Witnessing whose truth?

David Loyn’s impassioned defence of the brave struggle by reporters ‘to be witnesses to the truth’ is very timely. His call for a ‘back to basics’ journalism that relies on good old concepts such as ‘fairness, objectivity and balance’ would be particularly welcome if it stood any chance of delivering news that went beyond official sources, easy explanations and apparently self-evident facts.

I would be ecstatic if uncommitted journalists (as distinct to the ‘committed’ nature of peace journalists) were able to reverse the situation in Britain where a clear majority of the population oppose military action against Iraq while an even clearer majority of newspapers are in favour of it.

I would be delighted if the ‘passionate’ yet non-prescriptive approach advocated by Loyn led to journalists dropping all their ‘baggage’ when they report from yet another briefing in the White House or Downing Street and treating this information with the scepticism worthy of truly impartial practitioners of the truth trade.

Somehow, I doubt this will be the case. Not because I think that traditional reporters lack a desire to inform readers about important events. Not because journalists necessarily share an ideological framework that prevents them from reporting accurately or honestly. Not because all journalists are the same – give me Robert Fisk and Maggie O’Kane any day over the ‘war journalists’ from the conservative Fox News channel in the US.

I just do not believe that an individual commitment to record and explain important events can compensate for the range of structural factors – concerning corporate ownership, competition, access and influence – that impinge on the honourable objectives of journalists to ‘tell the truth’, especially when it comes to reporting conflict.

Structuring the truth: ‘Nam

The idea that journalists are impartial and independent monitors of military conduct is cherished by many media professionals and liberal commentators. It assumes that correspondents are able and willing to shrug off both ideological and organisational restrictions to keep a watchful eye on the activities of military combatants. It also implies that journalists are prepared to confront the arguments of powerful voices in government and the military who are responsible for both strategic and tactical decisions in a time of war.

The most celebrated example of this ‘adversarial’ conception of the journalist’s role is US coverage of the Vietnam War where the uncensored and brutal portrayal of American casualties undermined public support and effectively ‘lost the war’. Broadcast coverage of (US) corpses and critical comments about US involvement were argued to have transformed public opinion. Television pictures of Vietnam, according to President Nixon, “showed the terrible human suffering and sacrifice of war…the result was a serious demoralisation of the home front, raising the question whether America would ever again be able to fight an enemy abroad with unity and strength of purpose at home.”

This account of the media’s ‘fourth estate’ role has been subjected to extensive critique, most urgently in coverage of conflict. Celebrated studies of war reporters, notably Phillip Knightley’s The First Casualty, emphasise the public relations value of most reportage that legitimates government perspectives and narratives.

Knightley describes how British correspondents covering the first world war blurred the distinction between military and civilian personnel by wearing army uniforms and consenting to being accompanied by official army ‘guides’. Far from adopting a critical or oppositional point of view, this model suggests that correspondents are more likely to publicise and reinforce official sources on which reporters choose to depend.

This approach has been applied to even the most hallowed example of media independence: Vietnam. In his detailed account of media coverage of the war, The “Uncensored War”: The Media and Vietnam, Daniel Hallin challenges the myth that a proactive and critical media corps deliberately sabotaged US military involvement.

In the early days of the war, the US temporarily halted its bombing of North Vietnam in a move designed more to win domestic and international favour than to secure peace. Hallin concludes that reporters abandoned any notion of ‘objective journalism’ in disseminating the administration’s view of events; the “television journalist presented himself, in this case, not as a disinterested observer, but as a patriot, a partisan of what he frequently referred to as ‘our’ peace offensive.”

Even by the end of the war when US society was split over the question of Vietnam, Hallin argues; “for the most part television was a follower rather than a leader: it was not until the collapse of consensus was well under way that television’s coverage began to turn around; and when it did turn, it only turned so far.”

The media-military embrace

There are a significant number of examples that appear to bear out the argument that, for all the occasional tensions, the relationship between media and military remains a close one that undermines reporters’ ability to speak independently.

In March 2000, Alexander Cockburn reported that a handful of military personnel, based in the psychological operations unit at Fort Bragg, were working as ‘regular employees’ for CNN and that, according to a US Army spokesman, “would have worked on stories during the (1999) Kosovo war. They helped in the production of news”. In the run-up to the planned invasion of Iraq in late 2002 and early 2003, hundreds of US reporters participated in Pentagon-organised programmes that taught journalists basic battlefield survival, military policy and weapons-handling skills.

One of the most controversial examples of the convergence between military and media networks was the revelation in November 2002 that Roger Ailes, chairman of Fox News, had sent a note to President Bush shortly after 9/11 advising him to take ‘the harshest measures possible’ in retaliation for the attacks.

Objectivity privileges the official view

I would like to believe David Loyn’s view of the possibilities of ‘good’ journalism but, judging from experience, mainstream news coverage is far more likely to privilege and publicise official versions of conflict than it is to challenge them.

The conception of a partisan media in western liberal democracies has been impressively articulated by Robert McChesney and Noam Chomsky. They argue that an increasingly market-led media largely ignores dissenting voices in favour of corporate and government tunes. This has led to a situation today where mainstream media accepts and reproduces dominant definitions of, for example, ‘terrorism’ (what others do to us) and ‘self-defence’ (what we do to others) in order to mobilise popular consent for military action against ‘rogue states’.

Populations, according to McChesney , have been “effectively depoliticised with daily infusions of ‘nonsense news’ by a media hell-bent on securing maximum profits. Chomsky accuses the media of indoctrinating the public with “what amounts to a form of self-imposed totalitarianism, with the bewildered herd marginalised, directed elsewhere, terrified, screaming patriotic slogans, fearing for their lives and admiring with awe the leader who saved them from destruction.”

Whilst this is especially true of the US networks, it is nevertheless important not to exaggerate the ideological grip that the corporate media exert over citizens. In the two countries with the most avid pro-war administrations, public opinion has proved to be reluctant to endorse the bombing of Iraq. While British opposition to war is particularly high, in the US, despite an overwhelmingly sympathetic media, only a small majority,52%, are prepared to support George Bush’s war drive with 43% against. Media ‘propaganda’ alone is not enough to head off growing opposition to a conflict that millions of people are unwilling to support.

This is because at a time when consensus starts to break down, sections of the media are forced to respond to major public debates. However, the critical stories that do emerge from mainstream media are not the result of an intrinsic pluralism or a deep-rooted commitment to ‘objective journalism’ but reflect shifts in consciousness amongst wider layers of the population. For example, the (very welcome) decision by the British tabloid, the Daily Mirror, to campaign against a US/UK attack on Iraq reflects its desire to articulate the views of the anti-war constituency as well as to compete with The Sun. It is about politics and product differentiation.

So my hope for informed reporting lies not with the heroism of individual journalists but with the effects of the mobilisation of millions of people – as we saw on the 600 protests worldwide that took place on 15 February – who are prepared to doubt the stories they are being told by governments through established media channels. Their actions are far more likely to create a space and a need for passionate, critical and contextualised reporting than a naïve belief in the power and professionalism of the traditional reporter.