the Russians' Vietnam. The Americans armed the Mujehadin with some Saudi money and Chinese help. These same Islamic fighters are now targeting their former allies, using the same American weapons. The Americans (and British) also supported the deadly Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, but this was little reported. What is reported is the cruise missile attacks on Khartoum's chemical factory, partly because of the connection with Osama Bin Laden, and also Saddam Hussein. Yet what is not covered is the US military assistance to many guerrillas - terrorists? - fighting the Islamic government in Khartoum. From my own reporting in the Sudan, it is clear that this factory was producing medicine, not chemical weapons for Bin Laden or Saddam. (By the way, this is another received wisdom: Iraq is and should be our 'Public Enemy Number One.' Yet, in terms of human rights abuses, lack of democracy, freedom of religion etc., it is possible to argue that Saudi Arabia should have been the target of Desert Storm, not Saddam.) Bin Laden touches on many journalistic issues, not least the question of media being manipulated by terrorists to provide what Margaret Thatcher famously called the 'oxygen of publicity.' Compare Bin Laden with Carlos the Jackal. How insignificant Carlos seems now. In the 1970s, there were far fewer casualties, even if there were tedious pseudo-Marxist diatribes. Then came fundamentalism. And another media misnomer because we rarely treat Jewish or Christian fundamentalism, even the Serb variety, as threats. In the Sarajevo siege, Muslim officers often asked me: "Would NATO hesitate to strike if a Christian army in Sarajevo were besieged by Muslims?" Incidentally, I think the media often got it wrong in Sarajevo. The Americans wanted the Muslims to be seen as victims. The buzz words now, I believe, are 'the tyranny of victimology.' The Bosnian Muslim atrocities and their intransigence tended to be ignored by the media. As we approach the Millennium the issue of media and terror has been utterly confused by misperceptions of Islamic fundamentalism. Part of the reason is the rise of economic terrorism: the so-called 'superterrorists.' Marxist insurgency has withered away and, arguably, perhaps, so has religious terror. Greed has displaced religion and political ideology. The Mafiosi, drugs cartels - these are the real dangers of the new century. Often they are intertwined. Take the Taliban, Islamic fundamentalists who trade heroin in exchange for weapons from Russian Mafiosi, who in turn cooperate with Colombian cartels. These are real global threats, but are they effectively covered in the media? Most of the 80-odd current conflicts do not get covered. Kurds might reappear - courtesy of John Major's famous solution worked out on the back of an envelope after the Gulf war. Kashmir, if foreign hostages are involved, or if Robin Cook makes another gaffe. Yemen? Yes, if foreign hostages feature. Tibet: when Richard Gere or Brad Pitt take a fleeting interest. John Pilger has made a brave effort to publicise the atrocities in East Timor. But all these rate little air time even in a country with an 'ethical' foreign policy. Foreign news doesn't usually boost TV ratings and it doesn't bring in advertisers to newspapers. So we are said to be 'dumbing down.' Despite the massive expansion of media, the long-term foreign correspondent has almost disappeared. Foreign bureaux are cut back, parachute journalists go in for quick stories, often with very little context. Media personalities with smart hairdos have replaced a detailed understanding of the context. Often we have to rely on stringers, who rarely risk their careers or their families if they are living in authoritarian systems; and that's most of Asia and Africa. So we get action - 'bang bang' - not the process, pictures rather than ideas, and stereotypes rather than complexity. But I don't know what the answer is when you might be allowed just one minute and twenty seconds for a standard news item or, at the maximum, just seven minutes for a piece I did recently on Sudan for Channel 4 news. That report covered the 40-year-old war in the south, terror camps in the north, allegations of slavery and other human rights' abuses such as forced conversion of Christians, as well as the Islamic goals of the government and the UN humanitarian mission. I am guilty of the sins I have just outlined: so much had to be compressed and simplified. It's the nature of the beast. If I had a world map to hand, I could probably point out 30 or 40 wars you haven't heard of in Africa. Unless half a million are killed, as in Rwanda, Africa is off the media map, except for odd throwback to South Africa, or a Foreign Office bungle in Sierra Leone or Nigeria. And I could do the same with Asia, especially the former states of the Soviet Union. The inattention the media pay to such conflicts is, however, not simply the result of journalists' overload. It is a question of censorship by selection. Foreign desks - even at Channel 4 - are like a supermarket. Want some 'bang bang' from Chechenya, Kashmir, Kwa-Zulu or Tajikistan? No time. A former SAS officer who worked as an ITN correspondent in Bosnia and other war zones often tells the story of how he spent years setting up a report on the resistance movement in Iran. Just as he was about to set off to film it, his editor told him to drop it all for a story on the Spice Girls' finance. That is what the viewers would rather see, he was told. So is it your fault, then? This is a trifle depressing. I would like to re-emphasise my central theme, something that I have been involved with at close quarters for the last year or so: the British military's attitude to the media. It is, I believe, a much more positive news story. The title of this talk refers to the delusions of the media. Most journalists willingly chant the same mantra: TV can make and unmake presidents and drive diplomacy particularly in democracies. To shift responsibility, politicians often pretend that the media are all-conquering, and