| \n\t How much can we believe in the news campaign?<\/b>\n\t\n\t\t Jay Rayner tells how the war of words opens another
War on Terrorism: Observer special
War in Afghanistan: Observer special<\/p> \n\t \n\t\tObserver<\/b><\/p> \n\t Sunday October 14, 2001<\/b><\/p> <\/p> \n\tTayseer Allouni knew exactly\r\nwhat to do when the first bombs started dropping on the Afghan capital last\r\nSunday night. As Kabul correspondent for al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic\r\nnews station and the only television network with a presence in the city,\r\nhe would have to be the eyes of the world. <\/p> \r\nHe turned the bureau's news camera on the night sky to record the tracer\r\nfire now arcing impotently towards the incoming missiles. The pictures were\r\nuploaded, via al-Jazeera's 24-hour satellite link, to the channel's headquarters\r\nin Qatar, 1,200 miles away. From there they were picked up by broadcasters\r\nacross the world.<\/p> \r\nIn London, the BBC's news producers saw the pictures and immediately called\r\nthe three correspondents they had managed to station in northern Afghanistan\r\nwith the opposition Northern Alliance on their satellite phones. The BBC's\r\njournalists on the ground knew nothing of the attacks. They had no way of\r\nknowing - Kabul is miles away across a country with no modern communications\r\nnetwork.<\/p> The correspondents,\r\nincluding John Simpson, had to be told by London that the attack had started\r\nso that, a few minutes later, they could repeat the news back to the viewers\r\nin Britain. 'It was all window-dressing,' one BBC producer said last week.\r\n'The reporters in Afghanistan didn't have a clue what was going on.'<\/p> \r\nRichard Sambrook, head of news for the BBC, put it more delicately. 'Of course,\r\nwe told our correspondents what we knew in London,' he said, 'But you don't\r\njust look to someone like John Simpson for a report on what happened where\r\nthey are 10 minutes ago. You want analysis.' <\/p> \r\nIf ever there was a symbol of the challenges the media are facing in covering\r\nthe conflict, it is the distance the echo from those falling bombs had to\r\ntravel before it could be reported. There is a vast hunger for information\r\nand the mass media with which to deliver it. <\/p> \r\nAnd yet this is a war without a frontline upon which to station reporters.\r\nUnlike the Gulf War, when Peter Arnett of CNN was stationed in Baghdad, and\r\nthe Kosovo crisis, when Simpson was in Belgrade, the Western media have no\r\nindependent sources inside the battle zone. <\/p> \r\n'This will be a particularly difficult war for us to cover,' says the BBC's\r\ndefence correspondent Andrew Gilligan, now in Pakistan. 'Most of the action\r\nwill be invisible and there are no independent reporters able to challenge\r\nthe official version of events.' <\/p> \r\nAs things stand, incidents such as the bombing of a refugee column during\r\nthe Kosovo crisis - first denied by Nato, and only admitted to when journalists\r\narrived at the scene - will this time round remain unchallenged. <\/p> \r\nThere is, simply, an aching information vacuum at the centre of this war\r\non terrorism, which sources on both sides of the conflict - both governments\r\nand terrorists - are trying to fill. The result is an increasingly difficult\r\nrelationship between the US and British governments on one side and Western\r\njournalists, who are not used to being brought to heel, on the other. This\r\nweekend's announcement that the Blair Government is to follow President Bush's\r\nlead by calling on UK broadcasters to think carefully before allowing video-taped\r\nmessages from Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda network on to the air, is\r\nproof of how tense that relationship has become. In this conflict the mass\r\nmedia has become as much of a weapon as the Tomahawk missiles launched from\r\nthe Arabian sea last weekend, only one that's less easily targeted. <\/p> <\/p> \r\nThe first of those contentious videos aired on Sunday night, as the bombs\r\nwere dropping. One of Osama bin Laden's couriers emerged in Kabul to deliver\r\na video-taped message for the world from his leader to the al-Jazeera bureau.