you can hardly blame journalists for succumbing to such self-affirming voodoo. Diplomats and civil servants, who are addicted to working secretly and methodically, moan that the new technology means that real-time media coverage prevents them from keeping pace. But they said that about telegraphy, radio and TV, long before the suitcase-sized satellite phone appeared. Diplomacy has always adapted, and usually ended up manipulating the new technology for its own ends. Skilled diplomats are rarely victims of media technology. Common sense may argue that live TV pictures of holocaust images of starving prisoners in concentration camps in Bosnia or babies with their throats cut in Kosovo must move public opinion and governments. Commonplace, too, is the assumption that violence on TV has induced a more violent society. Yet there is little or no scientific evidence to prove that violence on TV - fact or fiction - affects the behaviour of individuals or governments. Sure, advertising may seduce domestic consumers, but national interest is far more celibate. The myth of media power in foreign affairs was founded largely, as I said, on the false doctrine that television lost the war in Vietnam. No, it was won by the North Vietnamese, not lost by CBS. For all their sense of self-importance, hacks do not lose wars, even though the PR/media strategy may be a vital ingredient in winning them. There was no media conspiracy in Vietnam because journalists are far too competitive, and possibly too disorganised, to cooperate in any conspiracy. In Vietnam UPI fought bitterly with AP, and both fought with their Washington editors, who tended to follow the Pentagon line more closely. The US military and their political bosses lost the war, and the generals have been trying to shoot the messenger ever since. In the Falklands, the Royal Navy was prepared to win the war and lose the press by ruling the seas and the story. The US military admired the way the Brits had controlled the handful of hacks finally allowed to sail with the fleet. But there was a backlash in Britain because of the extensive government intimidation of the media, even though sometimes Fleet Street, banging the patriotic drum, willingly connived in the deception of both the enemy and the British public. The Americans took the Falklands model and applied it in various adventures in Grenada and Panama. And then the mother of all stitch-ups: the Gulf war. The allies secured ground control over the media before they won air superiority over the Iraqis. Never before had so many journalists been forced for so long to cover a war stone-cold sober. At last the Pentagon reckoned it had avenged its defeat in Vietnam. Journalists in the Gulf were big-time losers. The endless broadcasts of press conferences gave the impression of bored, rude, thick and unpatriotic questions from scruffy hacks in contrast with the hi-tech professionalism of patient, wise and immaculately attired military briefers. Paradoxically, despite the chained media in the Gulf, the Vietnam myth emerged in a new guise: CNN had taken over diplomacy. Wrong again. The US government used CNN for its own purposes: to spread disinformation about an amphibious landing, for instance, or to warn Iraqi commanders that if they used chemical weapons they would punished as war criminals. The military and their political masters perfected a double act in the anti-Saddam war. And after Desert Storm the media were dangled as puppets over and over again, whenever a punishment raid against Bagdad was envisaged. Saddam would be demonised once more; fresh support in the UN and amongst Arab allies would be announced, while the military build-up and deployment were organised. Short sharp strikes would ensue; victory would be declared and any anomalies, or plain lies, would filter out slowly when bits of the Iraqi version were published and occasionally believed. Peacekeeping was different, however. In the Balkan badlands the media were unchained. In the policy vacuum that was Bosnia, the media provided a slogan if not a policy: intervention. But American and European governments did not want to send large ground forces into the Yugoslav quagmire. This, though, was the first true TV war. Lightweight cameras proliferated among soldiers, victims, voyeurs and reporters. The general mayhem permitted explosive pictures of rape, pillage and hungry babies. So some cosmetic concessions were devised to ease the tender consciences of the Western audiences: such as safe areas which became slaughter-houses. Such blood-spattered television can nudge governments a little by raising the emotional temperature, but if foreign ministers do not want to act they will ride out the (brief) media storm. The media can shape policy occasionally, usually when decision-makers are caught off-guard. Somalia might have been an example of the effects of this so-called 'CNN curve.' Starving kids on TV pushed the US troops in, and stark footage of dead US rangers dragged through the Mogadishu streets pushed them out. The truth was more prosaic. President Clinton was not prepared to expend political capital by shoring up a disagreeable foreign adventure which had been a last-minute humanitarian flourish by the outgoing George Bush. Powerful pictures in both cases in Somalia, but politicians decide which way the policy bends. If governments are committed to a policy they will expend time, money and credibility in winning over the media and public opinion, although a constant TV diet of skinny babies can be a nuisance factor in foreign ministries. In short, the media may sometimes prioritise the political agenda for a while but they cannot dictate the response. Meanwhile, foreign correspondents take great risks and desperately want to believe that their reports make a difference. It's human nature. Martin Bell's brilliant work in Bosnia did strike a chord with the general public, but such gems are unlikely to speed a change in policy unless diplomacy is already moving in that direction: NATO air strikes against the Serbs and finally US troops on the ground. In Bosnia British forces had generally forged an impressive rapport with the experienced UK hacks. There was little media manipulation by senior officers who adopted a culture of openness because of the expected transparency of UN humanitarian operations. The hated pool system of the Gulf was largely irrelevant in the freewheeling bedlam of Bosnia. Besides, the long-serving members of the foreign press corps felt a sense of 'ownership.' They had got the troops in, they believed, so they wanted to help make it work. And most British officers responded benevolently to this unaccustomed sense of harmony. Partly, they made a virtue out of necessity: it would have been impossible to corral hacks, as the Americans did in the Gulf. Despite the myths, then, 'CNN doesn't rule, OK.' In the US the military are, in my view, still far too influenced by the legacy of Vietnam. In terms of reporting conflicts where they are involved the control freak tendency predominates. Britain under Tony Blair appears to slavishly follow US foreign policy: bimbo eruption, Bill bombs, so does Tony. In fact it is much more complex. Both countries have different martial traditions, despite their long history of joint military endeavour. And military-media relations differ markedly too. Freedom of information is enshrined in the US constitution, whereas Britain's public culture is much more secretive. But it's slowly improving. Partly because of the army's experience in Northern Ireland, fighting for 30 years within a democracy, it is much more attuned to the media. A new generation of bright officers, especially those who have also served in Bosnia, understand the need to work with the media, not against them. There is a general awareness in the army, and RAF (although less so in the traditionally 'silent service,' the Royal Navy) that taxpayers should know what their defence budget is being spent on. Frequently, the military will revert to the bad old ways and overplay their genuine concerns about operational security and use it as a form of censorship. Most hacks are sensitive to this; usually they can be affected too, especially if they're aboard a ship. They might sink as well. The military also exaggerate their role in protecting journalists as an excuse to say no. There is a simple answer: hacks must make their own risk assessments, so long as they do not expect the cavalry to bale them out. In the end some friction is inevitable. For the military, war may involve as much secrecy as possible; journalists should be committed to as much disclosure as possible but without risking a single life (except their own). Overall, I detect a general improvement in British media-military relations. Many hacks are still regarded as a 'buggeration factor,' to use the correct military terminology, and sometimes there are attempts to exclude or mislead them as tools of disinformation. But often, especially in peace support operations such as Bosnia, each side knows they need each other, not least to share information. In the future, though, it may be very different in what is called high intensity wars, as in the Gulf. Journalists sometimes have better communication equipment than the military; and their chain of command is certainly much faster. The military cannot control them, as in the Falklands or the deserts of a harsh authoritarian state such as Saudi Arabia. Officers have no choice but to cooperate. Perhaps the tables have been turned. In democracies the military probably need the media more than vice versa. And yet a friendly military commander can also give a journalist the edge. The BBC's Nick Gowing has talked about the 'tyranny of real time;' the media have to be fast and preferably factual to survive commercial competition as well as the bullets and mortars. An example of this new thinking is the simple summary of media 'dos and don'ts' which is given out to UK soldiers serving in Bosnia. One is: 'Be polite, be helpful.' I have hinted as similar 'dos and don'ts' for potential war correspondents in this audience: Don't take sides. That is not always easy, especially after witnessing a massacre or two. On the more mundane level, consider carefully the connotations of tabloid-speak: 'Our boys in Bosnia,' for example. Avoid advocacy journalism. Absolute objectivity is impossible but you should still strive for that ideal. Journalists are very prone to subjectivity precisely because they believe they are immune to it. - Be independent. Don't get sucked into uncritically accepting the received wisdom, whether of the military minders, or your own editors. I have talked about reporting conflicts in the developing world and in Western societies. In the democracies, media have far more influence on domestic news, but I have argued that the television news is less persuasive than either journalists or generals believe when it comes to foreign policy. In wartime media and democratic militaries are bound to bang each other's heads; that is healthy for a citizen's right to know. In those far-away countries which many readers and viewers know little about and care even less, the one or two per cent of journalists who become foreign or war correspondents will continue to believe they can topple dictators or uncover unjust wars in the name of Pulitzers, professionalism or personal advancement. I repeat: television has not replaced diplomacy. TV does not drive foreign policy, although it might have an impact - sometimes. TV journalists are far less important than their big salaries and sometimes bigger egos might suggest. If war correspondents think they can change the world, the historical evidence is against them. Nonetheless, they often risk their lives. And I salute them for that. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scholars, students of the media and journbalists are welcome to quote from this lecture. We only ask - in the best tradition of reporting - that attribution be givenm to the CJS Vauxhall Lectures. |
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