\r\nIt was broadcast live to Qatar. <\/p> \r\n'From a journalistic point of view, the mere fact that the tape included\r\nbin Laden's face for the first time since 11 September made it important,'\r\nsays Yosri Fouda, deputy executive director of al-Jazeera's London bureau.\r\n'And he expressed joy at what had happened, which was also important.' <\/p> \r\nThe next day, Tony Blair, dismayed at bin Laden's assertion that the West\r\nwas mounting a war on Islam, appeared on the same channel to rebut the allegation.\r\n <\/p> By the end of\r\nthe week, however, following al-Jazeera's decision to screen another al-Qaeda\r\nmessage, this time promising more terrorist attacks, the news channel was\r\nno longer a route to hostile Arabic public opinion for the Western alliance.\r\nNow it was interpreted as a part of the hostile public opinion. <\/p> \r\nAccording to Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser to President Bush,\r\nthe tapes could contain coded messages to terrorist cells, spurring them\r\ninto action. In a telephone conference call last Wednesday morning with the\r\npresidents of the big five US networks, she called on them to stop broadcasting\r\nthe messages. <\/p> \r\nAfterwards, the US broadcasters, carefully walking the line between being\r\nseen to serve both journalistic freedom and the US national interest, said\r\nthey had taken on board what had been said. 'After hearing Dr Rice we're\r\nnot going to step on any of the landmines she was talking about,' said Walter\r\nIsaacson of CNN. <\/p> \r\nRichard Sambrook of the BBC, speaking before this weekend's announcement\r\nfrom Downing Street, says no such pressure had yet been brought to bear.\r\nNor would the BBC be swift to oblige if it were. 'This idea that the tapes\r\nmay contain hidden messages is very hard to prove or disprove,' Sambrook\r\nsays. 'I think it's up to governments to show this is a serious issue rather\r\nthan merely raise the possibility.' <\/p> \r\nCertainly, it seems unlikely there were hidden messages within that second\r\ntape. Unlike the bin Laden tape, the second was heavily edited before being\r\nshown and there was no way its creators could have known which parts would\r\nbe cut. 'They really go on and on in rhetoric,' says Yosri Fouda of al-Jazeera.\r\n'We left just enough of it for them to make their point.' <\/p> \r\nHowever, the BBC has been the focus of other complaints from the Government.\r\nLast Wednesday morning, the BBC's Kate Adie inadvertently revealed Tony Blair's\r\ntravel plans during his diplomatic mission to the Middle East, which Downing\r\nStreet had asked the media to keep secret. <\/p> \r\nThe next morning Sambrook went on BBC Radio 4's Today programme to discuss\r\nthe row and again revealed something of the Prime Minister's movements. 'It\r\nwould have been better for everybody had I not named the cities,' he said\r\nafterwards. 'I should just have referred to the Middle East. But I didn't\r\nactually give the itinerary and in any case the information was already available\r\non the international wire services.' <\/p> \r\nSambrook's point, that the modern media are not linear, with information\r\ngoing in one end and coming out the other, but far more complex and less\r\ncontrollable, is a factor with which Western governments are still trying\r\nto wrestle. <\/p> \r\nLast week, President Bush expressed outrage that a CIA report indicating\r\nit was '100 per cent certain' there would be further terrorist attacks in\r\nthe US, had found its way to the press. 'Officials are really dismayed about\r\nhow much information is getting out here both on the terrorist investigation\r\nand the military preparations,' says Kevin Whitelaw, a reporter covering\r\nsecurity matters in Washington DC for the American magazine US News and World\r\nReport.<\/p> Bush said\r\nthe information supplied to Congress, whose members he believed to be the\r\nsource of the leaks, would be limited. He was swiftly forced into a U-turn\r\nby Senators and Representatives from both sides of the political divide.\r\nThe irony is that the US media have already proved willing to comply with\r\nmilitary orders when it matters. Seventeen news organisations knew three\r\ndays before that the bombing of Afghanistan was to start on Sunday, and said\r\nnothing.<\/p> In London,\r\nattempts to control the media have been equally clumsy. 'Initially, the Ministry\r\nof Defence told us they would like us to clear our stories with them,' says\r\nwar correspondent Robert Fox, now with the Evening Standard, who has covered\r\nconflicts from the Falklands war to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan\r\nand the wars in Bosnia. 'We told them that was not the game at all. They\r\nalso discouraged us from going to other sources. Someone like me, who has\r\nmany contacts within the military, is simply a complete pain to them.' The\r\nMinistry of Defence denies trying to control coverage. <\/p> \r\nThe real problem for Western politicians trying to hold together a fragile\r\ninternational coalition is that the media have great power to magnify.\r\nFootage of Palestinians on the West Bank celebrating the 11 September attacks\r\nwas hugely damaging to a Palestinian Authority desperate not to enrage the\r\nUS, even though the crowd numbered no more than 15 to 20. <\/p> \r\nThose numbers were irrelevant. The images still went about the world. (It\r\nled to claims that the footage was a fake, recycled from the Allied invasion\r\nof Kuwait; the claim has been investigated by the BBC and firmly rebutted.)\r\nBy last Friday, the authorities in the Gaza Strip were banning reporters\r\nfrom the area, and arresting newspaper editors, to prevent them covering\r\na rally by Islamic militants. <\/p> \r\nBut it is not only the tiny Palestinian Authority that is falling foul of\r\nthe media's reach. James Rubin, former Assistant Secretary of State in the\r\nState Department during the Clinton administration who regularly briefed\r\nthe press during the Kosovo crisis, says the same is happening to the Bush\r\nadministration. And this has contributed to hostile Arab public opinion.\r\n <\/p> 'Perhaps because\r\nthey're new to the job, some of the officials are not realising their every\r\nword is going around the world due to the global nature of television,' Rubin\r\nsays. 'The secret to a good briefing is to have both a domestic and a foreign\r\nelement. But because the original attack was on New York and the USA there's\r\nnow a very America-centric flavour to the briefings.' <\/p> \r\nThe White House press spokesman, Ari Fleischer, formerly Bush's campaign\r\nspokesman, has come under particular attack. In one infamous briefing, shortly\r\nafter 11 September, he warned Americans to 'watch what they say' and was\r\nimmediately accused of trying to smother dissent, especially in the media.\r\nThe language was a mistake - Fleischer later admitted as much - but he had\r\npointed up the clear conflict between a country trying to wage war and the\r\nmodern media trying to report it. The age of deference has gone. <\/p> \r\nAnd yet, as Tony Blair said last Thursday, there is still a propaganda war\r\nto be won; one that may be even more important than the shooting war. 'One\r\nthing becoming increasingly clear to me is the need to upgrade our media\r\nand public opinion operations in the Arab and Muslim world,' Blair told reporters\r\non his plane from Oman. 'There is a need for us to communicate effectively.'\r\n <\/p> The truth is,\r\nhowever, that neither he nor President Bush controls the media. As each complicated\r\nday of this conflict passes, that is becoming ever clearer.
Related article: <\/b> A decade of flak for war reporting\n<\/p><\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\n\t\n \t\t| <\/td>\n \t\t | <\/td> \n \t\t | <\/p><\/td>\n\t<\/tr>\n\t\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n \n\t\n\t\n \t\t| <\/td>\n \t\t | \nGuardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001\n<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n\n","contact":"","link":"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"\r\nOctober 14 2001\r\n\r\nTayseer Allouni knew exactly what to do when the first bombs started dropping on the Afghan capital last Sunday night. As Kabul correspondent for al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic news station and the only television network with a presence in the city,...","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/10\/jayrayner.html","filesize":"16.1 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/10\/12506.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]} | | |